The numbers are depressing: Every 8 minutes a girl goes missing in India. Most of these girls are trafficked for sex, beggary or domestic labor.
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Unofficial counts put the number of victims of sex trafficking in India at 16 million — not counting the girls from neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh who end up here. Mumbai, where I live, is the second-most frequent destination for these girls.
The stories are heartbreaking: In very rare cases the girls have run away or are kidnapped. But in most cases, according to Priti Patkar, who has run an anti-trafficking NGO in Mumbai for 30 years, almost all of are taken by people they trust — promised a job or marriage.
“Stranger danger is a myth. These girls are preyed upon, they’re carefully profiled by traffickers with a full measure of their desperate straits,†Patkar says.
Some, like this 16-year-old who calls herself Panshi, though that isn’t her real name, are inducted into the sex trade by their own families.
Listen and read the story on PRI.
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