Low sex-ratio gives birth to skewed social problems

A year after she returned from her captors, 16-year-old Meena (name changed) has not got over her one-year-long nightmare. The days and nights she would be taken from village to village, dragged in and out of homes and buildings where faceless men kept her to rape until they wanted her no more, and then sold and resold her like cattlehead.

It's not just the trauma. Meena can still barely walk. Every passing auto-rickshaw now sends her into a hysteric fright: it was an auto driver who first abducted, raped, and sold her in December 2006, while she was returning from school.

But Meena is just one. Many more teenagers are up for sale, resale as sex slaves in several villages on the fringes of Ahmedabad, Surendranagar, Mehsana and some areas of Rajkot. It's not prostitution in the strict sense; most of the girls are being passed on from one buyer to another for personal "use". By coincidence or otherwise, most belong to Dalit or backward communities. Some are abducted or bought from elsewhere, even other states, and sold to rich farmers or village heavies in these parts who resell them to buy new arrivals.

Ask Kanchan and Krishna Waghela from Bhiwandi in Mumbai. The couple is still going around the villages hoping someone would give them back their daughter abducted from Mumbai and brought to Dharji village of Ahmedabad district in February last, before she passed many hands. They even had their daughter back for a few minutes last June, before she was snatched away again, in front of them.

Schoolgirl Meena was abducted by an autorickshaw driver, Munna alias Mohabbat Khan (38), on November 23, 2006. She was forced to live with Munna at his home at Gedia village at Patdi Taluka of Surendranagar for some days. Munna then sold her to Hyat Khan, the Sarpanch of the village, who, after some days, presented her to Vilo Khan, his own nephew in Jatapara village in Viramgam Taluka of Ahmedabad district. The latter sold her off to one Narendra Dave. Meena's last sale price, according to the police FIR in her case, was Rs. 7000.

"Munna, Hyat Khan, Vilo, Dave — all of them had used her against her will," says Prabhavati a social worker trying to rehabilitate Meena in Bavla. An FIR was lodged with Bavla Police Station on December 22, 2007, but the cops have yet to arrest Munna, Hyat Khan or others so far.

"I have seen Munna on his bike even after I returned," Meena said. "He has threatened to kill me, if I say anything about him. The police said they will take me to the places where these men had taken me, but did nothing,"

BS Pathan, DySP (SC/ST) claimed to Newsline that the police have completed their probe and the men will be arrested in a day or two. Seven months after the FIR was lodged.

That, however, may be little solace for Kanchan and Kishan Waghela camping in Gujarat for over a month now hoping to see their daughter again. "Our daughter went missing from our home at Bhiwandi in Mumbai in February last and we had filed an FIR with Bhiwandi police,' Kishan said. He claims to have learnt that their daughter Suneeta alias

Munni (15) was brought to Dharji village in Bavla taluka by two youths, who used to live in Bhiwandi.

Kishan reached Bavla along with the Mumbai police to rescue his daughter in June last. They even traced the girl to a home at Meni village. But a village mob stopped the vehicle, snatched her away. "A big mob surrounded us and snatched the girl away from us," according to Mumbai police Inspector PR Wagh, of Shantinagar Bhiwandi, who was one of those who accompanied Waghela.

"Pachason aisi ladkiya hamarey gaon mein hain, lekin hum unhe nahin denge (numerous such girls are there in our village and we will not return them) some one from the mob told me," Wagh added.

The police do not deny it. "Such cases have been coming up sporadically, but unless these are properly recorded, it becomes very difficult to trace the pattern," according to Meera Ramnivas, DIG CID (Crime). According to her, not many women being available may also be a reason. "These cases underline the fallouts of a skewed sex ratio, which may be propelling such girl trafficking," she added.