Cops Call It Forced Surrogacy

The first story. We바카라�ll call her Soni, as many of them are ­indeed called바카라�an adivasi name that contains resonances. She is at an undisclosed location in Bihar at present, in hiding, fearing for her life, recuperating from the injuries to her soul. She breaks down often over the phone as she narrates her story. Of how she came to Delhi as a minor and, in sta­ges, passed through a dark mirror바카라�to enter an unreal world of slavery that awaited on the other side, a tiny house, where unknown men set in motion a whole cycle of sowing and harvesting on her body. And that of other girls like her.

As the story starts, life looked cheerless but sufficiently normal. Soni was 15 in 2010 when she, along with four friends, moved out from her village in Jharkhand, joining the tide of humankind flowing out from that immiserated state. Volitio­nal, but only to a degree. For there was an agent, as always, and then a sale and transfer of ownership to an agency, and then the drudgery of housework in a typical Delhi home. She lost track of her friends. Six months on, a man came to see Soni, and said he was from the 바카라�off­ice바카라�. He said nothing else바카라�just saw her and left. Days later, another agent came, took her along to a new house. The people at the first house were nice, relatively. They slipped her Rs 10,000, which she concealed in her salwar.

The new house was tiny and sur­rounded by narrow lanes. Soni was made to sign papers she couldn바카라�t read, something written in English. Then a strange rout­ine started바카라�regular check-ups at a hospital, blood tests and, most importantly, strange injections. She didn바카라�t understand why she needed them. There were other girls at the house, all sec­luded. The curtains were alw­ays firmly drawn. There were guards, agents, staff members and a caretaker, a woman from Jharkhand she called 바카라�didi바카라�. The rhythms of life seemed regular바카라�sleeping, waking, cleaning, eating. 바카라�I would want fish and they would get me fish. Nobody refused me any­thing. They were nice to me, I didn바카라�t know why,바카라� she says.

One day a girl whispered to Soni in the bathroom that a baby was growing inside her. She had never heard the English word 바카라�baby바카라�, so she didn바카라�t catch on. 바카라�I just didn바카라�t have the brains to know what was happening. I was 15 or 16,바카라� she says. After three months of regular hospital visits바카라�always in a curtained vehicle바카라�Soni was taken for an ultrasound. 바카라�Back home, I pestered the caretaker, 바카라�Kya hai didi, dikhaiye na, dikhaiye na바카라�. And she showed me. There was a photo of a very small child바카라�ekdum chhota sa bachcha tha.바카라�

It was like a pane of glass getting shattered inside her. The news would have come as a profound shock to any woman, but it was natural for a girl her age and level of emotional maturity to be thrown totally off-kilter. The coldness of the system rel­ies on their naivete바카라�underage girls are especially vulnerable to this exploitation because, by the time they realise they are pregnant, it바카라�s often too late for abortion. Soni managed to stay on her feet, though. The caretaker told her to win the confidence of those running the house. She found enough steel inside her to play along, hoping to run away one day. She stayed in the house for another three months바카라�in all, around six. They took her for walks at a local park or to buy vegetables. 바카라�Other girls would run away to try and abort the child but they were caught, brought back and beaten. I used to get scared but kept quiet, as if I was fine,바카라� she says. Slowly she won their trust and one night she slipped out at 3 am. Where she went, how she went, is a blur. She asked a taxi driver, 바카라�Bhaiya humko station chhod dijiye바카라�please take me to the station바카라�. Using some of the Rs 10,000, she finally escaped the city with that grey moral smog hanging over it, and reached Ranchi.

Back in her village, still pregnant, Soni wandered alone in the forest, trying repeatedly to kill herself. By hanging, by pouring kerosene바카라�but always survived. 바카라�I knew there was a child inside me but didn바카라�t know how to tell anybody, how to exp­lain how it happened,바카라� she says. Girls in her situation, Soni realised later, often end their lives바카라�as a friend of hers did recently. In her own case, a male friend finally arr­anged a doctor. An abortion ens­ued, at almost four months.

