Bangladeshi women's travails in Mumbai
Defying mounting pressure from the authorities of both countries, a Mumbai-based NGO refuses to send back a 21-year-old flesh trade victim to Bangladesh unless all 125 victims that the NGO is sheltering are sent home.
The victim, Khushi (not her real name), is the daughter of a cook employed at Gono Bhaban, official residence of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. A resident of Pargali Sadarpada in Gopalganj, Khushi has six sisters and three brothers. Incidentally, one of her brothers is a gardener at Gono Bhaban.
Since June, Khushi has been under the supervision of Rescue Foundation, the Mumbai-based newspaper Mid day reported on Monday.
In May, a family friend Musto brought her to India after promising to secure her a maid's job with a handsome salary. Khushi, a divorcee, left her one-year-old son in her mother's care to earn a decent living there.
Musto sold her to a brothel in Surat for Rs 40,000 in May. After nearly a month, the brothel owner sold her to a brothel keeper in Kamathipura for Rs 25,000.
In June, Rescue Foundation, which works for the rehabilitation and repatriation of victims of human trafficking, got to know of Khushi. One of its activists met Khushi in the guise of a customer and later established contact with her mother.
After being informed of the incident, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wrote about the matter to the government of Maharashtra through Interpol. In turn, the state government asked the Mumbai police to rescue Khushi. On June 29, Crime Branch officials raided the brothel, rescued Khushi and handed her over to Rescue Foundation.
But the NGO's Chairperson Triveni Acharya refuses to facilitate her deportation. Now, Khushi is six months into her first pregnancy since the sexual abuse she suffered at the brothel.
Acharya has weathered the pressure from the Bangladesh premier, their home ministry, social welfare department, high commission, and the Maharashtra Women and Child Welfare Development Department. Even a special court in Mazgaon had given an NOC towards handing over Khushi to the Bangladesh government.
But Acharya has put her foot down. Justifying her stance, she told Mid day: "There are more than 125 Bangladeshi girls in our foundation. But nobody has shown any interest in emancipating them. The girls have been languishing here for four to five years.
"I am under a lot of pressure from the higher authorities in Bangladesh and Maharashtra. But I strictly refuse to hand over Khushi. I have immense sympathy for her, but I have it for the other girls too, who say they will end their lives if they do not get to go home."
When Mid day spoke to Khushi and told her that the Rescue Foundation was not ready to send her back, she said, "I want to go back home as early as can be managed, but I have no complaints with didi (Acharya).
I have studied till the fifth grade, but I learned to write my name in English at this foundation," she said, jotting down her name on a piece of paper to prove her point.
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