From bad marriage to forced prostitution
Ismat Ara was married off only at 13 to her 18-year-old cousin in Bogra in late 2012. Within the next few months, their marriage ended up in a dispute. A ninth-grader at the time, she wanted a divorce but her parents refused.
“Our relationship got so bitter that I left my husband, and even my parents, and fled to a friend's place in Dhaka,” said Ismat [not her real name].
The teenager, who comes from a small farmer's family in the northern district, however, did not have freedom; rather she stepped into a dangerous trap.
It was some time in early 2013. Ismat went out in search of a job and suddenly found a crowd in a mazar (shrine) at Mirpur. As she indifferently looked around, a woman came over and inquired about her.
“She offered me a job in a beauty parlour. I was happy,” Ismat said. On the same day the woman travelled with her to Jessore and handed her over to another woman.
After passing a night in Jessore, she crossed into India through Benapole. “At that time, I didn't understand anything. When I asked, I was just told I would get a good job,” the girl said.
Ismat was sharing her experiences at a discussion organised by development partners and NGOs marking World Day against Trafficking in Persons at the capital's Jatiya Press Club yesterday.
She was taken to a Mumbai brothel via Kolkata after three days' train journey.
“On the sixth floor of the building, there were many girls. Of some 300, almost 200 were from Bangladesh,” she said, adding she learned of the horrible experiences of how the girls were trafficked and forced into prostitution and a life of confinement.
From then on, she was looking for a chance to escape. “On the second evening, amid lax security, I came down and broke a window and fled,” she said.
She then sought police help. Mumbai police took her to a shelter and filed a case against her as an “illegal migrant”. Learning of her story in a few days, Rescue Foundation, a charity, provided legal support and got her freed as a trafficking survivor.
While keeping her in its shelter home, Rescue Foundation contacted Rights Jessore, an NGO in Jessore, for sending Ismat Ara home. After completing the procedure over two years, Ismat was brought back in Bangladesh a few days before Eid-ul-Fitr.
Sarwar Hossain, training officer of Rights Jessore, said Ismat was mentally imbalanced.
She was given a week of psycho-social counselling before being handed over to her parents, he said.
Ismat Ara is one of the lucky people rescued; there are thousands who were forced into prostitution across the border, Sarwar told The Daily Star.
According to the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) 2015 report released on July 27, Bangladesh is primarily a source, and, to a lesser extent, a transit and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labour and sex trafficking.
The organisers are the USAID, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UN refugee agency UNHCR, Winrock International, Plan International, Rights Jessore, Changemaker, Dhaka Ahsania Mission, Bongo, Brac, Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights, Onirban, WARBE Development Foundation, and Shishuk.
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