Tribal people groups are one of the most exploited and deprived sections of the population in Indian society.
In all indicators of development, they remain the most excluded, despite the fact that various kinds of policies and programmes have been pursued for their benefit in the post-Independence India.
Needless to say that exclusion from the fruits of development has adversely affected the quality of life of the tribal people – and the ones who are most vulnerable to exploitation are the tribal children.
Human trafficking is the third largest most profitable industry in the world. Child trafficking, unlike many other issues, is found in both developed and developing nations.
Trafficked children are forced into prostitution, forced marriages, illegal adoption, used as cheap or unpaid labour and also used for sport and organ harvesting.
Some children are recruited into armed groups. Trafficking exposes children to violence, abuse, neglect and the vilest of exploitation.
According to UNICEF a child victim of trafficking is “any person under 18 who is recruited,
transported, transferred, harboured or received for the purpose of exploitation, either within or outside a country”. Trafficking is one of the hardest crimes to investigate hence data is hard to obtain.
The latest conservative figures estimate that 1.2 million children are trafficked worldwide every year, with child prostitution having the highest supply of trafficked children.
India is a source, destination, and transit country for trafficking for many purposes including commercial sexual exploitation. The majority of the trafficking is within the country but there are also a large number trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh.
Children are trafficked to Middle Eastern countries for sport such as camel racing. There are no national or regional estimates for the number of children trafficked every year. But 40% of prostitutes in India are children, and there is a growing demand for young girls in the industry.
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have the largest number of people trafficked of all the states in India.
There is a rising demand throughout India for live-in maids in urban areas.
This has resulted in trafficking of girls from tribal villages to live under extremely poor conditions, first in “placement agencies” and later in the employers homes, and then later many find themselves in brothels.
Placement agents keep the girls, packed together, in small unhygienic rooms. They are often made to do the placement agent’s household work and also subjected to sexual abuse.
Often little girls are taken from their villages and subjected to various forms of sexual abuse and exploitation at the hand of their employers including rape. Even if rescued by their parents, these little girls are often refused entry back into their village, since they have been tainted by rape.
Little Sisters is committed to making a difference in the lives of tribal girls who have been rescued from such atrocities.
They are given a safe, loving and caring environment in which to live, grow, learn, and enjoy being little girls.
The love of Christ is both shown and shared with them daily, with the hope that they will become vibrant whole young women who can make a difference in their own villages and country.