The village was where it started. Soni recalls, through tears, leaving her mother crying at the bus stand, asking her not to leave for Delhi. 바카라�I didn바카라�t listen바카라�meri zidd thi바카라�I was set upon going. The agent was from my village so I believed him,바카라� she says. Her father had filed an FIR when he found her gone, but there was no police investigation. Now she registered a case, and promptly started getting threats to her life. 바카라�The agents tore up my FIR and threw it away,바카라� she says. She did not mention the pregnancy in the FIR. 바카라�My FIR was only about agents selling girls for Rs 40,000-50,000 but the police didn바카라�t probe even this. Nobody supported me,바카라� she says.

From a sense of sheer isolation, a sense of community began growing in her. The pattern started sinking in. Soni met another girl from Jharkhand who told her of having given birth six times, until her body gave way. 바카라�She got Rs 50,000 per child. It is such a sad thing. I believe her. Nobody can live with a lie this big. I cry so much. Why did this happen to me? Why does it happen to unmarried girls? I didn바카라�t love anybody, had no friend. Why does god do this to us바카라�how have we ever harmed anybody?바카라� Depleted of her inner resources of vitality, it was a slow recovery바카라�and a vague apprehension about the future kept Soni silent in public. 바카라�Tell the police? What will they do? They will only ridicule me and I바카라�ll never be able to marry. My parents will be defamed, that바카라�s all. What choice do I have? What can anybody do for me?바카라�

The  second story has overlaps with the first바카라�the same points on the physical and social map바카라�but this time it바카라�s an eye-witness. Her account helps us map out the territory from the outside, as it were. Rashmi is only about 20 but solemn-faced, as if the weight of years has worn her down slightly. She was all of 13 when the system smoked her out of her village home up on the Simdega plateau in southern Jharkhand, bordering Orissa. One day in September 2014, Rashmi escaped from seven years of domestic slavery. The placement agent who had lured her to that city back in 2008, put her on a train back to Ranchi. Rashmi travelled another 100 km by bus, crossing jungle and river to reach familial territory. A house in the town of Gumla. Her own people at last.

It was the house of her sister and brother-in-law. Soon after, the two of them accompanied Ras­hmi to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) office in Gumla. Yes, it was a child바카라�s story바카라�a tale about the lost years of childhood바카라�that she had to relate. The CWC is the only government body authorised to hear and record such testimonies. But its officers were away that day. 바카라�Our team was attending a UNICEF function in Ranchi that day so we didn바카라�t meet Soni,바카라� says Targen Panna, CWC바카라�s Gumla chairperson at the time. Nice touch that바카라�UNICEF. Anyway, outside the CWC campus, Ras­hmi bumped into news reporters and activists. One of them brought her to Shashi Kant, an anti-trafficking activist who heads an organisation of his Chik Baraik tribe and is a journalist for a district paper. In the nondescript, white-walled courtyard of his house, Rashmi recorded, on videotape, what she had witnessed in Delhi.

바카라�Bachcha bechne waala kaam,바카라� she called it. Baby-selling. A racket that바카라�s evolved in the shadow-zones of modern life to cater to demand. Or rather, many demands. For, baby-selling is only the last link in the chain. Baby production is a necessary interim stage. The laws of the market dictate that supply will rise up to meet demand. And that latter is a primordial word that can encompass many meanings. To reveal the full variety of exploitative practices, throw in a form of slavery. The video conversation with Rashmi, roughly five minutes long, is one of the rare testimonies of what was always suspected happens in Jharkhand but has not been acknowledged so starkly바카라�adiv­asi girls are trafficked, then raped, compelled to conceive, and finally their children sold in the flourishing adoption black market. A whole assembly-line of organised cruelty.

The price of a child secured through forced conception ranges between Rs 1-4 lakh, say activists. Besides the desperation of those seeking a child, the fluctuation is on account of the money the agents invest in adivasi women and the risk and problems encountered to have them conceive바카라�the cold chain logistics, essentially. The commodification of the human body is abject, merciless and complete. In this economy, the adivasi woman and her womb are turned into ­money-making devices.

