Bhavani’s story – Operation Red Alert | A united voice to end large scale sex-trafficking in India by 2025.

Bhavani’s story

Bhavani’s parents got her married at age 12 to a man her aunt approved of. Little did they know that this man was a trafficker.

Bhavani* was born in a poor family in Pileru, Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh. Instead of going to school, Bhavani worked with her parents, who were landless laborers. In her family, there were 11 people; 6 sisters and 3 brothers.

One day, when Bhavani was only 12 years old, her aunty insisted that she get married to a man named Amar who worked in Delhi. Her parents agreed. “Even though I was young, I felt very happy to get married as they gave my parents a lot of money and took care of the marriage expenses.” After marriage, Bhavani, Amar and the aunty left for Delhi.

When she reached New Delhi Railway Station, Amar asked Bhavani to stay with her cousin until he made arrangements for family accommodation. Her own cousin’s house turned out to be a brothel on G B Road, the Red Light area in New Delhi. This is when Bhavani realized she and her family had been tricked, and by her own aunty! Bhavani’s nightmare began the very next day when she was forced to be abused by a strange man who was a customer of the brothel. She then came to know that she had been sold by her aunty to this brothel for a sum of Rs.45,000.

Speaking to other girls at the brothel, she realized that her “husband” had “married” 12 times in that 1 year, fooling 12 other girls and their families! When Bhavani tried to fight the abuse and say no to the clients in the brothel, she was beaten and starved. After 7 days of struggle, Bhavani could not fight any longer. Every day since then, she was raped by over 20 men a day.

After 5 abortions and too many sicknesses to count, Bhavani dies at the age of 17 years from HIV.

Sadly, Bhavani’s story is typical of girls who get trafficked. Every 10 minutes a girl of the average of 12 gets trafficked into sex slavery. Only 1% of these girls are ever rescued.

*Name changed.

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