'I don't want to go home'

Komal has a train to catch. She’s going home to Rangiya Junction, Assam.

It was a place she had vowed she would never return to, not even to visit her mentally disabled mother.

In Delhi, staying and working in the brothels of GB Road were preferable to going back to a home where she had been sexually abused. She says, the family to whom she is being returned includes her 17-year-old cousin who allegedly raped her several times when she was just 10 years old. “I don’t like to see the face of my [cousin] brother. I despise him,” Komal says. He often beat her and threatened to kill her mother if she tried to stop him. Once, he hit her with something sharp, leaving a stubborn mark on her forehead.

“Hekarone mur ghor jabo monn nai. Moi kiman bar koisu hihotok [This is the reason why I don’t want to go home. I told them several times too],” says Komal referring to her interactions with the police. Despite this, the police put her on a 35-hour train journey to Assam, without any arrangements, not even a SIM card, to ensure she would reach safely, or be protected from further violence when she was home.

What Komal really needed were support services specific to the needs of minor and young adults who have been trafficked.

Komal (name changed) remembers she was climbing down a metal step ladder from her matchbox-sized room of roughly 4x6 square feet when the two police officers showed up at the brothel she was working and living in, earlier this year. These rooms are not visible to passersby; only the metal ladders are a giveaway that sex work is carried out here in Delhi’s infamous redlight district of Shradhanand Marg, colloquially known as GB Road.

She told them she was 22. “Kom o hobo parein..bhalke najanu moi [It could be less. I don’t know clearly],” Komal says in her native language, Assamese. She looks no older than 17, perhaps 18. Convinced that she was a minor, that day the police ‘rescued’ her from the brothel.

The didis (brothel owners) did not stop the officers, since they were unsure about Komal’s real age as well. They had instructed her to say she was older than 20, if asked, and that she was doing sex work “ apni marzi se [of her choice]”.

That statement rang true in Komal’s mind. She felt she had chosen to move to Delhi and do commercial sex work to be able to live independently. But her ‘choice’ followed a series of traumatic experiences, including being raped and trafficked as a minor, with no support systems to help her cope, recover, and find alternative paths.

When she told the police, she was at the brothel of her own volition, they were not convinced. She even showed them a copy of her birth certificate on her phone and asked them to verify that she was 22 years old. But they dismissed her plea. That was the only piece of identification she owned, and it amounted to little. Komal was ‘rescued’ and taken to a police station and counselled for what felt like two hours to her. She was then sent to a government shelter for minors where she stayed for 18 days. Komal was told she would be reintegrated with her family per due process, as it was believed that she was a minor.

At some point during her stay at the shelter, the police recovered her belongings from the brothel, including her clothes, two phones, and earnings of 20,000 rupees handed over by the didis .

“Authorities must ensure that minors are not re-trafficked. Priority must be given to the preference of the minor victims, whether they wish to join back the family or stay back at the shelter home. It must also be a priority to adequately counsel victims’ families before handing over custody,” says Utkarsh Singh, a Delhi-based Human Rights lawyer. He believes the Child Welfare Committee (CWC)—an autonomous institution formed under the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 —must ensure that rehabilitation procedures in cases like Komal’s are in accordance with the Act.

Komal’s village is in Baksa district of Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Region. This western region of the state, popularly known BTR, is an autonomous division and a proposed state, formed under the 6th Schedule of Indian Constitution.

Many in Komal’s village had seen videos of her being raped, filmed and circulated by her cousin. “My mama [maternal uncle and cousin’s father] would blame me for everything. He said I had lured his son. He would beat me mercilessly in front of my mother, even when she would weep and beg him to stop,” Komal recounts. With no help or end in sight, 10-year-old Komal would often resort to self-harm. “I would slice my hand with a stainless-steel blade to relieve myself of the intense anger and pain I was experiencing. I wanted to end my life.”

Among those who had seen the videos was Bikash bhaiya (brother) , a friend of the cousin. He approached her with what he called a ‘solution’.

“He told me to come with him to Siliguri [a nearby city] and join prostitution. [He said] I would be earning money at least and could take care of my mother too. He said it is better than staying in the village and getting raped, and my reputation slandered,” says Komal.