When reports about Rashmi were splashed in the papers, it was initially assumed she was a victim too. One news report talked of a 바카라�rescued girl who had had six babies바카라�. Another said she had been asked, and she refused. Indeed, some tell-tale signs fit the pattern, but Rashmi herself denies it. Anyway, all the buzz spurred the CWC into action바카라�but even then, not much of it. 바카라�We didn바카라�t visit her village but we kept ask-ing her to come to us. Rashmi never responded,바카라� says Panna. 바카라�Tell me바카라�you are a victim, you have a problem, shouldn바카라�t you at least tell us about it? She is also over 18, so what could we do? Yes, even if such a crime occurred, she should have come to us.바카라�

In a tangential way, the episode cuts to the nub of why this phenomenon is hard to track down, let alone establish. The traumatised women often don바카라�t want to talk바카라�and for a variety of understandable reasons. Victims feel vulnerable in surroundings alien to them바카라�and revisiting rape in front of strangers can be akin to a second violation. Two, they may simply not want the fact of rape or pregnancy disclosed. The stigma is overpowering, and thoughts can turn to mere survival. A testimony such as Rashmi바카라�s, therefore, is valuable in the extreme, and likely rev­eals just the tip of the iceberg.

But in contrast to the lackadaisical CWC, Shakti Vahini, an NGO, sent a fact-finding team to meet Rashmi at her home. 바카라�We heard of a rescued girl going to her village and telling people she was forced to have a child in Delhi so we went to meet her,바카라� says Rishikant, who runs Shakti Vahini. He and Baidnath, a Ranchi-based activist who was also in the fact-finding team, pieced together Rashmi바카라�s story and the NGO later publicised the facts in a report. The essential elements go thus:

An agent named Chayin Singh delivered Rashmi to Delhi. Not to any ordinary placement agency but to the Moti Nagar office of Manpower Bureau, run by Naina Kumari, allegedly one of Jharkhand바카라�s three most notorious traffickers. Whenever she visited that office, one  thing struck her as odd: the number of babies and pregnant women. On one such visit, she met four girls, two of them pregnant, who explained things to her. As Rashmi recounted even in her video, 바카라�Girls who get pregnant, their children are kept in the agency office and sold after they are around one year old.바카라�

From here on, the trail goes hazy. As Rishikant admits, 바카라�We could not verify her claims.바카라� The NGO recommended an official investigation, which never took place. Trouble is, the complaint Rashmi later filed with the pol­ice (FIR No 08/15) in Basia, near Gumla, also does not mention the allegation she made before the media, act­ivists and the fact-finding team. 바카라�Rashmi바카라�s case is only about rec­overing dues under labour laws and accuses Chayin Singh and Naina Kumari with trafficking and keeping bonded labour,바카라� says an officer who investigated the case. Naina, of course, denies involvement and claims a witch-hunt. 바카라�Some journalists and the CWC coerced three girls to give statements against me, but they backed out before the SP,바카라� she says.

How does one square these blurred circles? 바카라�The police should have investigated the allegations when she first made them. We keep hearing of such cases but the victims are poor tribal girls. They recant under pressure from agents,바카라� says Shashi Kant. It seems too coincidental that Rashmi바카라�s actual testimonial reached everybody바카라�s ears except the CWC and the police. At any rate, there바카라�s a pattern in the testimonials바카라�an initial burst of candour, then reticence, even retractions.

Similar graph was marked out when, three months after Rashmi, another woman, Vinati Bhuiya, app­roached the Basia police바카라�s AHTU (Anti Human Trafficking Unit) and also complained before the CWC. Her daughters, aged 15 and 17, had gone to Delhi in October 2013 with an agent and her older daughter, Mamta, was forcibly impregnated, she said. 바카라�The mother told us this in a written complaint, filed before me,바카라� says Alakh Narayan Singh, then a CWC member. 바카라�She wanted her daughters returned but her allegations were not confirmed,바카라� says Panna.

Strangely enough, the CWC soon received a letter signed by the two girls saying they were well and the rumours about pregnancy were untrue. 바카라�Two barely educated girls could not have written such a long, articulate letter. We dem­anded they be produced before us and then the girls returned,바카라� says Panna. Alakh Narayan says the agency wields inordinate power over the girls바카라�바카라�they were simply afraid to speak바카라�.

