Author: Agencies
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: March 13, 2008
URL: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Children-being-trafficked-in-thousands-from-Bengal/283977/
Lured with the promise of good jobs or marriage,
thousands of children, especially girls, were being trafficked from seven
districts of West Bengal, an NGO has claimed.
Most of the children were trafficked to Mumbai,
Delhi, Bangalore, Jaipur, Jalandhar besides other northern cities in Haryana,
UP and Bihar, the NGO Save the Children said quoting data from the National
Crime Records Bureau.
It was found that these children were routinely
subjected to many different forms of abuse from unsafe working conditions
and lack of food to being beaten, deliberately burnt or sexually abused.
Releasing its study 'Missing Children in West
Bengal' done over a period of four years, it said that in Patharpratima in
South 24 PArganas, 71 children were reported missing since 2005 of whom 28
were rescued.
Similarly, in Sandeshkhali in the same district
302 children went missing between 2004 and 2006 of whom 30 were traced.
"Sandeshkhali and Patharpratima are only
symbolic of a growing tide of missing children in West Bengal," it said.
"It is these trafficked children who
have been reported missing," the NGO said.
The districts from which they were trafficked
were South and North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, East and West Midnapore, Nadia
and Jalpaiguri.
