Hosne Ara (not her real name) has been married for 10 years but not happily. She was facing frequent abuses by her husband for not being able to give birth to a child.
One day Hosne Ara decided to leave home and set out for the capital in search of a better life. Because of her sewing skills, she managed a job at a garments factory in Shyamoli. There she met Sumi, another garments worker, who told Hosne Ara about job opportunities in India.
10,000 Rupees a month and being far away from the torture of her husband, the illegal move to India seemed like a lifetime opportunity. In the pursuit of that dream, Hosne Ara crossed the border with the help of a pimp and soon found herself in the bustling metropolis of Mumbai. She was to be a guest for a fellow Bangladeshi guy named Raju for a few days.
“There were some more girls at the house. I felt relieved that I was not the only one,” Hosne Ara said as she recalled her days in India.
“But I never got the job I was promised. Raju forced us to do prostitution. If we denied, he would torture us and would keep us unfed for days.”
Hosne Ara said they were locked inside the house. Moreover, it was a foreign land for them.
“So what else could we do but to give in? Raju would send us to various hotels and houses by cars guarded by his men. We knew the clients were paying well but we hardly got any portion of it. And this went on for more than two months,” she continued.
Hosne Ara went to India at the end of January 2013. Sometime in April, Raju beat up a girl named Sonali, who was able to escape from the room. Since there was a mandir adjacent to the house, Sonali soon drew a huge crowd. Police arrived upon information, raided the house, rescued the girls and also arrested Raju.
“When we were produced before the court, we told them everything about our ill-fate. We were then handed over to Rescue Foundation. For 19 months I stayed at its shelter home where I was taught various vocational courses.”
Finally on December 15 last year Hosne Ara and 47 others were brought back to Bangladesh, thanks to the effort of Rescue Foundation and Rights Jessore, a local NGO working on human trafficking.
However, the plight of Hosne Ara and her likes does not end here.
“My father is a poor driver. He cannot take care of me. Though my husband earns well, he would not take me back in any circumstance. If a man goes abroad for livelihood, there is no issue. But when a woman does, she is a social outcast. Even my husband is telling others that I stole money and ran away with another man.”
Fearing further backlash, she requested this correspondence not to publish anything that would jeopardize her life.
Many of the 48 women that were brought back from India used to work at various garments factories in the country. But they all fell into the greed trap and ended up doing forced prostitution in India.
A girl from Khulna said many Bangladeshi girls were being trafficked to India everyday. And most of them earn livelihood through sex work or working in bars and hotels.
Another victim from Satkhira said: “Most of the girls trafficked to India are between 12-30 years of age. They all are forced to do sex work. Though some get jobs in beauty parlours, there is always a shady sex business on the side.”
Lina Zaved of the foundation said they had three shelter homes in Boisar, Kandivali and Pune where there are 62, 27 and 37 Bangladeshi girls and women respectively. They are in the process of being repatriated.
Some young girls at the Rescue Foundation could not tell their address in Bangladesh properly. They stayed back in India.
Programme Officer of Rights Jessore Shaoli Sultana said: “We have brought back about 206 victims in 2014. Among them 93 men are from Iraq, 15 men from Thailand, one each from Lebanon and Jordan and 96 women and children are from India.”
Executive Director of the organisation Binoy Krishna Mallick said his organisation had been providing psycho-social counselling, vocational training, legal and financial support to the victims.
However, many victims refuse to avail legal support, he said.