The FIR (No. 38/15, May 6, 2015) once again omitted the most ser­ious charges. Instead, Vin­ati only charged the agent, Anita Devi바카라�also related to Manpower Bureau바카라�of 바카라�spreading a rumour in the village that her daughter is pregnant.바카라� Anita, her husband and son were chargesheeted, the police say, on December 27, 2015, for keeping bonded labour and trafficking바카라�charges softer than rape and impregnation of minors. The case is still on trial.

After the FIR, Vinati바카라�s daughters returned to Basia (through an agent), visited the police station and were taken to the SP바카라�s office in Gumla. 바카라�I myself took the girl (Mamta) to the SP바카라�s office. After the mother바카라�s allegations of pregnancy appeared in the news, the DG, IG, everybody took notice. But the girl denied being forced to have children,바카라� says a police officer.

The flurry of attention did not escape Naina Kumari either. It was three months after Rashmi바카라�s FIR that Vinati바카라�s daughters were sent back home from Delhi바카라�another sign that she too could have been a victim. 바카라�Naina became afraid after the FIR,바카라� says Alakh Narayan. In September 2016, she came down to the CWC office in Gumla straight from a court appearance. 바카라�She ­created a ruckus. She accused us of harassing girls, of pressurising them to make statements against her,바카라� recounts Alakh Narayan. 바카라�Naina is very dabang바카라�bold. She바카라�s young and looks innocent but don바카라�t be fooled; she can kick up a storm, trick anybody.바카라�

It was clear that the FIR had had its effect바카라�but the crucial gap in incrimination remained. Without a high-level inquiry into placement agencies, the sheer enormity of the phenomenon escaped notice. Meanwhile, the driblets of information kept coming. Other girls have returned pregnant to Jharkhand. Some had their children taken away at birth. All stories have the same depressing arc.

It was in 2010 that Ritu, all of 15 then, left Latehar바카라�s Mah­uwatand village with agent Savita. Deposited at 바카라�Kapil Dev Chaudhary바카라� Placement Agency in Punjabi Bagh, Delhi, she worked without pay for almost three years. She then app­roached Baba Bamdev Ram, a self-styled godman from Jharkhand, for help with recovering wages. He took Rs 1,500 from Ritu and promised help, which never came. Ritu didn바카라�t know, as she says in her police complaint, that Bamdev co-owned the agency that owed her money. In fact, Bamdev was the flamboyant overlord of Jharkhand바카라�s placement industry those days. He actively participated in a Christmas-eve jamboree held every year in Delhi to which adivasi domestic helps were invited. Food and drink, peppered with speeches by him and Jharkhand바카라�s other placement magnates such as Pannalal Mahto, were the usual menu.

In an FIR she filed in 2013 in Ranchi, Ritu accused one Lallan Pandit, who she described as an agent of 바카라�Kapil Dev Chaudhary바카라�, of rape and illegal confinement바카라�also alluding to the money Bamdev took. After legal proceedings started, she returned to Mahuwatand, pregnant. Her brother refused to let her in. A Ranchi NGO called Diya Sewa Sansthan int­ervened, securing her a job serving tea at the SP바카라�s office in Latehar and helping her pursue the case.

Ritu바카라�s child was born that year바카라�바카라�but vanished right after birth,바카라� says Sita Swansi, who runs Diya. 바카라�By then, the rape accused was out on bail too. A case, then, where the victim made bold to approach the law, but met the same fate. Her baby was sold off and she withdrew the rape case too.바카라�

Baidnath, who was at the time with Diya and had assisted Ritu, says: 바카라�This happens every time. If the pregnant woman ­returns, agents use financial or muscle power to take her baby. If she stays back in the city, the agency keeps the child anyway. The girls have no choice but to compromise.바카라� The NGO got custody over Ritu but Sita rues her inability to track down most victims. 바카라�We have simply no way to do it. The girls keep moving in search of work. Their families are never in one place.바카라�

