19-yr-old girl rescued from brothel by HRLN team

Picture: Google Images

In a fresh attempt to expose the countrywide ring of flesh trade, a 19-year-old girl from West Bengal was rescued from a brothel at GB Road area of Delhi.

After much underpinning and careful planning by the Human Rights Law Network team, the victim, Lalita Mandal (name changed) was rescued from the confines of GB Road brothels early this month with the help of the police officials. The girl was abducted from West Bengal and after “passing” through various hands, was finally brought to Delhi by her traffickers and was put in a brothel three months ago.

The recent intervention by the anti-trafficking initiative of HRLN Trafficking shows how the inter-state trafficking of women and young girls is flourishing unabated. Trafficking for sexual exploitation encompasses an organised movement of people, usually women and young girls, between countries and within countries for flesh trade with the use of physical coercion, deception and bondage through forced debt. Traffickers employ means such as offers of marriage, threats, intimidation and kidnapping to get their victims. In many cases traffickers initially offer ‘legitimate’ work or the promise of an opportunity to study, however, in the majority of cases the women end up in prostitution. In others, women, young girls and children are put to other kinds of sexually exploitative tasks like pornography, child pornography, domestic slavery, etc. The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA), the only central Indian legislation that deals with trafficking, inexplicably fails to provide a definition for the same. The provisions of the amendment to the ITPA further blur the distinction between voluntary prostitution and trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation. Instead of empowering sex workers or prostitutes, the provisions infringe their right to livelihood and freedom of profession. In this backdrop the crime continues to exist.

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HRLN Mumbai gets landmark judgement in regard to Reproductive Rights of women

Ariya Khan went into labour on 29 January 2009 but was turned away by two private clinics, she delivered at Borivili Railway Station.Adv. Gayatri Singh argued that it should be mandatory for hospitals and private institutions to admit women who go into emergency labour.

Human Rights Law Network Founder and senior Supreme Court lawyer, Colin Gonsalves was presented with the award of Doctor of the University, honoris causa, by the University of Middlesex, UK.

Gonsalves was honoured for his outstanding contribution to society and path-defining works and achievements in the field of humanitarian laws on July five at the Middlesex University Business School graduation ceremony.

Professor Joshua Castellino, Head of law department, Middlesex, introducing Mr Colin Gonsalves and his pioneering work in human rights and law, said: “It gives me immense pleasure to introduce Mr. Colin Gonsalves, Senior Counsel, Supreme Court of India, Founding Director of the Human Rights Law Network, India, a household name in global public law, and a defender of human rights par excellence.

Read Prof. Joshua's full speech here