'Madurai teen pushed into prostitution won't be sent back to family'

MADURAI: The 16-year-old girl, who was rescued from a prostitution racket, is not likely to be sent back to her family, said the chairman of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) VM Vijayasaravanan.

Expressing his fear that the girl would land in the clutches of the prostitution racket again if sent back to the family, Vijayasaravanan said that the committee would take care of her until she attains 18 years of age. At present, the girl is sheltered at home after she was handed over to the committee members by the police. "We have planned to give psychiatric counselling to the girl and steps to rehabilitate her will be taken later as she needs some breathing space now," he said.

 A member of the committee, B Pandiarajan, termed the people who pushed the minor girl into the prostitution racket as heartless. "They have ruined the girl's childhood and life for the sake of money," he said.

Seconding his opinion, counsellor and psychotherapist P Raja Soundara Pandian said that people who prefer to have sexual relationships with minor children may have pidophilia, hebephilia or ephebophilia.

"On the other hand, those who had pushed the girl into the prostitution racket are anti-socials," he said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Shiva Prasad said that they have initiated the process to retrieve the call details from the cell phones that were seized from the girl and the six suspects. "With help of the call details, the police will try to nab the persons who had assaulted the girl," he said.

Both Vijayasaravanan and Raja Soundara Pandian said that the mental state of the girl could be assessed only through counselling, and that the girl needed special attention so that she could recover from the trauma.

Six persons were arrested on Wednesday for pushing the minor girl into prostitution.