Sucharita
Sengupta
Sucharita Sengupta works at MCRG. Her
current research focuses on Rohingyas. She can be reached at sucharita@mcrg.ac.in.
A report of
UNHCR talks about the kind of neglect rendered to refugee children or children who
are forcibly displaced and are in need of asylum. Compelled to leave their
homeland, these children are more than often subjected to violence, abuse,
sexual exploitation and worst, trafficking[1].
In the present time when Europe is witnessing its worst phase of massive migration
of people since the world war two, again the vulnerability of children in
particular, struck the whole world when the image of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi, a
drowned Syrian toddler’s body was found ashore in Turkey. Aylan’s brother Galib
also died on the same boat while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos[2].
In Asia, the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 had witnessed such
massive migration of people which continued through the decades of 50s and 60s
and saw a sharp rise post 1971, with the creation of Bangladesh. This piece is
written on the basis of my field work in various correctional homes in West
Bengal between October-December 2014 and talks about children, particularly
young girls, who are either compelled to leave Bangladesh or are illegally trafficked
to West Bengal, India, through the porous borders in promise of job or marriage
or a better life.
There are two
dimensions of problems that are faced by these children. The first is the
problem of illegal trafficking. The second is when they just accompany their
parents, completely unaware of the consequences and find themselves either behind
bars for illegal immigration or in brothels. According to a report[3],
girls from Bangladesh are largely trafficked for sex work and most of them are
aged below 18. For instance, Champa hailing from Faridpur, Bangladeah, was sold
to a brothel in Orissa by traffickers when she was just a child of 12. Since
then she has lived in India. Now she is eighteen and while returning to her
home in Bangladesh, she was caught by the police and taken to jail custody
under the passport act for using a fake passport. I met Champa in the Alipore
Correctional Home for Women. The most popular trafficking route employed by
traffickers is Dhaka-Mumbai-Karachi-Dubai. Way back in 2004, the report says,
around 200-400 women and children were trafficked to India each month totaling
to approximate 10,000-15,000 annually. This number has increased to an alarming
figure now. Securitization of the border through passport and visa was
introduced in 1949 and 1952 respectively. The more the eastern part of the
border has been securitized, the more it has given rise to incidents of
violence and illegality like smuggling and trafficking of women and children
across the border.
