India's Slave Brides |101 East | भारत का दास दुल्हन

In India, the preference for baby boys has created a serious gender imbalance. The shortage of women has led traffickers to sell girls to men desperate to marry. I'm Steve Chow. In this edition of 101 East we investigate the

slave

trade in India, where few women live. Happily ever after is the end of the afternoon and a group of women from the village share that they are united by a mutual and unfortunate one. Their stories echo each other's tragic lives. The plight of these women is very common in one of the India's most feudal and patriarchal states' preference for male babies has given Haryana the worst gender ratio in the country.

It's not just about sex selection and freedom to sign. This is infanticide. It's about lack of value for girls. It's a continuum in which girls are not valued before they are born, but girls are not. valued and treated well even after birth, a government advisor on family issues, Poonam Matraja says that with the shortage of women to marry, it has become normal in Haryana for men to buy

brides

from other states. Yes, they could marry their sons to girls from other parts. of the country in the normal respectful way, but it's the extreme lack of respect towards the women who do sex trafficking, I would call it, and the women that they bring in, it's not like they're treated like respected married couples, they're treated like commodities. which can be recycled and resold a survey of 10,000 households in Haryana found that more than 9,000 married women had come from other states in most villages, we were told that there are around five to ten women who have been trafficked into marriage , some have been sold to men not just once but two or three times.

The villagers call them parrots, a derogatory term that implies that they are being bought. All people in Haryana are disrespectful towards women like us. Everyone says we have no respect for ourselves. They sell us like cows and goats. We feel very bad when we hear all this because we are human beings and we belong to India, just like they were trafficked to Haryana when she was just 10 years old. From a large family in the north

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ern state of Assam, says an older girl from a nearby village. town whom she met while playing ripped her off and kidnapped her they forced me to work in the fields cut grass feed the cows do all the work I cried for a year I was in captivity for four years her captors said she then sold her to get married I couldn't escape or end my life there was no one I could ask for help when Sanjeeta's father finally found her it was too late she was already three months pregnant I was sleeping and I heard a voice like my father's screaming he stayed two months to see how they treated me this is the man she married I was getting old and my parents told me I couldn't get married here the poor men can't find a girl to marry that's why we go somewhere else If their parents paid money for his girlfriend is a family secret.

I don't know much nor will they tell me. No parent divulges such things as it will lead to unnecessary quarrels. Fourteen years later, Sanjida and her husband have four children, two sons and two daughters. sanjeed is one of the luckiest when it comes to women who have been victims of trafficking. Her new family has treated her kindly, but she is determined to help others and now she works for a local NGO to empower trafficked women. Today she attends court with a girl who was recently a victim of trafficking. She rescued only three when her parents died Mclisha says she was trafficked by her aunt who raised her when she was only 12 years old.

She was sold to a man in his 70s. He fathered her 18-month-old daughter, but after three years of marriage she died and then again. time a man who subjected her to horrible abuse repeatedly her second husband was so cruel that he hit her so hard that he damaged her mouth and she was mentally affected it is difficult for her to speak and be understood how she came to be sold a second time . It's still a mystery, her first husband had two fields, so she and her daughter should have been supported after her death, but that's really how many women are trafficked.

I have yet to see a case where they have legally inherited some land in her name. accepted as a member of her family narendra singh is the chief magistrate of the local district addressing a public meeting on legal rights. He is a strong advocate for trafficking

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and says illiteracy and language barriers make it nearly impossible for these fragile women to get the justice he has brought to court. court to testify against the trafficker, who is a powerful person who has so many ties in the community and the communities that support him, so in these circumstances it is very difficult for that lady to maintain her statement with her trafficker on the run, McClisher and her daughter they are living.

She was under police protection in a safe house and was three months pregnant when she was rescued with the help of the police. She was able to tell the court that she wanted an abortion, but she is still so traumatized that she cannot tell anyone where she is from. Kabhi Kabir. Maybe she is in I feel like divulging information so I start asking her many questions but I feel that today I am not having much success although the police expect a breakthrough in her case we are with the police and we are on our way to her husband's house in Moklich.

It's been almost two months since she was rescued and this is the police's first attempt to arrest him. The local female police inspector heads to a village in search of her violent second husband. She's not in the mood to waste time. The first person she meets who faces is the man's mother. Her husband broke the law and bought her from a trafficker, although no arrests have been made. Everything is foreign. Foreigner is back on the road and this time the police are chasing the trafficker and hope to catch him by surprise. At home, the woman tells us that Mclisha ran away from her first husband's house after her death because she feared that her sister-in-law was a foreigner.

