With exposure to the social and digital media, more and more girls are falling prey to conmen and eventually ending up as sex workers.
This view was articulated by civil society organisations working on preventing child trafficking and child marriages at a workshop organised by HELP-Girls Advocacy alliance(GAA), a partner of Plan International, here on Wednesday.
Taking part in a brain-storming session on preventing child marriages and child trafficking , Mahila Abhuyadhaya Samiti State president T. Aruna said: “Whether we accept it or not, teenage girls fall in love with men and some of them elope with them before landing in brothels.”
Most of the girls run away with men belonging to other castes, she observed.
“A big question before us is whether they should encourage inter-caste marriages at least on their attaining legal age or not,” added Ms. Aruna , who runs a home for rescued sex workers.
“A majority of those rescued are minor girls who flee their homes after their parents have marital discords and see them as economic burden, and try to get rid of them by marrying them off early,” adds another social activist T. Madhavi. Most of the victims of child marriages are poor girls belonging to SC, ST and BC communities, she pointed out.
India stood fifth among 84 countries in human trafficking. Andhra Pradesh ranked second in such cases in the country as per National Crime Records Bureau, observed Childline India Foundation NGO partner HELP Programme Officer B.V. Sagar.
Two child marriages occur in three days in backward Prakasam district, adds Mr. Sagar.
The private sector should be roped in in a big way to retain girls in high school and impart them with job-oriented vocational training to improve the job opportunities, felt HELP-GAA District Coordinator K. Ramesh. “Young India’s 80% of workforce lacks identifiable marketable skills and the gap is much more glaring when it comes to young women,” he added.
“A vibrant village-level watchdog committee with revenue and police officials at the helm is the need of the hour as the grassroots level Anganwadi workers and under-financed NGOs could not on their own stop child marriages,” felt Childline District Coordinator Kishore Kumar.
