Guard of honour

In Ranchi,women lured away to work in cities come back to find jobs as security guards....

At the gates of the Jindal Steel and Power plant in Patratu,Jharkhand,20-year-old Shanti manages a brisk salute as an official drives in. I am not scared anymore. I like what I do. I can take on any dacoit single handedly, she says,relishing her little boast.

Shanti is the eldest of seven siblings of a tribal family in Mander,Ranchi district. In 2005,assisted by a middleman,she got her first job,as a help in a Ludhiana home. She says her employer loaded her with work and beat her up. A year later,when she could not take it anymore,she fled. She came back to Ranchi,low on money and hope. Her employer had never paid her any money,and as she learnt later,the middleman had pocketed all her earnings.

Shanti is one of the 322 tribal womenall victims of trafficking rescued by the police from places like Mumbai,Chennai,Ludhiana,Chandigarh and New Delhiwho were rehabilitated and trained by the Jharkhand unit of the Action Against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children and Women (ATSEC) and the Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) to work as security guards.

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Today,girls like Shanti have been employed by around 20 companies like Jindal,Tata Steel and the Jharkhand Bhawan in Delhi. We want to rehabilitate all the 322 victims of trafficking who are with us, says Aradhana Patnaik,Labour Secretary.

As many as 150 women were employed as guards at the Sports Authority of Indias Birsa Stadium and sports complex at Hotwar in Ranchi. Also,25 women have been trained in housekeeping jobs for the hospitality sector and are now with star hotels in Ranchi such as Capitol Hill,Green Horizon and Amrit. We have a lot of help coming from the federation of Jharkhand Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says ATSEC coordinator Sanjay Kumar Mishra.

The ATSECs crime branch,in league with the Jharkhand Education Project,a state government body affiliated to the Centres flagship Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan,had rehabilitated 55 such victims of trafficking. We want more and more people to come forward to rehabilitate them, says Ranchi Deputy Commissioner Kamal Kishore Sone.