Stray successes punctuate the gloom. On April 27 this year, Bamdev got 10 years from a Delhi court, which found him guilty of raping minors and other serious crimes. ­바카라�Ritu바카라�s was one of the cases that contributed to the groundswell of charges against him,바카라� says Swansi. But where there바카라�s an ­established market, the individual players are dispensable; others take their place. In all stories, there are common threads: of women reporting love-trap, conspiracy, betra­yal, confinement, rape, pregnancy, escape, abandonment and, ultimately, the loss of a child. This is so prevalent that Jharkhand police have a phrase for it바카라�바카라�forced surrogacy바카라�. Yet, only a few victims바카라�perhaps two or three바카라�have ever registered cases that mention specifics. And these mostly pass unnoticed.

The broad economic asymmetry under which all this happens is well known. 바카라�Girls are trafficked from Jharkhand largely to feed the dem­and for domestic workers in big cities,바카라� says Sampat Meena, who heads Jharkhand바카라�s AHTU. Adults are of course free to work where they please but that바카라�s no guarantee against sexual exploitation. 바카라�We do get such cases,바카라� concedes Meena. 바카라�Most of them are against agents who initially promise girls high-paid jobs but later take adv­antage of them.바카라� And then that disclaimer. 바카라�We have not got cases of agents forcing women to conceive children for sale.바카라� A similar tamped-down version is what Hazaribagh DIG Bhimsen Tuti has to offer. He was SP, Gumla, when the Rashmi case came to light. 바카라�I questioned the girl in person, hers was just a hearsay version바카라�she was not a victim. It could not be substantiated. We didn바카라�t have any other clue or hint to follow so the matter was dropped.바카라�

But a different kind of corroboration comes from Sister Mamta, a missionary from Jashpur in Chhattisgarh, not far from Gumla. 바카라�Girls do get pregnant and come back to the village. She keeps the child with her바카라�what else will she do? Sometimes she gives the child away, or it goes to an orphanage. Villagers create problems바카라�they rarely accept the child because she has brought it from outside.바카라�

Yet, one such case surfaced recently in Delhi. With details that can curdle the blood. Two women esc­aped from a Delhi placement agency just this March. Something called Arti Enterprises, in the urban desolation of northwest Delhi. The agency owners, a Simdega couple named Arti Ekka and Baburaj, accidenta­lly left a door ajar, and the two slipped out바카라�a woman from Bengal and a Jharkhandi named Ajeeta, from a village near Kurdeg in Simdega. They sought out a social worker who called the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW), and the group went to file an FIR at Nihal Vihar.

News reports said Arti and Baburaj had illegally confined Ajeeta, the Bengali woman and four others who had been raped and made pregnant. Ajeeta told the police 바카라�the agency had offered her money to become a 바카라�surrogate바카라� mother. She has filed a case of rape,바카라� says Nihal Vihar SHO Sarath Chandra. But, but, but. 바카라�We went and interviewed the other girls. They all said they바카라�re perfectly happy. They are all adults. How could we check if they are pregnant, on what ground?바카라�

Just before dawn on March 23, the police got cracking and arrested Arti Ekka for illegal confinement. But she got bail the same day. Rape accused Mahali, Baburaj and agent Virender Sahu (who Ajeeta said had brought her to Delhi) absconded. Then again, the usual equivocation. 바카라�We differ with the DCW on this. There was no raid, no rescue. None of the women were minors. None had complaints. It wasn바카라�t a raid but a routine inv­estigation,바카라� says Pankaj Kumar Singh, a DCP rank officer in Outer Delhi who monitored events that night.

Two different kinds of voices subvert that. One comes from Swati Maliwal, DCW chairperson. 바카라�If the police and DCW go without warning, on the basis of a complaint, and arrest someone at the crack of dawn, is that not a raid?바카라� she asks. 바카라�Whatever it is, the charge of forcible impregnation needs thorough investigation. The police should not assume it is a case of forcible pregnancy바카라�but they should also not assume it is not.바카라�

The other comes, strangely, from DCP (Outer) M.N. ­Tiwari, with a chilling piece of information. 바카라�During investigations, Ajeeta revealed that the agent Mahali kept track of her monthly period. That he would tell her, 바카라�I will make you a child-bearing machine.바카라� But so far, we only know this as a case of rape. We are concerned with the charge of rape, in which we have an accused. Now she (Ajeeta) should be more clear to us, so that we can catch the person.바카라� Yes, a rape, in which the rapist is keeping track of the victim바카라�s periods.

