Trafficking victim bravely escapes brothel in India

A Bangladeshi girl manages to flee from her abusers after 10 months of torture.

Zoya finally escaped when she was sent out with a customer. She called us when she got on a train to Kolkata

KOLKATA, JUNE 2012: Relief flooded one of our colleague’s mind when he got off the phone with Zoya*. We had been trying to find the 22-year-old ever since she had gone missing from her village in Bangladesh 10 months ago. Now Zoya was finally safe.

Zoya was brought to Mumbai by a friend who told her she was taking her sightseeing. But when they reached their destination, she left Zoya in a brothel and disappeared.

From then on, pimps moved Zoya from place to place. She remembers being in Bangalore in the South and then Indore in the North of India. The brothels changed constantly, but the horror remained the same. She was always confined to a room and always tied to a bed and beaten if she refused to have sex with customers.

Zoya’s brother had contacted us through our partner organisation, the Bangladesh Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA) and asked us to find his sister. When she managed to get hold of a phone and call him, Justice and Care asked her to describe her surroundings and tried to trace the calls, but the brothel keepers took away her phone and kept moving her so that all our attempts failed.

Zoya finally escaped when she was sent out with a customer. She called us when she got on a train to Kolkata. Our team met her at the station and accompanied her to the police where she bravely named all those who had abused her in those horrifying months.

She is now in a shelter home and we are working with her to help her build a new life. Meanwhile the team is working hard to ensure that Zoya’s traffickers are brought to justice and that the trafficking nexus between Bangladesh and India is broken.

* Name of the victim has been changed to protect their identity