1.  Legalising Prostitution:

The Mayor of Kolkata(West Bengal, India) Corporation has expressed his concern to issue trade licence to the girls in prostitution within the Kolkata Corporation area. In other wards he is supporting the demand of prostitutes to legalise their profession “prostitution”. According to him, this will bring income to the Corporation. Mr. Subrato Mukherhee Mayor of Kolkata Corporation is contesting in the Parliamentary Election from Kolkata North West Constituency sit where there are over 30,000 girls in prostitution. And about 20 per cent of them are below 18 years. where the 23rd amendment of our constitution states prostitution as a punishable offence. Moreover Kolkata high Court in a historical declaration at 1953 announced, “flesh trade that makes profit through sexual exploitation upon woman and child” as punishable offence and added that it will be treated under “immoral traffic law”.

The year 2003, a 13-year-old girl, Ajmira Khatun was taken to the Kolkata brothel (Sonagachhi) from her native vill. Tentulberia, 24 pgns. (N) by two persons of her locality. Spending 12 long days in the darkest region of the city she was rescued by some activists and return to her own place. The touts was arrested by the local police. Presently Ajmira is earning by needlework and staying with her parents. She will never forget the bitter experiences she had to gone through at the Kolkata Brothel.

Beauty Ghosh, a very calm & polite girl of Thakurnagar, Gaighata, was sold by two local touts to Mumbai brothel. Beauty was physically tortured and was forcefully engaged in prostitution. On the basis of some information the parents could able to trace her out in Mumbai brothel, all their effort to rescue her from the brothel was failed, and they were beaten up there by the brothel owner and their muscle men. Immediately they return to their village and brought this matter to the notice of Gaighata Police Station, the Police did not come to their help. After eight months of suffering she could able to escape and back to her parents. Her treatment is going on and she and her family members are now actively moving for the punishment of the touts.

She always smiles, reads books and sometimes plays with the small boys of the CCD’s DCH shelter where she is staying now a days. But often at night she wakes up from her horrifying dreams of the darker part of her life. She has a hearing problem and suffering from trauma. Apura khatun was sold to Uttar Pradesh brothel by her aunt and there she was physically assaulted, forced to take heroin, country liquor and entertain customers. There are many such under age girls who have been rescued by CCD. If the prostitutes get trade union rights, will the girls like Ajmira, Beauty and Apura be able to be rescued from the touts or brothel owners anymore? We afraid!

2.  Child Abduction:

No matter if the child is one month or ten years of age, no mercy to him/her, ransom money is the only factor to determine the fate of the child. Child in a deep sleep at home, playing in a park or returning from school, nowhere they are safe. The ransom seekers always are alert to their target for a chance to come to kidnap the child. A sure sort will bring them a ransom amount ranging from Rs. 20,000/- to Rs. 10, 00, 000/-.

Life of a child is more precious than money, so definitely the parents will agree to their demand. Two/three threat calls ‘money or dead body of the child’ choice is yours, child is in our custody.

In most of the cases the kidnappers are known to the family, sometime close family relatives also turn to a kidnapper.

“A joint family, two brothers, their wives, and four children altogether. Elder brother Mukesh takes care of the financial part of their business. Younger Dhiresh looks after the marketing aspects of their product. Mukesh and Dhiresh have a younger sister, Rekha. She leaves in a far off place with Monoj, whom she was married by her own choice. Rekha sometimes comes to her brother’s place, not just with sweets but also with a lot of demands for money, jewellery, car and so on. One fine morning Nirja (wife of Mukesh) found her six-year-old girl missing from her school. The whole family was at a loss, the kidnappers demanded 10 lakhs to release the kid. Later on police came to know that the whole plan was made by Monoj, Rekha and Dhiresh…”This of course is a very common story.

On the other hand when we go through the news: “ A penniless couple (Bittu & Mohua) tried to raise wedding funds by kidnapping a baby. Bittu picked the small boy Himanshu from a park where he was playing and delivered the child to Mohua, Who packed the child off in her bedroom. After about two hours Mohua made a call to the mother of the kidnapped child and demanded Rs. 2 lakhs for the release of the child. The parents lodged an FIR at the Titagarh police station.” It astonishes us. There are a lot of news of this kind, a very recent one tells that: “Sachidanand, father of six children, was running short on money as his job was gone and he had big family to feed. He, therefore, decided to kidnap Ramakant's (the land lord’s) son hoping to extort Rs. 8 lakhs. Using his familiarity with Akhilesh (son of Ramakant), a Class I student, Sachidanand lured him into his trap and left for his village on February 9,2004 with the small boy from New Ashok Nagar in East Delhi”.

All over the country the children are frequently abducted for a reason or other. In some cases police and the parents manage to get back the child and in some other the child gets lost forever. But does anybody tried to find the reason why a child is kidnapped, where the kid has nothing to do with the kidnappers or even with the cause! Or we are bound to accept the fact that children are kidnapped and they will be kidnapped for the only reason that they are very week to protect them or only for their innocence!