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Indian rickshaw puller sells daughter, 15, to traffickers - report

by Nita Bhalla | @nitabhalla | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Tuesday, 7 May 2013 16:43 GMT

A 16-year-old girl sits in a protection home on the outskirts of New Delhi after being rescued from bonded labour. Picture November 9, 2012. REUTERS/Mansi Thapliya

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Report shows how easy, and widespread, is the practice of trafficking girls in South Asia

NEW DELHI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A 15-year-old Indian girl from New Delhi has told police her father sold her to traffickers for the equivalent of  $4,630 but she managed to escape, the Times of India reported on Tuesday.

The girl said her father, a rickshaw puller, sold her to a man who kept her in a room on the outskirts of Delhi for two days, where she was assaulted.

The girl managed to escape, but when she returned to her home, community elders warned her not to report the matter to the police, the newspaper said. When her father tried to sell her again – at a higher price – the girl, supported by her mother, finally went to the police, it said.

"The girl and her mother finally came to us and we have registered a case. We will arrest all the accused and slap the most stringent acts against them," the report quoted an unnamed police officer in Delhi's northeast district as saying. Police are searching for the father and the trafficker.

Over 150,000 people are known to be trafficked within South Asia every year – mostly for sex and domestic work, but also for forced marriages and the trade in human organs. The real number is likely to be higher as the trade is underground.

Many of the thousands of young girls trafficked in India are brought in from Nepal and Bangladesh.

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