DCW rescues nine-month pregnant minor girl from Rajasthan

New Delhi (India), Feb 7 (ANI): Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has rescued a 16-year-old pregnant girl, a victim of human trafficking. The minor, rescued from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan, is 9-month pregnant.
The minor who hails from Rourkela in Odisha, was kidnapped from Rourkela in 2017 and was forcefully sold and married to a 40-year-old man in Rajasthan for Rs 4 lakh.
Narrating her ordeal, the girl said that she was first kidnapped and then sold to the middle-aged man who raped her umpteen times over a period of one year after forcefully marrying her.
DCW acted after receiving a complaint from the girl’s father, who is a Railway employee, that his daughter had been kidnapped and trafficked in December 2017 from Rourkela.
The father said that despite getting an FIR registered immediately, his daughter remained missing and the police were unable to trace her. He said that after about 10 days he came to know that his daughter had been forcefully married off to a 40-year-old man and sent to Rajasthan. He also learnt that his daughter has been trafficked for Rs 4 lakh.
The girl revealed that on a day when her father had gone to work, she was kidnapped from her house by two relatives who forcefully married her off to a 40-year-old man in return of the aforementioned sum.
Her father told DCW that after two weeks, his daughter was brought to Rourkela by the Rajasthan Police, where he was shocked to see the child dressed up as a married woman with red clothes, bangles, and vermilion. In Rourkela, she was taken to the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) where she was handed over to her father, but the police took her custody later on.
Subsequently, her father wrote several letters to various authorities in Odisha and Rajasthan for over a year, but to no avail.
Finally, the distraught father approached the DCW on January 24 this year where his complaint was forwarded to the Anti-Human Trafficking Cell (AHTC) of the Commission headed by Member Kiran Negi.
After which a team was set up by the Commission which went to Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan and managed to rescue the minor.
DCW chief Swati Maliwal said, “The connivance of the Odisha Police in the matter is absolutely shameful. The girl is not from Delhi and nor did the incident occur here. But seeing the helplessness of the father who had appealed to all possible authorities in Odisha, we decided to intervene in the matter on humanitarian grounds."
"While we were able to rescue the girl, we fail to understand how the Rajasthan and Odisha police failed to do so. I appeal to Odisha authorities to ensure the strictest punishment to the concerned police officers in the matter,” said Maliwal. (ANI)