:00:14. > :00:18.programme disturbing. Young, vulnerable and terrified. Victims
:00:18. > :00:28.of a growing trade which is destroying society while making
:00:28. > :00:29.
:00:29. > :00:34.some rich. Tens of thousands of girls go missing in India every
:00:34. > :00:44.year. Sold into prostitution, domestic slavery and increasingly,
:00:44. > :00:49.
:00:49. > :00:53.into marriage. In an 1990s, technologies gave parents a
:00:53. > :00:58.technology of finding out the sex of their unborn babies. Today the
:00:58. > :01:03.whole of northern India is feeling the effect of female foetuses being
:01:03. > :01:10.aborted. It is such a social issue that every house is facing this
:01:10. > :01:16.problem. Every house in the plunger, there are young boys who are not
:01:16. > :01:22.getting girls. When you talk to them, they are frustrated. This is
:01:22. > :01:27.fuelling organised crime across the country. Many accuse politicians of
:01:27. > :01:33.turning a blind eye. They are not interested, we have to still don't
:01:33. > :01:37.tell them it is happening. So many girls are dying and so many girls
:01:37. > :01:47.are being triplicate. We're not talking about hundreds but
:01:47. > :02:12.
:02:12. > :02:19.In being Dali, Sunderbans means beautiful Forest. The islands are
:02:19. > :02:25.one of India's natural treasures. But not many tourists come to these
:02:25. > :02:32.remote lesser-known parts of this Sunderbans. Life here has always
:02:32. > :02:37.been a struggle. Now in addition to poverty, the people of the
:02:37. > :02:43.Sunderbans face another problem. Every year thousands of children,
:02:43. > :02:49.mostly girls disappear. In this district, every village is missing
:02:49. > :02:52.children. The queue of anxious parents outside the office of a
:02:52. > :02:58.local group that tries to help victims of trafficking in their
:02:58. > :03:06.families. This father says a few days ago, his teenage daughter went
:03:06. > :03:16.to see a doctor and never returned. What I don't understand is why did
:03:16. > :03:19.
:03:19. > :03:29.you come here and not to the police. TRANSLATION: How many cases like
:03:29. > :03:30.
:03:30. > :03:34.this one do you get? Two every day. That is a lot. This man took me
:03:34. > :03:39.around the islands to meet some of the families he works with. He
:03:39. > :03:43.tells me trafficking peaked after a deadly cyclone destroyed the rice
:03:43. > :03:51.paddies around the area five years ago. Leaving many without any
:03:51. > :03:56.source of income. This family was among them. So when a neighbour
:03:56. > :04:06.offered his 16-year-old daughter work in the city, they jumped at
:04:06. > :04:45.
:04:45. > :04:51.We told her about an organisation in delegate has rescued hundreds of
:04:51. > :04:56.girls. He said he wants to meet them. Suddenly hopeful they may
:04:56. > :05:01.find her, he gets ready for the long journey. Statistically odds
:05:01. > :05:06.are high that if you are a girl growing up here, at one point or
:05:06. > :05:09.another someone will come up to you and offer you a better life in a
:05:09. > :05:15.city. In every single village we have been too, we found families
:05:15. > :05:19.who have missing children, most of them are girls. Across India, every
:05:19. > :05:27.year, tens of thousands of girls are either forced or tricked into
:05:27. > :05:37.making a journey that changes their lives for ever. Her father will
:05:37. > :05:41.
:05:41. > :05:46.travel the same route that his On the boat, after the Sunderbans,
:05:46. > :05:56.then a long bus journey past the impoverished villagers of West Bank
:05:56. > :06:00.
:06:00. > :06:06.With its bustling market San sprawling suburbs, Calcutta it is
:06:06. > :06:11.both a source of and destination for young women. Many trafficking
:06:11. > :06:18.victims of bought in from across the Bordeaux in Bangladesh but an
:06:18. > :06:24.increasing number are Andean. And it is not just girls from villagers.
:06:24. > :06:27.At the end of the narrow lane in a Calcutta suburb I visit the family
:06:27. > :06:35.that lives in constant fear. Their daughter it is no longer accepted
:06:35. > :06:41.here. She was 15 when two years ago, neighbourhood boys invited her to a
:06:41. > :06:46.local fair. There somebody, strange offer to have a soft drink. The
:06:46. > :06:51.next thing she remembers his waking up on a train. A day later she felt
:06:51. > :07:01.herself in a brothel in deli where for seven months, every day she was
:07:01. > :07:34.
