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kashmir

“What can a girl like me do apart Kashmiri truck driver by her parents human trafficking. There is a stout hu-
from weeping in silence?” Hafiza added. for some amount. Today, she lives in man trafficking connection between
In the case of her agent Shubnam, a dilapidated house at Pampore, Pul- West Bengal and Kashmir, where
she too has a similar past- trafficked to wama, where, altogether, a total of families need brides for their sons who
Kashmir where she was married-off to eight members live in a tiny two-room are either disabled or do not find local
a Kashmiri family. However, she soon house that serves as both kitchen and match to marry off their sons.
got separated from her husband, went bedroom. Naseema, too, is a native of There is no check on the illegal buy-
back to her hometown in Bengal and Bengal and was trafficked to Jammu ing and selling of young girls brought
married a local. Shubnam then stepped and Kashmir as a bride. Her husband is into the Valley as domestic workers and
in to the business of human trade- buy- a habitual drinker and largely spent all later sold as brides, neither there is any
ing and sending girls to Kashmir under his earnings on liquor and drugs. policy in place. Hence, this business is
the garb of employment-giver, match- “I do not wish to see my parents or go thriving with every passing day.
maker. Being a local of Bengal, it was a back to them. They married me off to a According to the latest (2016-2017)
cake-walk for Shubnam to target girls
from poor and under-privileged fami-
lies, luring them with a promise of good
job, high-end lifestyle or by deceptively
buying them from their families.

Human trafficking
is a $32 billion
industry
worldwide and
agents are making
a flourishing
business by
buying and
selling girls to
Kashmiri men

Bride-buying common in the Valley
The horrific brutality inflicted on these
teenagers is not an isolated case. Going
by some information, there are more
20 to 25 women from Bengal and other person who was double the age of mine data by National Crime Record Bureau,
parts of mainland India who have been and sent me to a place about which I there are zero cases of trafficking re-
married-off to Kashmiri men. The kinds knew nothing, not even the language,” ported in the state of Jammu Kashmir.
of grooms are those men who did not Naseema said. “We are not able to do anything until
find any match in Kashmir, belong Human trafficking is a $32 billion in- and unless a case will not be reported
to below poverty line families or are dustry worldwide and agents like Shab- to us. There are agencies registered
disabled. In such situation, Kashmiri num are making a flourishing business with us who supply domestic helpers to
men buy brides from pimps who usu- by buying and selling girls to Kashmiri families in Srinagar and other parts of
ally smuggle girls from West Bengal or men who cannot find a match in the the state but, till now, no complaint of
other parts of India. Valley. trafficking has been reported to us,” said
In a similar incident, twelve years India’s West Bengal state - which Deputy Superintendent Farooq Ahmad.
ago, Naseema, 29, (now a mother of shares a porous border with Bangla-
three) was forcefully married off to a desh and Nepal, is one of the hubs of letters@tehelka.com

Tehelka / 15 june 2018 33 www.Tehelka.com

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