Manacles on Jharkhand’s trafficked girls — broken by city’s rescue facility | India News

New Delhi: After three years of torture by her wealthy employers in Gurgaon – who made her sleep on a toilet in their balcony – 13-year-old Manisha (name changed), a tribal girl from Godda, was rescued after her father sent an SOS that triggered a joint operation led by the Jharkhand Bhavan’s Integrated Research and CRC and CRCIR. Staying in an orphanage in Delhi since late November, she now awaits her return to the village from which she was taken at age 10 by a trafficker, who promised a better life.Eight-year-old Nisha left Khunti with her parents, unaware that she would soon be released on a train with a mobile phone. Found six months ago at Anand Vihar station, she was in a children’s home while authorities searched for her family. The search leads to her grandmother, who is eager to take her back despite her own suffering. Officials will return after finalizing the rehabilitation plan and enrolling Nisha in a residential school.In January, Rashi and 17 other children boarded a train from Ranchi, lured by a female trafficker, who promised a fun trip to Delhi and work to alleviate their family’s poverty. Before they reached the capital, an alert Jharkhand police rescued them at Delhi station. Four of them, including Rashi, were shown as adults after the traffickers produced birth certificates. Rashi was sent back to the home she had run away from because there was no long-term support for over 18s.These cases of girls aged 8 to 18 illustrate a growing pattern – of minors falling victim to unsafe migration routes or organized trafficking networks. Children who go missing in village police stations often resurface in the NCR, trapped by placement agencies, intermediaries or employers who treat them as bonded labour. Salaries are diverted to agents posing as relatives and the girls are denied phones, travel and contact with their families.On the eve of Women’s Day, TOI visited the IRRC facility run by Jharkhand Bhawan, where case files and counseling reports reveal how traffickers continue to expand their networks despite strict enforcement. They regularly fake Aadhaar and birth certificates to avoid arrest. Since 2015, IRRC has restored 1,077 Jharkhand children to their families or institutional care in tribal districts. Nodal officer Nachiketa said that 122 children have been returned so far in the current financial year (2025-26). 98% of all repatriates since inception are girls. Every year, 20-25 children are also rescued from other source states like Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Assam and Nepal. Most rescues take place across NCR — Gurgaon, Faridabad, Noida and Ghaziabad — although teams have traveled to UP, Haryana, Punjab and even Telangana, where six children were recently rescued from a biscuit factory.

Working out of a facility in Basant Kunj, the team keeps a ready place for children brought directly from families before taking them to the village. The 24×7 unit responds to calls from the district administration, police and citizens on its helpline 10582.“Case after case shows that social vulnerability drives children into trafficking,” Nachiketa said. “It’s not just poverty – single-parent homes, children left with siblings when parents migrate for work, or families that need childcare shadowing to survive make easy targets.” He said the trafficking chain is layered to avoid detection. Each trafficker earns around Rs 1 lakh from a child probably in a year, from the stage of acquiring the child through the chain of middlemen through agents to placing the child as a domestic worker,” he added. “The children get nothing – their wages go to the traffickers, they have no phones, no freedom and they are treated like bonded labour,” Nachiketa said.After recovery, the IRRC monitors each child for three months, ensuring schooling, skills and state-sponsored support. But 18-year-old girls often fall through systemic gaps before or during repatriation. “We also need support outside of shelters for young women who are legally adults but still very vulnerable,” Nachiketa said.The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, in its 2018 SOP on repatriation of trafficked children, acknowledged that state Bhavans can play a central role in Delhi-NCR rescues — a role Jharkhand Bhavan has played since 2015.For the IRRC team, Women’s Day brings no pause. “For us, these cases are not numbers,” Nachiketa said. “Every rescue is a life restored – a step toward empowering a girl and her family against trafficking networks.”