Official reluctance creates grey zones where they may be none. True, 바카라�surrogacy바카라� is not mentioned in Ajeeta바카라�s FIR. ­Police officials declined a copy of the FIR citing 바카라�sensitivity바카라�. Outlook nevertheless secured a copy of it. It says: 바카라�The placement agency owner Baburaj told me I have only one job in Delhi, which is to have a child. Then Baburaj asked agent Baratu Mahali to rape me. Mahali did rape me, on 6 and 7 March 2017 and now I fear I am pregnant.바카라�

Ajeeta came to Delhi seeking work but never got placed. Arti, who has since disbanded her agency, spoke to Outlook on the phone from her village in Simdega. Her words are dry, and seek to put a cap on her crisis, but they confirm the deep cynicism. 바카라�Who would want a 30-35-year-old like Ajeeta, who has three children of her own, to bear children, that too forcibly,바카라� she asks. She says all the girls who were living with her in Delhi have left. 바카라�I have left Delhi too.바카라�

Ajeeta has been lodged at the Nari Niketan in Delhi바카라�s ­Tihar complex since March 23. There바카라�s a ring of ­virtual barbed wire around her. No channel opens up access to her. Her sister Vineeta tried twice to meet her, in vain. 바카라�I don바카라�t know much about what happened. My sister injured her hand in a fire long back. She only has two fingers in one hand,바카라� says Vineeta, seeking to make light of everything. But the ­implications stare at you in the face. 바카라�At last we have an actual FIR in a matter concerning trafficking girls from Jharkhand for children. I think if the police investigate it properly, this case can open a Pandora바카라�s Box,바카라� says Rishikant.

But with the police still coy about joining the dots, it바카라�s a tough, lonely battle바카라�especially for the victims. There바카라�s no activist, no media, at the moment of their desolation. Rape is regularly used as a weapon to threaten and subdue tribal women and their families, and that naturally dampens feelings for justice. Even when, in the uncrowded landscape of a village, things are not hard to pin down.

On August 1, 2016, 12-year-old Rani disappeared from village Pantha. 바카라�Shobha and Mamta sold my daughter in Delhi,바카라� says Sanju Lohra, Rani바카라�s father. The two he names are residents of a nearby village. Shobha would propose the idea of taking young Rani to Delhi often. Lohra always refused. But he lived and worked in Ranchi, and meanwhile the girl grew close to Shobha. 바카라�I wanted to go to the police right after Rani left but Shobha threatened me that she will have Rani raped and never be able to return,바카라� he says. Last month Lohra picked up courage and registered an FIR. The Pantha police kept Shobha in custody for 24 hours, then let her go. 바카라�Shobha accepted at the thana that she will bring my daughter back. So she knows where Rani is. But the police let her go and now I don바카라�t know who to turn to,바카라� says Lohra. 바카라�They haven바카라�t let me speak to Rani since August.바카라�

Jharkhand has two varieties of placement agents, 바카라�local바카라� and 바카라�national바카라�. The 바카라�national바카라� type바카라�Baba Bamdev, Pannalal Mahto or Naina Kumari바카라�emerges after a long climb up from 바카라�local바카라� or intra-state placement. But the les­ser agents wreak no less damage. Arti Kachap would know. A native of Itki, near Ranchi, she was married to a brick kiln worker who left town. Four years ago, she moved to Ranchi with Raju Munda. Munda and his father, Arti says, first put her to work in a Varanasi construction site. Thereafter, they returned to Ranchi where both raped her and confined her to a dark room when she was pregnant바카라�twice over roughly four years.

