Trafficked mother reunited with kids

Chandrima S. Bhattacharya, TT, May 20: A 24-year-old woman from South 24-Parganas, who had been trafficked by her husband to Mumbai and sold by him to a brothel, was reunited with her children after a year on Friday.

The woman got back her four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter, whom her husband had taken with him to Murshidabad. The husband, who has married again, had allegedly refused to let her meet the children and threatened to kill her if she did after her rescue from the brothel.

But the woman, who had been brought back to her own family in South 24-Parganas after the rescue, was persistent. With the help of the police and the NGO Goranbose Gram Bikash Kendra, Canning, she obtained a court order from Murshidabad on May 16 that granted her the custody of her children.

Murshidabad police rescued the children on the basis of the order and handed them over to her yesterday.

Returning from Murshidabad in a train late last evening, the woman hardly had any words to express herself. "I am feeling very good," she said again and again. "My heart will not feel empty tonight," she added.

She had married her husband five years ago, when he had presented himself as an orphan with no one to care for him. She was 19. Soon her son was born. When she was pregnant with her daughter, her husband took her to Mumbai.

When their daughter was eight months old, he allegedly forced her to work in brothels. He also allegedly sent her to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to dance at parties and festivals.

When she was rescued, her husband fled Mumbai and came back to his family, which he had claimed he did not have, in Murshidabad, and married again. Another battle started.

"The mother was in very poor shape. She was in great need of psychological support. She would hardly speak. If she did, it would be about her children," said Subhasree Raptan from Goranbose Gram Bikash Kendra. "It didn't matter whom she was talking to. She would ask that person for help to get her children back," said Raptan.

Before the court order, despite the threats from her husband and his second wife, the mother had said she would attempt to get her children even at the risk of her life. Raptan said their father had tried to alienate the children from the mother, teaching them to call her "mashi" (aunt).

The husband, the alleged trafficker, is still at large. The police in South 24-Parganas said no complaint had been lodged against him within their jurisdiction.

The woman now wants to open a grocery shop, which the NGO will try to facilitate. It thanked the police for the active role they played in uniting the mother with the children.

"We had alerted the SDO Sadar in Murshidabad," said IG south Bengal Ajey Mukund Ranade.

South 24-Parganas reports the highest number of trafficking cases from Bengal. To combat the crime, the district police have started a programme called Swayangsiddha, which campaigns against trafficking in schools.

The programme is also partnering the rehabilitation process of victims of trafficking.