The 12-year-old girl was smuggled from Bangladesh into India by a woman she trusted, who ended up selling her into the sex trade where she was repeatedly abused in Nadiad, Gujarat
A little girl has been saved from an Indian prostitution ring after being raped by more than 200 men in a three-month period.
The girl, who is from Bangladesh, fled to India fearing she would’ve been beaten by her parents after failing a subject at school.
A woman she knew helped to smuggle her across the border, but once in the country, she took her to Nadiad in Gujarat and sold her into the “flesh trade”, according to Indian police.
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While there, she suffered months of sexual abuse until she was freed on July 26 thanks to a joint operation between a local campaign group and the local police’s anti-human trafficking unit.
So far, 10 arrests have been made, but campaigners say removing her from the situation is just the start of her recovery.
“This girl has not even reached her teenage years, but her childhood has been stolen by such monsters in the flesh trade,” said Abraham Mathai, founder-chairman of one of the NGOs involved, the Harmony Foundation.
“Behind every such rescue is a child who wasn’t heard; a child failed first by those meant to protect her, and then by a society that only reacts when it’s too late.”
He also said children can become at risk if they’re the victims of heavy-handed parenting.
Niket Kaushik, the local police commissioner, said officers are working to uncover the network so that they can protect other vulnerable children.
Activists say it’s not enough, and that police need to be doing more to protect children.
Madhu Shankar, an activist, said: “I have often seen minor girls begging in Vashi and Belapur areas, who are often stolen as babies from villages, brought to cities and then exploited.
“They are handled by one or two elderly women who also push them into prostitution. They are even administered hormonal injections so that they attain puberty earlier.”
Child Rights and You conducted a study which showed a massive surge in sexual violence in India, rising 96 per cent between 2016 and 2022.
Almost 40,000 cases of child rape and sexual assault were reported in the year 2022 alone.
In April this year, a teen girl in India was horrifically gang raped by 23 men who allegedly passed her around and took her to new attackers at each drop-off point.
The victim, aged 19, claims she was abducted by a man on her way home from her friend’s house on March 29 in Varanasi, northern India. She reported that she was taken to a cafe in a nearby town, three miles away, where she met her next attacker.
According to local media, the teenager was then taken by another man and his pal to a highway, where they sexually assaulted her. They then dropped her off in another town called Nadesar.