GUWAHATI: Three girls from Assam, who were trafficked to Siliguri fled from their captors and returned to Assam on Wednesday.
The girls were trafficked to Siliguri on various pretexts and were forced into sex work at a brothel there. The three victims were travelling without a ticket in train from Siliguri to Assam and were caught by the TTE (travelling ticket examiner). Out of the three, two girls are aged 18 while one is 20-years-old.
They were then handed over to the Railway Protection Force (RPF) who contacted Guwahati-based GOLD (Global Organisation for Life Development) NGO. The victims are currently being provided with trauma counselling at the shelter home of the NGO.
One of the girls was kidnapped from Assam and was sold for Rs 1 lakh to the brothel owner in Siliguri.
Talking to G Plus, one of the victims said, “I was taken to Siliguri by a boy four years ago who lured me on the pretext of marriage. Later he took me to the brothel and forced me into prostitution.”
The victims informed that that the owner of the brothel brutally thrashed them if they refused any client.
“The owners did not pay us a single rupee during the entire time we spent there. We used to hide some money given by clients for our use,” another victim told G Plus.
The NGO will now file a case with CID in connection with the case. Assistant general secretary of GOLD Kaveri Sharma said that Guwahati has become both the source as well as a destination centre for human trafficking. “Girls from Guwahati are trafficked to places like Mumbai, Delhi, Goa, Bengaluru, Chennai, Bangladesh and Myanmar.”
She added that around 40-50 girls are trafficked everyday from Assam on an average.