Within a few days, Bikash coerced the young child to run away with him. A 10-year-old Komal found herself trafficked to the brothels of Khalpara area in West Bengal’s Siliguri city. Under Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code 1860, human trafficking is defined as the unlawful act of using threats, force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power, or inducement to exploit another person for the sole purpose of prostitution, child labour, bonded labour, forced labour, sexual exploitation, among others. Section 5 of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA), 1956 penalises those who procure, induce, or take person(s) for the sake of prostitution purposes. For crimes against a “person's will or a child, the maximum sentence can extend to fourteen years or life.” According to the ITPA, “child” means a person who has not attained the age of 16.

Despite Bikash’s clear role in her being trafficked, with no formal complaint against him, it is unlikely he will ever face the full consequences of these laws.

Almost three years after she was taken to Siliguri, Komal was rescued from Khalpara by the police during a raid. She remembers being produced before a CWC court, and made to stay in a shelter for minors for about 15 days. She was then sent back home in an Assam-bound train unaccompanied—just as she would be, once more, in 2024.

Due process for trafficked children like Komal was not followed both times, in 2015 and in 2024.

The government’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on investigating crimes of trafficking for ‘ Commercial Sexual Exploitation ’ and ‘Forced Labour’ require the Investigative Officer (IO) to obtain a birth certificate, school certificate, ration card or any other government document to determine the age of the victim. If unavailable or inconclusive, the victim can be sent for “age determination test on the orders of the Court”. Also, the Section 34 (2) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012 , requires the Special Court to determine the real age of the child and “record in writing its reasons for such determination.”

Komal’s birth certificate was dismissed by the police officers who ‘rescued’ her in Delhi. She was never taken for her statutory medical examination Medico-Legal Case (MLC) , nor was she produced before the DM or CWC. No attempts were made to do a bone-ossification test to determine her real age.

If the consensus among authorities is that the victim should be rehabilitated or reintegrated with their families, it is the responsibility of the Investigating Officer (IO) or the CWC to ensure that “home verification is done appropriately” beforehand. Authorities must identify and record “acceptance and opportunities for the victim to reintegrate into society if the victim is sent back home”.

Under no circumstances should the victims return to the same workplace or get exposed to “situations of further risk.” Being sent back to Assam where she had been raped and trafficked, was in clear violation of this. No home verification was done; no one tried to find out more about Komal’s family or contact an NGO to support her so-called rehabilitation as a minor victim of sex trafficking.

Further, according to the government’s Ujjawala Scheme , victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation must be provided with “ immediate and long-term rehabilitation services and basic amenities/needs” including counselling, guidance and vocational training. Child counsellor Annie Theodore, who has experience in dealing with sex trafficking cases, also underlined the importance of psychosocial support in victims’ lives. “The biggest challenge is to continue counselling victims even after they are reintegrated back into society, or handed over to their guardians,” she says.

After her ‘rescue’ from Delhi’s brothels, Komal was counselled for two hours before a rushed process to rehabilitate her was initiated. Counsellor Annie asks, “how can someone who has suffered years of trauma recover in just two to three months of counselling sessions, or a couple of days in certain cases?” She adds that the system is harsh in expecting the victims to heal, recover and open up about their ordeal, mainly because they (agencies) want it.

Many experts believe that state agencies aggravate the fragile mental health of rescued victims, pushing them to either fall prey to trafficking again, or return to commercial sex work. “The constant questioning, and apathy makes the victims feel they are being forced to relive the trauma. Earlier, the traffickers, brothel owners, pimps, and other perpetrators, caused them harassment, but now the government agencies are doing the same,” Annie concludes.

The first time she was rescued, Komal couldn’t have been older than 13. The second time, she was 22, maybe; ‘rescued’ and made to leave Delhi against her wishes. In May 2024, she boarded the train to Assam—but did she reach safely? Will she live with her mother, or will she find herself in a different red-light area?

The story is part of a nationwide reporting project focusing on social, institutional and structural barriers to care for survivors of Sexual and Gender-Based violence (SGBV) in India. It is part of a Doctors Without Borders India supported initiative.

The names of the survivors and family members have been changed to protect their identity.