:07:35. > :07:39.Her mother finally tracked to down and with the help of police,
:07:39. > :07:44.rescued her. She got her daughter back but not delight she has worked
:07:44. > :07:54.so hard to build. Neighbours do not talk to them any more. The house
:07:54. > :08:12.
:08:12. > :08:19.has been stoned and those who Trafficking humans is an organised,
:08:19. > :08:29.complicated and secretive trade. It took us weeks to set up a meeting
:08:29. > :08:35.
:08:35. > :08:41.with a man who sells women for a He tells me traffics on average 200
:08:41. > :08:51.girls a year and makes around $1,000 from each. Most of them a 12,
:08:51. > :09:25.
:09:25. > :09:30.The trafficker also said that while he still pays local politicians and
:09:30. > :09:35.individual policemen for protection, the central government recently
:09:35. > :09:39.awareness campaign has made its operations more difficult. At the
:09:39. > :09:46.police headquarters in cult putter, they deny charges of any
:09:46. > :09:56.involvement. This is one of the allegations which may be regarding
:09:56. > :09:58.
:09:58. > :10:04.the police. Police this part of the human trafficking. The fight is
:10:05. > :10:10.daily on. And activists say at the police level things have improved.
:10:10. > :10:14.But change is slow. Every police station in India is now supposed to
:10:14. > :10:19.have anti- trafficking police officers. A district rebels, they
:10:19. > :10:24.have set up anti- trafficking units. That looks good on paper but look
:10:24. > :10:29.at the reality of India's fight against one of its greatest
:10:29. > :10:35.organised crime networks. This is the centre of anti- trafficking
:10:35. > :10:44.activity for the whole of West Bengal. Two computers, if you find
:10:44. > :10:48.in thousands of cases. Detectives and her small team are overwhelmed.
:10:48. > :10:56.We're trying to solve this problem but we need more manpower and more
:10:57. > :11:01.support. We need a Xerox machine we use telephones and laptop. We need
:11:01. > :11:04.these things. The what makes it a more -- what makes the work more
:11:04. > :11:10.difficult is that traffickers can easily get out on bail or bribed
:11:10. > :11:14.the way out of prison. Lack of resources, widespread corruption
:11:14. > :11:24.and the nature of trafficking makes the trade if humans and extremely
:11:24. > :11:39.
:11:39. > :11:44.Try to detect that child changing hands in this sea of people. This
:11:44. > :11:48.place is overwhelming. It is so easy to become invisible in the
:11:48. > :11:52.crowd. I couldn't tell you whether the man I passed his father
:11:52. > :11:59.travelling with his daughter orate human trafficker transporting a
:11:59. > :12:09.victim. What I can tell you is that at this moment, at this train
:12:09. > :12:09.
:12:09. > :12:16.station, there are girls being sold. Making their way through the crowd,
:12:16. > :12:22.people are about to board the same train with his daughter was taken.
:12:22. > :12:32.They call this the human traffic in train. Police say dozens of girls
:12:32. > :12:34.
:12:34. > :12:41.make this journey every day. They never know where they will end up.
:12:41. > :12:51.A change of clothing and the place where his daughter was supposedly
:12:51. > :12:55.
:12:55. > :13:00.taken. That's all he has with him. That information he takes to this
:13:00. > :13:10.man. The organisation works with the police to track down and rescue
:13:10. > :13:39.
:13:39. > :13:47.girls. He is bizarre of human They ask the team to start
:13:47. > :13:55.searching. She could be anywhere in this big city as a brothel or it as
:13:55. > :14:00.a servant in the house of the middle class. Or she may have been
:14:00. > :14:10.taken further, to the northern states where there is a new and
:14:10. > :14:23.
:14:23. > :14:31.growing market for women. This is the man's world. The men here are
:14:31. > :14:37.famous for being strong, fit, and single. Fortunate to be born into
:14:37. > :14:41.one of the wealthiest states. Fortunate perhaps to be born at all.
