Faceless in the time of selfies

WHILE their peers take selfies to share on Facebook, teenagers Manjali, Nazia and Jaya keep their faces and identities well hidden – from the tormentors they have been rescued from. So yes, their names have been changed for this piece.

Besides being trafficked, the common thread running through each of the three girls’ stories is fear – a stifling, entrapping emotion at an age when most others in their generation are footloose and fancy-free.

Jaya’s life, for instance, took a dramatic turn last year when, like any normal school-going adolescent, she fell in love with a local boy Manjunath, 21. At the time orphaned Jaya was living in a Bangalore shanty with her loving grandmother and going to an English medium school.

But instead of the fairy tale romance this bright young girl had imagined, she was duped, held captive for 10 days and raped before she escaped.

Unable to face questions from her family and neighbours, Jaya now resides in a home provided by an NGO and has returned to her studies.

Though arrested and jailed for three months, Manjunath is out on bail while his victim not only contends with shattered dreams but is also anxious he might find her and attack her again. Jaya said: “I want to see the day he is put in jail for life for destroying mine. No girl should ever face what I have.”

That’s easier said than done, and Nazia should know. Unlike Jaya, she had never had a taste of “normal” life – growing up in a brothel with a couple she thought were her parents. Tortured and forced into the sex trade from the age of 12, by the time she was 14, Nazia had had two abortions and given birth to a son.

A police raid on the house near Kishanganj, Bihar earlier this year rescued Nazia, still only 15, and entrusted her care to an NGO. Sadly, she lost her son who her “mother” escaped with before the cops got there.

Now the teenager wants to snatch back some of her childhood and make up for lost time – she dreams of going to a private school to get a “good education”.

Trying to overcome her fear, Nazia says: “I will work hard and become a police officer so that I can stop bad people from trafficking young girls like me.”

Manjali’s is another story of a lost childhood – one stamped out by extreme poverty and deprivation. From a remote forest village in the Indo-Bhutan border, this daughter of a daily wage earner has been fending for herself for as long as she can remember, as her family could not afford her upkeep. She has never been to school since there were none in her village and her parents could not afford to send her to the boarding school in Kokhrajhar, the nearest town.

At 12, Manjali ran away with friends in a similar situation to Bangalore where she worked as a domestic help for two years before returning to her native place. It was here that a “lady agent” lured her across the border to Thimpu, Bhutan’s capital city, to work as a maid for an “employer” who locked her up and sexually abused her.

It took five years for the police and border immigration officials to find her after a tip off from a local NGO. Rescued in September 2016, Manjali, now 19, is back with her parents and enrolled in a tailoring training course. She says: “I dream to open my own shop. I want to sell Mekhela Chador (traditional sari). This way I can also employ other girls who have faced similar torture and pain.”

Manjali is one among an average of 9,500 minors rescued from traffickers every year in India, a small percentage of the 40,000 abducted.

According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index Report, at 14million – India has the highest number of enslaved people in the world – and every third enslaved Indian is a child.

It is exactly these statistics that iPartner India, along with their 13 partner NGOs in 11 states want to address and counter. To raise awareness and inspire public action, they are all participating in a Walk for Freedom during a 16-day worldwide campaign against gender-based violence from November 25 to December 10, Human Rights Day.

As Sumitra Mishra, iPartner India’s country director, says: “Child trafficking is the tragic reality of modern India. Unless people are aware and outraged about the horrors children are facing daily, and actively take part to end this crime, we will continue to lose the innocence of hundreds of children in the dark alleys of India.”

If you want to help in the rehabilitation of Manjali, Nazia and Jaya you can donate to iPartner India’s Fundraiser.