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Rescued from sex slavery, red tape traps Bangladeshi girls in India
- Victims wishing to go home must first gain approval from police, social workers, judges, border forces and bureaucrats – a process that involves about 15 steps
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Priya was 15 when a relative in Bangladesh tricked her with the promise of a dream job as a singer, drugged her, and trafficked her across the border into the sex trade in India.
After several failed attempts to escape the brothel in the eastern state of West Bengal where she was trapped for six years, Priya was rescued along with other girls from Bangladesh and India in a raid by police and anti-trafficking campaigners.
Heading home and pursuing her musical ambitions beckoned, or so she thought. But three years after her rescue, the prospects of making it back to her family appeared ever more distant.
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For Priya, now 24, was one of about 180 Bangladeshi sex trafficking survivors stuck in shelters in West Bengal – with many having waited years for official clearance to go home due to complex and lengthy bureaucracy across the two countries.
Traffickers often keep track of their victims even after they return home.
“How long can I wait?”, said Priya, using her “brothel name” to hide her identity for fear of being shamed in Bangladesh.
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“Maybe I won’t go now even if they ask me to,” she said last month at a shelter, sitting in a room adorned with paper roses.
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