Young girls trafficked for sex in India recount harrowing stories of exploitation: Video
Zarin and Ayesha (names changed for privacy) are just two of the thousands of young women trafficked each year in India, forced into a nightmare of abuse, captivity, and sexual exploitation.
Their stories reveal the disturbing reality of human trafficking in the country, where vulnerable young women are sold and exploited by those they trust, including their own families and guardians.
Zarin, now 20, recounted her ordeal of being sold by her family as a teenager. Believing she was being married, she was instead passed from one family to another, each time told she was “married” to a new man.
“Different men showed me marriage cards and said I was married to them,” she shared with the AFP. After numerous attempts to escape, Zarin eventually fled, only to face accusations of kidnapping from her captors.
"What I am trying to say is, the family I was married into later married me off to other families for 200,000 - 300,000 rupees [$2,377-$3,565]. Then I tried to escape from that place, I tried many times, but they would not let me escape, then I ran away from there finally with my husband's brother's son. They levelled charges of kidnapping against me,” she recounted.
Adding that, "I did not have the rice they [the captors] gave me. I threw away the rice. Once I saw them mixing something, I threw the rice away. I did not eat it. There was a dustbin beside me. I threw it in the dustbin and then pretended to be unconscious. I lay there, pretending to be unconscious, and then I saw three or four men entering the room. That is when I understood that this [sexual exploitation] is what had been happening to me."
The trauma endured by 18-year-old Ayesha was equally devastating. Lured into India under false pretences, she was assaulted, beaten, and exploited. “I was crying and begging him to stop,” she recalled, sharing that she regretted her decision to leave her family and trusted the wrong people.
Despite her suffering, Ayesha is determined to rebuild her life. Now training as a beautician through an NGO, she hopes to move forward and become self-sufficient.
