RANCHI: With the lockdown and the Covid-19 pandemic causing acute financial hardship in rural areas, middlemen and traffickers have become active in these areas.
The glaring example of the traffickers’ audacity was brought to the fore when 15 trafficked children were rescued from the city airport on Thursday.
On the same day, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) also rescued seven minors from being trafficked to Delhi from the Ranchi railway station.
According to officials, the RPF personnel were carrying out a routine checking drive under their initiative for women and children’s safety, when they saw three minor girls entering the station with a man.
During interrogation, the man identified himself as Vikas Manjhi and said he was taking the girls to Delhi for work.
The girls, who belonged to Simdega district, said Manjhi was not their blood relative.
Meanwhile, a woman also entered the railway station with five girls and was stopped for questioning.
Police found that the woman, Sunita Tirkey, was also taking the girls, including four minors, to Delhi.
The minors belonged to Dungri police station area of Gumla and Jaspur area of neighbouring Chhattisgarh.
On Friday, the RPF handed over Manjhi and the three minors to the Simdega police while the woman and the five children to the anti-human trafficking unit in Gumla.
RPF officials said several cases of trafficking, particularly children, have been detected at the Ranchi station.
Between June 19 and 25, 15 minor girls, most of them from Gumla district, were also rescued.
Sanjay Mishra of Bal Kalyan Sangh, which runs the state resource centre to help trafficked children, said the lack of livelihood in rural areas is forcing many youths, including minors, to migrate from the villages.
He said, “Though authorities have rescued several children from railway stations and the airport, a large number youths have left the state in private vehicles.” Mishra said even parents and close relatives are sending the children away for work due to the prevailing situation in rural areas.
More than Covid, they fear hunger and death, he said, adding that there is a high demand for young people in other states for various kinds of work.