A* first crossed the Bangladesh border in 2013 and came to India when she was 16.

It was not a difficult choice for her. A spoke of “ottyachar” (torture) at home but did not say what happened to her. After running away from her village and going to Dhaka, she worked in people’s homes and as a cleaner in a shoe factory. When a man posing as a recruiter told her she should find work in Kolkata, she left, hoping to make a better future.

Many women are trafficked by an extensive network of touts or ‘dalals’ who sell dreams of work and marriage, organise the transport and then abandon or sell them into prostitution. Hundreds of people make money at various stages of illegal border crossings.

The West Bengal police recovered A from a brothel at Sonagachi in Kolkata in 2014 and sent her back to Bangladesh, where she was in a children’s home until she made the crossing again in 2017.

In June 2015, India and Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding on the prevention of human trafficking, especially of women and children. The agreement calls for joint coordinated efforts by officials in both countries. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has framed a standard operating system to coordinate the agencies' efforts in both countries.

However, most of the time, women above 18 are immediately arraigned under the Foreigner’s Act.

For instance, B* left Bangladesh with her Bangladeshi husband last year and came to India without telling her parents. When they reached the border town of Canning, she realised he was a trafficker and selling her to a brothel. To save herself, she went to the police and told them everything. They took her into custody.

When the police found the man had documents to prove he was Indian, they let him go.



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