One of the children born this way went to a Punjabi businessman. 바카라�They sold my son Ashu for Rs 40,000,바카라� she says. When Arti resisted the next child바카라�s sale, the father-son duo beat her, leaving her invalid waist down. In what must count as the most cuttingly direct allegories, she started begging at the court premises, dragging herself on a sackcloth and pleading to lawyers for help. A lawyer, Chandni Srivastava, helped rec­over the sold child with police assistance and set Arti up as a vegetable-seller. Before the police, Mahto claimed he is Arti바카라�s husband,   which she denies. Ashu went into an adoption agency for over a year and, on March 28 this year, Chandni took him in. 바카라�I meet my son on weekends. I can바카라�t care for him as I바카라�m invalid바카라�Munda lives nearby, he바카라�d snatch him again,바카라� she says.

바카라�Their methods are getting worse,바카라� says Baidnath about the baby mafia. He helped rescue a child recently, one sold off by his own destitute mother on a Rs 20 stamp paper. 바카라�I remember rescuing the baby, the only such case we got at the time,바카라� says Jaya Roy, former SP, Ranchi. But the activist is livid at how far back the law is. 바카라�The police and government are in fact proving ineffective. They fail to see the connection between adoption, slavery and placement,바카라� he says.

The grinding wheels of this economy are too huge; they deh­umanise everyone, and there바카라�s no easy separation of victim and aggressor. This April, Baidnath came across the case of Pratima, a 25-year-old widow, trafficked to ­Rajasthan from Ranchi by her own younger sister, Renu. The family found out that Pratima went to a man in Neem Ka ­Thana in Rajasthan바카라�s Sikar district, and Rs 60,000 was paid to her sister. 바카라�Renu works in Jaipur. We didn바카라�t know what she does. She visited us in March and took Pratima away saying it was for a few days바카라� holiday,바카라� says Pratima바카라�s sister-in-law Bharti, who has registered a case with the AHTU.

The family collected donations from neighbours to go looking for Pratima, a widow with three children, after they ­received a desperate call for help from her. 바카라�We are in Rajasthan to look for Pratima. We paid for a Bolero taxi and the ­Rajasthan police sent a policeman with us. They located her. We were shocked to find Pratima dressed in Rajasthani clothes. The moment we reached we were surrounded by a group of men. Our police escort said Pratima cannot return with us because these men are too powerful,바카라� says Nirmala, Bharti바카라�s mother. 바카라�As we left, terrified, Pratima begged us to save her or she would die.바카라�

On the other side, Shravan a.k.a. ­Sonaram Gujjar says he has actually married Pratima. 바카라�It is the girl바카라�s family that took money from me, to meet wedding expenses. Pratima is perfec­tly happy here,바카라� he says. He refused to put Pratima on the phone. 바카라�I바카라�m not at home for ten days so you can try ­later.바카라� He says he is away for work, cooking sweets at weddings ­before he returns home to his fields. 바카라�That part of Rajasthan is infamous for trafficking,바카라� says Baidnath. 바카라�The woman will be kept and her children sooner or later abandoned or sold.바카라�

Rashmi called back after several days of trying different numbers. She works in Delhi now, and stands by what she said in the video. 바카라�I didn바카라�t just see it once. Many times the agents were bringing in pregnant women. I saw one girl come to the agency and leave her child behind. I saw girls coming there to have the child.바카라� Eventually she fell silent, as did Soni about her experience. 바카라�Even years later, I haven바카라�t told anybody. This is the first time I am speaking out,바카라� Soni says. She now wants to set up an office in Jharkhand to help fight trafficking. She has already helped a few바카라�but always in secret, for she herself lives in fear. 바카라�People ask me what happened in Delhi, why I get so angry바카라�I tell them nothing. My anger goes out of control when I think my life has been ruined.바카라�

Soni sits alone in her room and cries. Even for unknown girls she sheds tears, wondering about what they will go through. 바카라�I don바카라�t want to talk about it,바카라� she says. When you keep something from your family, from everybody, you can only try to run forever, for what you are running from is inside you.

(All names changed to protect identities.)

By Pragya Singh in New Delhi & Ranchi