Many of the girls who ended up in Haryana began their lives here, in the north

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ern corner of the state of Assam, almost two years ago. a thousand kilometers from haryana is another world with a different landscape, language and culture one of the poorest regions of

india

a third of its population lives below the poverty line the mighty brahmaputra river provides rich land for crops but it is prone to catastrophic flooding many girls and Women who are acquired for marriage come from farms on this floodplain when the monsoons arrive, the land is submerged, the river changes direction and families are displaced, making them vulnerable to floods. traffickers.

You can imagine that when the earth disappears, they have nothing, a little bit of hope. like some financial assistance for financial health that will provide a job for their daughter, in that case it says that they easily accept the offers of the traffickers and in this way they found a weak point for the parents and the attack on this point in this way is trafficking is occurring. A social worker from a local anti-human trafficking NGO we have been working here since 2010 and in my career I have been on at least 100 rescue missions. Wow, today he's taking me to meet a mother whose daughter was trafficked.

They are very poor people. I think they have no land except her house because her father got it last year after her father died. She was trafficked. This is the house. She says that girl's mother just wants her daughter to come home and she will be happy. Majida's daughter. She disappeared a year ago when she was 16. She was alone at home studying for her school exams when she went to the store to buy a notebook and she never returned. We asked around but no one had heard anything. Not know what to do. She was helpless, there was no hope, there was no solution.

I just prayed that one day I would see her a couple of months later. Her daughter called and told her mother that she was in Haryana. I asked her where she was exactly and how she had gotten there, but no. I don't know anything, all she said was: come and I'll go with you. I went to the police station to file a report, but her officer told me to give them about seven hundred dollars without her funds and with three small children to take care of her. I was helpless and then more news came that her daughter was married I wanted my daughter to study and then get married she had never failed an exam and she had her husband or brother always present hello hello but today the network is congested and she cannot get over my daughter asked me to go look for her but how did I ask her to come here with her husband but she says it's impossible all my hopes are crushed I just hope to see her again before I die majida is not alone in a nearby town an older couple lives Hoping to find their daughter one day, she was 13 when she disappeared six years ago and nothing has been heard from her since they believe the trafficker lives among them.

The couple says they have spent close to two thousand dollars searching everywhere. of Assam for their daughter, are clearly heartbroken and say they will never lose hope of finding her. Foreigner, not far from the couple, a 14-year-old girl is one of the few lucky ones to be found. She was trafficked six months ago when she and her sister were persuaded to run away with a man who said he was in love with her sister today. This is a common trick to traffic girls to pretend that they are in love with a girl and with this method a girl can fall in love with a boy. the girl easily agrees to run out of the house to go somewhere and get married.

She was right to be afraid. She and her sister were taken to Haryana separately and sold for marriage. She is now back in her village living with her grandmother while her parents work thousands. Miles away, in New Delhi, her family, her people, accepted her very well. Some families of the victims do not accept their daughter after rescuing her. I think this is a notion of honor. What people will gossip about. Sometimes some families care about being accepted, one thing, but. It will take a long time for the trauma to disappear for mother Majida. She has finally gotten the opportunity to travel to Haryana to try to find her daughter.

Noor has prepared the necessary documents for the Haryana police. This is a police verification letter. Here everything. It is included about the case, so no, that is quite enough, yes, it will be very useful for you. It's a gigantic journey ahead for Majida, even with her brother by her side. She has never been more than 10 kilometers from her town or traveled in a car, much less a bus. a plane but its focus never changes the next day the rescue mission is in full swing the police know that majida's daughter lives in this area but is not sure exactly where the towns are taking us to her apartment she seems excited to see her mother after so long. a heartbreaking reunion but it is about to take an unexpected turn majida's daughter is not happy with her mother the police arrive interrogated the husband says he met his wife at a train station when a man and a woman who claimed to be her uncles asked his wife confirms that the couple trafficked her from Assad the husband denies that the money changed hands but the police say he told them he paid the couple about forty dollars for expenses photographs taken on their wedding day confirmed in the foreigner with police satisfied that no action is needed husband tries to make his mother-in-law feel welcome, even kissing her feet, his wife is clearly torn between him and her mother as the sun sets.

Majeed is too distraught to speak, devastated that she has to leave her daughter behind in out-of-state traffic. and bought and sold into marriage, these women never stop longing to return home, but even though I want to return, I have nowhere to go alone and vulnerable, they are trapped in lives of endless abuse and

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ry, it must be that the Indian government is drafting the The country's first comprehensive anti-trafficking laws, but will the new laws be enough to prevent women from being sold into marriage? You know that making laws is a necessary condition for a society, but it is not enough unless you change social norms and the way people see girls.

I will not be able to change either the sex ratio or the lack of respect for women. Buying brides is a lack of respect towards women and the lack of value a woman has to Sanjida. Now it's all about her daughters. I don't expect much from it. myself, but I work hard to raise my daughters to have a better life, no matter what, they shouldn't have to suffer like you