‘Girls falling prey to honey-traps of traffickers online’

| | Ranchi
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‘Girls falling prey to honey-traps of traffickers online’

Tuesday, 04 February 2020 | Saurav Roy | Ranchi

Cupid-struck girls of rural Jharkhand are now falling prey to the lures of human trafficking agents masquerading as college students and working professionals on social media platforms – a trend that has cost many teenage girls their education, career, and physical and mental wellbeing, say activists working at the grass root level.

In August last year, anti-human trafficking activist Baijnath Kumar, who also happens to be a member of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) in Khunti, met a 17-year-old trafficking survivor from Koderma. And her anecdote highlighted how social media was being effectively used by trafficking agents to honey-trap girls. The teenager met a man on social networking website, Facebook, and fell in love with him after a few months of chatting. “The man, who happened to be a trafficker, lured her to Mumbai on the pretext of marrying her. She was recovered from a brothel in Mumbai after about six months,” said Kumar.

In a similar case reported in capital Ranchi, a girl was lured to Bokaro on pretext of marriage after she became friends with a man on a Facebook page, Kumar said. “She was tortured by the trafficker and was also subjected to religious conversion,” he added. The trafficker, he said, was planning to sell her off, but she was rescued before he could execute his plans.

Jharkhand has been one of the worst-affected states in India in terms of human trafficking in the past decade. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data says that at least 131 incidents of human trafficking were reported in Jharkhand in 2018 –  fourth highest in the country. However, activists claim that several thousand children, especially tribal girls, are trafficked from the state to metro cities every year on the pretext of jobs, marriage and even education.

Ravi Kant, founder member of Shakti Vahini, a Delhi-based NGO, said that traffickers were now sharing pictures of girls over WhatsApp and convincing young girls and boys to accept their offers over social media platforms like Facebook. “This is a new practice that has put several girls of Jharkhand at risk,” said Kant, a Supreme Court lawyer who will be a part of an awareness campaign in Jharkhand aimed at cautioning girls here about the activities of trafficking agents on social media platforms.

The penetration of Internet in rural areas has made several youngsters in Jharkhand hinterland active on social media.

“They have smart phones and internet connectivity. But the need of the hour is to caution them about the misuse of the platforms by trafficking agents,” said Kant.

However, Inspector General (CID), Arun Kumar Singh said that the police were yet to get any concrete reports on the use of social media by members of human trafficking rackets. “The social media monitoring is done by the special branch. However, as of now, we do not have any substantial report on the use of social media by trafficking agents in Jharkhand,” he said.

State Labour Minister Satyanand Bhokta said that addressing the menace of human trafficking will be one of his key objectives in the ministry. He has been given the portfolio recently in Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s Cabinet.

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