17-year-old rescued from brothel

Sold and resold four times, a teenager and two young women were rescued from forced prostitution

BANGALORE: On 3rd January, 2012 police and Justice and Care rescued a teenage girl and two women in their early twenties from a brothel in Bangalore. Justice and Care learned of 17-year-old Meera’s* plight when we got a phone call from a partner organisation in Bangladesh. Meera had disappeared from her village in Bangladesh two months earlier and had been calling her mother from an Indian mobile phone number. She had been trafficked across the border, sold and resold at least four times, and forced into prostitution.

Whenever she managed to get her hands on a mobile phone without her handlers noticing, she would call her mother and beg for help.

After she was rescued, Meera told our staff that she had been brought to India by her boyfriend who had convinced her to elope with him. But instead of marrying her as he had promised, he had left her with a pimp and disappeared.

The two other women rescued had also been trafficked. One of them, 20-year-old Nysa* told police and our staff that an agent had promised her a job in a salon that would help her cover medical expenses for her mother who is mentally ill.

Two people have been arrested in connection with this case and booked under stringent sections of local anti-trafficking laws. Our legal team is following up to make sure the guilty are brought to book.

The three girls are now in a shelter home and our Care and Intervention team is supporting them.

*All names have been changed to protect identities