On July 28, a 16-year-old-girl was rescued from Kolkata’s Sonagachi area by a group of activists and the local police. The minor, who hails from Nepal was produced before the Child Welfare Committee in the city and has been sent to a protection home in Kolkata. This was one of the most challenging rescues, the activists involved said, pointing out that finding a minor in the country’s largest red-light area of Sonagachi was like locating needle in a haystack.
“We had some information and we took the help of the police and conducted raids on the premises. Though there were no arrests, we could rescue her. Hopefully, she will be able to return to her country,” Kakuli Das, an activist with Gorabose Gram Bikash Kendra, an organization working in State’s South 24 Parganas district said. Ms. Das said that in this year alone she has been associated with seven other cases where women and girls from West Bengal were rescued from Maharashtra.
Not only the rescue, but conviction almost forms an important aspect of the fight against trafficking. On July 23, a court at Barasat in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas convicted six accused in connection with the trafficking of a 15-year-old girl from Baguihati police station in 2015. The minor was rescued from Uttarakhand the same year and interstate investigation led to the arrest of six people from Uttarakhand, U.P. and Bihar.
