E-Paper
For them, Children’s Day also means raising awareness about child trafficking
NGO Manav Sewa Sansthan, under its initiative anti-child-trafficking-unit (ACTU), makes children aware about child trafficking gangs operating in bordering villages of India and Nepal.
For 13-year-old Amit Chauhan, who hails from Bharwaliya—a small village on porous Indo-Nepal border in Maharajganj district of Uttar Pradesh—celebrating Children’s Day is not just about remembering Chacha Nehru, cultural programmes and gorging upon ‘boondi ke laddoo’ (a traditional sweet) but also about creating awareness about child trafficking and the ways to identify child traffickers to which his village and others on the Nepal border are vulnerable too.
“Children’s Day is celebrated here with great fervour. But, other than celebrating the day and the birth anniversary of our first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, we also take this occasion as an opportunity to spread awareness about child-trafficking that is a heinous crime,” said Chauhan, an active member of anti-child-trafficking-unit (ACTU), an initiative of a local NGO Manav Sewa Sansthan that works to keep a check on human trafficking in bordering villages.
The 13-year-old added that this exercise became all the more important in present Covid-19 crisis times when hundreds of children were rendered orphans and homeless.
“I am not alone. We are a team of children, all belonging to the same village, and our job is to keep a watch on any unfamiliar faces and also the children arriving in the village and to alert the senior people with the NGO,” said Chauhan who studies in class 5 at primary school Bharwaliya.
Another member of ACTU operating in Bharwaliya village, Sangam Kumari (14), said they have got training for the same.
“On spotting any suspicious or unfamiliar person accompanied with a child, we first try to interact with the kid and try to extract details from them like their house address, parents, native place, Aadhaar card number and so on. On getting unconvincing response, we at once inform our seniors,” she said.
NGO director Rajesh Mani said “Children’s Day is a good occasion to make kids aware about their rights, especially human trafficking. The issue is even more important given the present pandemic time when such disasters are seen as an opportunity by the traffickers.”
Mani, who has been working in this field for the last 32 years, said the bordering villages of Maharajganj witnessed a similar situation during 2015 Nepal earthquake.
“Back then, locals had played a crucial role when they helped in freeing many kids from the clutches of a trafficking gang with the help of police and Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) forces. Alone from Sonauli border around 120 cases of human trafficking were reported,” he said.
Other than Bharwaliya, the NGO has activated the ACTUs in some 80 villages spread across districts like Pilibhit, Lakhimpur, Siddharthnagar and Bahraich that fall on the 470-km long Indo-Nepal border which passes through UP.
There are broadly 8 main transit points that includes Sonauli and Toothibari in Maharajganj district; Khanua, Bandhni and Kakrawa in Siddharthnagar district; Rupaidhia in Bahraich district and Gauriphanta and Tikonia in Lakhimpur Kheri district.