:14:41. > :14:47.One estimate suggests that 10 million girl foetuses have been
:14:47. > :14:55.aborted in India in the last two decades. The UN says it's a problem
:14:55. > :15:04.of genocide. The Indian government disputes the estimates. In reality,
:15:04. > :15:09.life here is hard to argue with. While prostitution and domestic
:15:09. > :15:15.work are still the main cause of human trafficking, trafficking for
:15:15. > :15:25.marriage is on the rise. Rishi Kant took us along to the rescue mission.
:15:25. > :15:27.
:15:27. > :15:34.The girls is a minor child. We will go and do raid. If that girls is
:15:34. > :15:38.there, we will rescue her. We are going to have basically your group
:15:38. > :15:48.and the police from West Bengal and other places working together to
:15:48. > :15:54.
:15:54. > :16:04.rescue this girl? Exactly. Do you The girl is at home when we enter.
:16:04. > :16:13.
:16:13. > :16:23.Minutes later the woman who brought Before she let's the girl though
:16:23. > :16:31.she takes out her earrings she had been given. As the police lead her
:16:31. > :16:36.away, she follows. Rishi Kant orders her out of the car and the
:16:36. > :16:46.human traffic that need to be separated. This is below all. She
:16:46. > :16:48.
:16:48. > :16:51.has not skid she screams. -- she is not scared. A few hours later at
:16:51. > :17:01.the police station she is still insisting she's done nothing wrong.
:17:01. > :17:02.
:17:02. > :17:09.We don't have enough girls here. Many people by girls here she cries.
:17:09. > :17:19.In a car outside the girl tell the police a different story talking
:17:19. > :17:20.
:17:20. > :17:28.about humiliation, beatings and break up. Her father listens and
:17:28. > :17:35.soon he will take his daughter home. For every rescue girl their
:17:35. > :17:45.thousands to never leave and the attitude shows no sign of change.
:17:45. > :17:48.In one village here, at a meeting of influential local elders. Before
:17:48. > :17:54.the rape case in New Delhi, they discussed the worrying rise of
:17:54. > :18:04.Raper in this area. This is how one of them explains the violence
:18:04. > :18:32.
:18:32. > :18:35.These women were never given any choice. This is a Community Support
:18:35. > :18:38.Centre For victims of human trafficking. Some of them have
:18:38. > :18:46.settled here and some do not leave because they're too ashamed to go
:18:46. > :18:50.back home. Or are expected to produce a son. 25-year-old was
:18:50. > :19:00.trafficked and she says she was forced to have to abortions until
:19:00. > :19:14.
:19:14. > :19:20.she finally gave birth to a baby One week later after she was
:19:20. > :19:24.rescued we went to the village on the border with Bangladesh. Rishi
:19:24. > :19:31.Kant came to check up on her to discuss the next steps with her
:19:31. > :19:41.parents. This is incredible, the villages all following us to the
:19:41. > :19:44.
:19:44. > :19:54.home. She has received a lot more attention than she is used to. Here,
:19:54. > :20:04.
:20:04. > :20:14.she feels safe to speak about the She was never allowed outside. It
:20:14. > :20:27.
:20:27. > :20:37.She does not want to speak about rape. Her parents are worried about
:20:37. > :20:51.
:20:52. > :20:57.She said she just wants to be at home and with so much attention and
:20:57. > :21:05.gossipy, it's not safe for her to be staying here. Everything is at
:21:05. > :21:10.stake, her life, identity, her marriage and her image in society.
:21:10. > :21:16.Everything has been lost and if you don't get support from the state by
:21:16. > :21:22.the administration it's ten times more problematic. This is probably
:21:22. > :21:27.where she will end up, at least for the time being. It's a private
:21:27. > :21:32.shorter and it's the best in the state. It's home to 150 girls. Some
:21:32. > :21:38.as young as ten years old. They need more resources and space to
:21:38. > :21:47.accommodate the growing demand. state is killing its own women.
:21:47. > :21:54.This so much infanticide and there's a problem with the boy to
:21:54. > :21:59.girl ratio. They take the girls to the poorer areas. It's also lack of
:21:59. > :22:06.awareness and knowledge. Even a lack of gender sensitivity. Even
:22:06. > :22:12.lulling their own girl chock children. -- loving their own gold
:22:12. > :22:20.children. The has plenty of people here who do love their daughters.
:22:20. > :22:29.They still hope and wait for news. Increasingly, families here and