Imagine waking up one morning and your parents telling you that you have been sold-off!Imagine been forced into sex work by older men and not being able to do anything at all, becoming a product to customers who come at their will and force you to do sex work all day. Shefali (name changed for discretion) a teenage girl was forced into sex work as a child, when asked about the amount of customers she was subjected to in a day she replied sobbingly, “I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.” She was abducted and duped and forcefully taken from her village. Several such minor girls are abducted, raped, sold-off by their own parents as minors to brothels in Sonagachi a well known red-light district in Kolkata. They are abducted at such a young age that some even failed to remember their parents faces as they were taken away from them when they were just toddlers.
This situation arises when the thought process of people is not developed enough to recognize how and why a girl child is stigmatized in our country, instead of the prevalent practice of infanticide and foeticide parents are now deeming it fit sell their girl child, she is seen just as an extra mouth that will have to be fed and will eventually grow up and drain the economic resources of the family in the form of dowry. Sometimes these toddlers were handed over to families in the city to give them time to grow-up but don’t heave a sigh to relief just yet, these girls were given enough time to grow till they were 5 years old when they were pushed to do work as domestic labour washing dishes, doing laundry and cleaning houses .On top of that they were tortured as well.
The lockdown proved catastrophic for many daily wage workers leaving them jobless and without a penny in their pocket. But as the economic distress set-in many were forced into sex work. In the 6 months of lockdown 1098, the national helpline set up by the Ministry of Women and Child Development received 27 lakh distress calls. On July 6, the Union Home Ministry issued an appeal to states in a note describing the unspeakable tragedy “Children and youth are more likely to be persuaded or tricked by criminals who take advantage of their emotional instability and missing support system. Once trafficked, the victims fall prey to many forms of unfair treatment such as forced prostitution, forced labour, forced begging, forced marriages, etc,” it said. The Supreme Court had asked the central and state government to gear up for possible increase in child
prostitution when the lockdown was lifted. A bench led by Cheif Justice of India S.A. Bobde suggested “only policing will do.”
While there are several laws in place against child prostitution to deal with child abuse cases, the Government had brought in a special law i.e. ‘The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012’. The Act came into force on 14th November, 2012 along with the rules framed there under. The Act defines a child as any person below the age of 18 years and provides protection to all the
children from the offences of sexual assault, sexual harassment and pornography.
An offence is treated as ‘aggravated’ when committed by a person in a position of trust or authority of child such as a member of security forces, public officer, public servant etc. The Act provides for the establishment of Special Courts for trial of offences under the Act, keeping the best interest of the child as of paramount importance at every stage of the judicial process. The Act incorporates child friendly procedures for reporting, recording of evidence, investigation and trial of offences.The government also released an app called “Khoya-Paya” to track children who went missing.
While these initiatives are appreciable their is still a long way to go and their is a requirement of strict and stringent execution of such laws to free such children from the clutches of agents who sell these children into forced sexual labour.
