An innocent 16 year old girl was recently rescued from a trafficker’s dungeon in Delhi, India. After one and a half years of torture, the girl saw the daylight, all because of her stepmother’s persistent efforts in getting a mother her daughter back...a daughter who was blooming into a beautiful girl...a daughter who is her mother’s soul and whole...a daughter who suddenly went missing, kidnapped by traffickers and pushed into the flesh trade.
Her fault? That she is a girl. That someone who knew the girl closely needed money, and considering her nothing more that an object, ‘sold’ her off for a mere rupees five thousand rupees. Such is the ‘price’ of a girl in my country of warmth and care. Such is the ‘price’ a girl born into a poor family has to pay here. I shudder at this glaring reality. I wonder why God even sends a baby-girl down to a part of Earth where her worth is measured by her body and gender.
It is not the only thing which sends a chill down your spine. There’s a lot more to this story. Now that the girl is rescued, one might be relieved with the thought that she will go back to lay on her mother’s lap now, safe and secure. No. Because she doesn’t want to. She is traumatized. My beloved country is full of men who think that a woman is only meant to give her body up and fulfill their lust, and it is their birth right to see a woman as an object. But my beloved country is also full of men who will spit and abuse and kick and kill the same woman who they ‘bought and sold’, if she happens to come out of their hands in the open. So this young 16 year old knows she will be ostracized if she goes back to her village. She knows she will not be accepted, and may even be murdered because she has brought ‘shame’ to her family. So, the girl’s stepping out of trafficker’s hell doesn’t mean a better life here.
Wait. There is a much more disturbing fact lying hidden beneath all of this. A fact which will leave you shocked and ashamed…speechless and dumbfounded. The girl still wants to continue with the life she has been leading since past one and a half years! Because she knows if she goes back to her village, there is no food to eat, and she will starve. Because her traffickers in Delhi had given her all comforts to live, eat and groom, to make her look appealing to her ‘clients’. Because her parents are too poor to even give her a proper one time food. Because this is my beloved country’s sad state- millions of Indians live below the poverty-line, and given the sad state of politics and Government, it is no point imagining for how many decades or even centuries this might continue.
Such is the plight of my country of traditions and culture, that a girl is willing to sell herself only to satisfy her hunger. But my country doesn’t just have poor people, mind you. There are billionaires here, big industrialists, business-persons, movie stars.They also sometimes give their money away- no, not to feed the mouths of the poor or to save a girl’s life, but to sponsor events, have institutions named after them, own aircrafts and get richer and richer. They sell their names to accumulate wealth beyond imagination, in a country where girls sell their bodies to get a handful of rice.
Only if they realized that just a fraction of what they earn can save uncountable lives. That many like their own wives and daughters could lead a respectful life, which is their right, only if they had a home, a livelihood and just enough to have two meals a day.
I feel blessed to be born to educated parents under a concrete home. I feel blessed to have received education, and living a life of a dignified young lady professional today. But my thoughts aren’t free. When I put myself in the shoes of the 16 year old girl, I cringe and shudder. Because I am a girl too… this life was blessed for me, but who knows, what might be my ‘price’ in my next birth… who knows?
Image courtesy: www.un.org
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