SHAKTI VAHINI NEWS
With winning smiles on their faces, they waved their hands and said good bye. Pooja (name has been changed) and Fatima (name has been changed), who were rescued from a brothel of G.B Road, left Delhi with a hope to return back to their normal life. Both the girls now want to study further to become independent in their life.
On 25th April, Pooja and Fatima were rescued by Kamla Market police and Shakti Vahini team, with six more girls from a brothel of G.B Road. Pooja was found in a room while Fatima along with other six girls was rescued from a cabinet shaped tunnel. This tunnel was so small for any individual to stand or sit properly with no ventilation. Their screams and cry went unheard and may be were not loud enough to go through the hearts of people living there.
Fatima was lured by a boy on the pretext of marrying her and Fatima with dreams of marriage came to Delhi with the boy. She never thought that her dreams of marriage will shatter and she will not even get a chance to understand what has happened. The boy sold her to brothel. She was broken inside but like a bird, her courage to break the cage and fly out made her stronger. She was just waiting for one chance to fly away. In the first rescue when Police team and Shakti Vahini team could not find her, her hope to come out of cage diminished. Collecting her again, she called her family once again from a customer’s phone and in the second raid, she was rescued.
Pooja has a similar story to share. She was also lured by a boy on the pretext of marriage. Her parents were happy that they have found a perfect match for their daughter. But instead of getting married, she was sold to brothel in G.B Road where she was forced to attend 6-7 customers a day. It was due to her courage that she was rescued and she was also able to trace the tunnel where Fatima was kept hidden.
After rescue, Pooja was sent to Nari Niketan, with other six girls, where as Fatima was sent to courage and healing home as she was a minor. When these girls met their fathers, who came to get their custody from Magistrate and CWC respectively, they could not hold back their cry and tears fall down. On 3rd May, 2014 both the girls left for their home in Bengal with their fathers. The smiles on their faces were priceless and expressing their happiness.
The happiness on the faces of fathers shows a sense of satisfaction and fearlessness. A father who has spent days searching for his loving daughter and every night he must have felt helpless. A daughter whom he must have brought up with dreams for her in his eyes was living a life of misery away from him. Now when the fathers kept their hands on the shoulders of their daughters, a sense of security and strength flew in the hearts of these girls. After a month when they ate their Bengali food in Bango Bhawan, they felt like at their state. This was a feeling which says that they are now safe and are back to their own world where they are loved and cared.
This journey from hell to home was surely not an easy journey for these two young girls who were sold to brothels on the name of marriage and love which they may not forget ever in their life. The one month that these two girls have spent in this city was not less than a nightmare for them. They lived a life of horror and pain. Pooja said that she want a strict punishment for all the culprits who forced her to live such a painful life. Pooja and Fatima were not seen as human but were reduced to a commodity.
Delhii, a city where people from various places comes to give reality to their dreams, didn’t bring any fortune or happiness in the lives of Pooja and Fatima. The horrific reality which these two girls have faced in the capital haunts many other innocent girls living in Delhi. Today while leaving Delhi, Pooja and Fatima were also leaving behind the bad memories they had to go through in the capital.
We at Shakti Vahini hope and pray for their better future and good life ahead. We also hope that someday return to Delhi after becoming something in their life. We also believe that this rescue and restoration is just like a very small a drop in the ocean of Human Trafficking where everyday thousands of innocent girls are forced to survive in the hell.
And yes the Shakti Vahini team will ensure that the traffickers and the flesh traders are convicted and punished.