Betrayed, resold thrice,  24-yr-old trafficked victim fights for survival

Calangute (Goa): Married at the age of 11 years, sold off at 18, raped and brutalised at 19, mother at 20, resold at 21 and again at 22…life for 24-year-old Bimala (name changed) Assamese girl forced into prostitution, has been a saga of trauma and betrayal.

Rescued by Goa police, the victim of trafficking and prostitution revealed how her own loved ones took undue advantage of poverty and betrayed by pushing her into prostitution. “After seven years of abusive marriage, my mother brought me home. I fell in love and came to Delhi with my boyfriend who sold me off to a brothel in Chandigarh. There I was raped and beaten till I lost my senses. So, they sent me back to my boyfriend. But I was not his love anymore, only a commodity. I escaped to another part of Delhi and got job of a cook, but soon discovered that I was pregnant,” Bimala said in a daze. Another round of rape followed after child-birth, before she was resold and forced into prostitution once again.

“Subsequently I got married. But my husband sold my one-year-old son since the baby was not his own. My sole aim that time was to earn money to secure back my child. I started working in a massage parlour and got back my child after paying Rs 40,000. Soon after, I ran away with my child back to Assam,” she said.

“I was sold thrice, abused not just by the buyers, but the middlemen too. I tried to live a normal life working as a tailor and a cook in Delhi. But the employers used to repeatedly molest me. The women in the locality taunted me,” she said.

She never went to school. She doesn’t even know how to write her name. But she now wants a better future for her son. “I want to send my son to a good school. I don’t want him to suffer like me,” Bimala said before she was taken to protection home. 

The co-ordinator of NGO Scan India Harshal Mandrekar, who rescued her from a prostitution racket, informed that these girls are repeatedly exploited by the pimps and brought back into prostitution through various tricks. According to in-charge of Calangute Police Station, Police Inspector Jibva Dalvi said, “Canlangute is a hot-spot for tourists. Hence, we come across prostitution rackets here. But we are taking action to rescue girls trafficked here for prostitution,” Dalvi said.