Thousands of children being trafficked from Bengal

KOLKATA: Lured with the promise of good jobs or marriage, thousands of children, especially girls, were being trafficked from seven districts of West Bengal, an NGO has claimed.

Most of the children were trafficked to Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Jaipur, Jalandhar besides other northern cities in Haryana, UP and Bihar, the NGO Save the Children said quoting data from the National Crime Records Bureau.

It was found that these children were routinely subjected to many different forms of abuse from unsafe working conditions and lack of food to being beaten, deliberately burnt or sexually abused.

Releasing its study 'Missing Children in West Bengal' here done over a period of four years, it said that in Patharpratima in South 24 PArganas, 71 children were reported missing since 2005 of whom 28 were rescued.

Similarly, in Sandeshkhali in the same district 302 children went missing between 2004 and 2006 of whom 30 were traced.

"Sandeshkhali and Patharpratima are only symbolic of a growing tide of missing children in West Bengal," it said. "It is these trafficked children who have been reported missing," the NGO said.

The districts from which they were trafficked were South and North 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, East and West Midnapore, Nadia and Jalpaiguri.