In the suburbs of Dhaka, the Bangladesh Women's Lawyers Association runs the Proshanti centre.
It's a place of security and confinement for fifty-six children.The girls here are victims
of a ruthless trade between Bangladesh and its neighbouring countries.Many here, some
of them as young as seven, have been forced into prostitution.
They are the innocent victims of a gruesome trade in human lives yet their families and
most of their society considers them disgraced. Sold into prostitution, there's no way back
to their childhood or their innocence.
"He asked my father, 'will you give your daughter to me? She will go to Delhi with me, do some work in the house, get some food.'
My father gave me away for $10. Rashid took me to Delhi
and kept me in his house and every night did bad things to me. He would put his hand on
my mouth and there were five policemen and three other men and these eight men, they
did bad things to me every night."
Farida was nine years-old when she was sold into prostitution. She was eventually taken
to hospital and it took her a year to recover. Then she was kept in New Delhi's central jail
under what the authorities describe as 'protective custody'.
Farida's now on her way home to ask her father why he sold her.
"I feel angry at my father. When we were small he didn't let us study, didn't teach us anything,
sold me to another country for $10. I feel angry at him. I don't feel good, I feel very
bad inside."
Farida has grown up in a country where many see young girls as a burden. The dowry due
when a girl is to be married is an expense many poor families in Bangladesh feel they
can ill afford.
It's not just Farida who wants to know why and how she was sold into prostitution. With
her on the journey today is one of the investigators from the Women Lawyer's Association.
It's a tense moment as she arrives back in her village.
There is little warmth between Farida and her father - he is clearly uncomfortable to
see his daughter and the investigator. The investigator discovers that since Farida was
sold her father has taken two new wives and had seven more children.
"Do you love her like a daughter?""Did she say anything about me?""You know that she
hasn't received the love and affection of a daughter in your family."
Farida's father claims that Rashid, the trafficker was taking her to a job in a garments factory
in a nearby town and anyway, Farida was a difficult child.
"She was slightly unbalanced like - would not stay at home - would roam the village.
Sometimes she wouldn't come home for more than a week, living with her grandparents
or her sister. I could not keep her at home. Often I tried to tie her to a post and force
her to stay in telling her that 'you won't be able to go anywhere.' "
Farida has one ally in her family, her sister Nasima. She says her father did know that
Farida had gone to India and since starting his new family, has had little time and no
affection for Farida. "We had two step mothers. They were not nice
to us. After not seeing Farida for four or five days I asked them where she was. Father
answered that it was not my problem where she is - Farida has gone for a holiday. After
four or five days I heard that Farida had gone to Delhi. I asked 'why did Farida go
to Delhi?' and he said 'it is because I can't feed her. What can I do?' It's good that she's
in Delhi and earning her own money."
Farida will not stay in the village. She fears that if she does her father will sell her
again and this time there will be no escape. "You say you haven't brought any money? You
gave your sister some money - so you haven't brought any money?"
"What happened to me should not happen to any other girl ever, even by mistake. No parent
should ever send their young girls with any other men in this way. Something like this
should never happen to any other girl."
And there are plenty more stories like Farida's. The Bangladeshi National Women's Lawyers Association
estimates that over five years at least 12,000 children have been sold into the Indian sex
industry. The 12 or so girls they rescue and repatriate each year represents a tiny fraction
of those currently being abused.
"Polygamy has led to unplanned families, children of these families are being abandoned, women
likewise are being victims of polygamy. Abandoned by their husbands, they are being forced to
fend for themselves. The traffickers are exploiting this situation."
The trade in children has become so widespread that in some of these border areas it makes
a significant contribution to the local economy. Never before filmed, an illegal crossing point
on the border between Bangladesh and India.
Kolyan Banarjee is a local journalist with a mission to expose the trade in human cargo.
He has been threatened and even once briefly kidnapped by the traffickers. He has some
powerful enemies including members of Bangladesh's border protection forces, the BDR.
"Under the present economic circumstances it is not possible to stop trafficking totally.
This is my personal opinion. But it can be brought down. The first step has to be taken
by the BDR and the police because they are directly involved in the trafficking."
We asked the BDR for an interview, they refused and shortly afterwards we were expelled from
the area.
Instead we put the allegations of police and BDR involvement in child trafficking to Bangladesh's
Minister for Law. There may be some allegations
against a very microscopic number of the members of police and BDR. And this is a government
very, very serious - we are monitoring and making supervision about this. So until and
unless we get overall economic development and we can impart proper education to our
people, it will be difficult to solve this problem altogether in a day, it will take
time."
Calcutta, India, one hour's drive from the Bangladeshi border.Most of the young girls
trafficked from Bangladesh end up here. Conventional filming of young prostitutes proved difficult
so we used a secret camera and went undercover.
This is Sonargati, one of the largest red light districts in all Asia.
30,000 prostitutes work on these streets. An estimated 6000 have been trafficked across the border
from Bangladesh.Fear of AIDS drives this increasing demand for young Bangladeshis. Because they're
from a Muslim country they are perceived as purer than their Indian counterparts.
We asked the pimp if he could take us to a house with young Bangladeshi girls. He told
us to follow.
It is hard to imagine what it must be like for a trafficked child arriving here for the
first time, a child removed from a small village, everyone they ever knew left far behind.
Yet thousands have stayed to become part of this city's lucrative sex industry. They have
little option. In the society they left behind they are viewed as soiled immoral non-persons.
She calls herself 'Beauty' and she left her old name and her childhood behind in Bangladesh
when she was trafficked here five years ago at the age of fourteen.
"Now even if I wanted to go back home I can not. They won't accept me back home. The person
who brought me here will tell them you're daughter is in this place. My parents won't
accept me back. I would have gone if they had accepted me."
Despite their best efforts, the children's agency, UNICEF, has been unable to break down
the prejudices these child victims now endure. "If there is any chance that this girl's honour
has been spoiled then the family just can't take the risk of taking her back because that
is going to affect the honour of the whole family which means if she has any sisters
or female cousins, then they may well not get married. [So it's actually, I mean...]
That too is a serious problem that many families just don't want to take the risk because it's
going to have such huge repercussions on the whole family."
Rescued and repatriated, these girls have nowhere else to go. The Proshanti Centre is
now their sanctuary and for some a prison - there are girls here who would choose to
return to their lives as prostitutes and anonymity, rather than endure the shame and prejudice
of their family and the neighbours back in the villages from where they were taken.
Farida doesn't think much about the future. She now lives at the Proshanti Centre and
says she'll never go home. At least she now has a life of sorts.
For most of the young Bangladeshi girls who have lost their childhood and their innocence,
it turned out to be a one-way journey to hell. Martin Adler, Insight News Television, Bangladesh.