NCW study blasts copsover child prostitution

The NCW not only stood by the study, it had also offered to provide evidence and disclose the names of certain police personnel involved in the racket. “Once the evidence was mentioned, they backed off and that was the end. No action was taken. The police are well aware of the situation in which child prostitution rackets are thriving. They even known from where these girls are coming,” said D. Chakraborty, a member of the study team.

Considered to be a preliminary study, it indicated that the law-keepers are directly responsible for the high-rate of child prostitution in the city. “They extort money from traffickers, prostitutes, kotha malkeens or they are themselves involved in trafficking,” the report states.

The study, conducted under the supervision of Roma Debabrata, a reader in the Delhi University, did put out bland facts in print but the specific data have been omitted.

Debabrata says in the report: “During our field study we found that the child prostitutes are often subjected to police torture if they fail to cough up their routine bribe.”

The study not just condemns the law-enforcing agencies for colluding with the persons running child prostitution rackets, it also accuses the rehabilitation centres run by the government and non-governmental organisations of concealing evidence and not maintaining proper records on the child prostitutes who come for shelter.

An NGO which runs welfare schemes in the Capital’s red-light areas, is quoted in the report saying, “The police are involved from the first stage of procurement of minor girls which they call `registering of the victims’.” According to sources in the NGO, the minor girls are usually bought for Rs 10,000. The division officer (SI, ASI) and the beat officer (Havildar/Constable) are given a bribe of Rs 10,000, to frame trumped-up cases against these minors showing that they were trying to get clients in public places.

Then Rs 20,000 is spent in getting bail, by which time the minor girl’s age is transformed to 21 years in the police challan. Expenses incurred in the process by the brothel owner, remains as a debt on the minor girl. “In this process, the minor girl turn captive into conditions of servitude,” they say.

However, a Crime Against Women Cell official, Yamin Hazarika, called these facts too farfetched. “My first-hand experience has been quite different. When we went to a G.B. Road brothel to help, the girls refused to leave the place. And as far as I know, the officials at the Kamala Nagar Police Station have been sympathetic to girls who are forced into prostitution and come for help,” she said.

Lost Childhood, which also documents the process of cross-border child trafficking, is too much of a bombshell. A leading child rights activist said, “There are things we know, and things never put in print. It is a bold work, but they should have reported individual cases which can be followed up. You can’t expect to change the rot in the system with a single report.”