Meena finished her daily morning chores and was on her way to school in rural West Bengal, India, when she met a man who professed his love for her. At the next meeting, he persuaded her to elope with him to Delhi with the promise of marriage. A week later, Meena found herself locked in a brothel in Agra.
Smita Sharma, aphotojournalist, met Meena in 2015, after she was rescued from the brothel by the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of the police. After speaking to her, she was astonished to learn how Meena was trapped so easily by a man she hardly knew. Smita has been investigating child sex trafficking since she met this young girl.
India has 400 million children below the age of 18, and thousands of children go missing every year. The situation is similar in Bangladesh, which shares a long, porous border with India. The government estimates that 50,000 girls are trafficked to India every year. Like Bangladesh, Nepal is an important source country for the human trafficking business. The National Human Rights Commission of Nepal (NHRC) found that in 2018-19 alone, 35,000 Nepali citizens were trafficked. The report also predicts that around 1.5 million Nepalis are currently at risk of being trafficked to India.
In her research, Smita also discovered “employment” agencies that traffic girls into domestic servitude. They charge the employers for a year's labor and pocket the money, leaving the girls to live like slaves.
Smita photographed and interviewed more than 50 young survivors of sex trafficking in India and Bangladesh. She has also interviewed traffickers to understand the methods they use to psychologically manipulate vulnerable girls. Her direct intervention also led to the rescue of a 17-year-old girl from the red-light districts of Pune in India in 2018.
Sharma's initiative, called We Cry in Silence, investigates the widespread but underreported issue of trafficking minors for sex and domestic servitude between Bangladesh, Nepal and India. The project unveils the vulnerability of girls and highlights what leads them into the traps of traffickers. The goal is to understand this complex, global issue at the local level, open a dialogue and move people to work towards a solution.
We Cry in Silence, with the testimony of these victims, will be published as a photo book by FotoEvidence and distributed to schools and college libraries in India to create permanent evidence and raise awareness. The book and a 'zine will also be made available to local law enforcement agencies, with the goal of sensitizing them to the dangers young women face and the methods of traffickers.
The book will have text in three languages, in Bengali, Hindi and English.
If you wish to contribute to this initiative, click here. — FotoEvidence
Smita Sharmais an award-winning photojournalist and visual storyteller based in Delhi, reporting on critical human rights, gender and social issues in her own community as well as in the Global South on assignments for Human Rights Watch, National Geographic Magazine, TIME magazine and other publications.
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