GUWAHATI: A few minutes before she was about to get married, a 13-year-old girl, who had eloped last week from Boko village in Kamrup, was rescued by a joint team of police and Childline volunteers on Sunday. However, this was not the first time such a scenario was being played out in the area. Around 17 girls have been similarly rescued from various locations in the area since June this year. Police and officials from Childline, an NGO, said they suspect this trend is related to
trafficking of girls.
An official of the Childline unit of
Kamrup district alleged that several
minor girls in the district have been victims of child marriage after being allegedly trapped in a 'love net'.
Mukleswar Rahman, a Childline worker, said, "In most cases, the minor girls were found to have been swayed by their lovers and encouraged to elope. After receiving several inputs, we along with police and village defence parties have launched a drive. We suspected that a human trafficking racket might be involved in trapping these young girls in their love net, giving them promises of marriage before taking them out of the state."
The investigation into the cases have revealed that some 'fake kazis' and religious clerics or gurus were also involved in arranging these child marriages to make them look authentic. "They fake the whole marriage with the help of these gurus or kazis. Believing in these marriages seriously, these girls move to other places with their 'husbands' without any hesitation, only to found themselves in a human trafficking racket thereafter," said police sources.
"A section of people who claim to be religious leaders were performing child marriages, particularly in the interior areas where the literacy rate is very low and people live in abject poverty. In many cases, they also perform these marriages only to earn cash," a Childline volunteer said.
Picture used for representational purpose
