The window available to identify and assist the huge number of trafficked children passing through Old Delhi station is fleeting. Yet, as India ramps up rescue efforts, there is real progress
Half a million passengers pass through Old Delhi railway station each day. Some of those hurrying out of its arched facade are children who will be sold to sweatshops or brothels by their adult companions. As the trains roll in – about 250 of them a day – and people fill the concourse, Ajish has just minutes to spot trafficked children before they leave the station and melt into the throng outside.
Amazingly, this small window of opportunity is all he and his team at the Childline India Foundation need to rescue 90-100 children from the clutches of traffickers each month.
Today, Ajish has his sights set on the Kalka Mail from Calcutta, which glides into platform 11. A passenger has called Childline from the train to say that four boys in his compartment look out of place and unhappy. When the Childline team based at the station board the train and find the boys, they approach the “uncle” travelling with them. He pushes his way through the crowd and flees.
Ajish takes the boys to the Childline office on platform one and sits them down for tea and biscuits.
“Uncle [the trafficker] told my parents I am going to get a good job and free jeans,” says 10-year-old Anil Paswan*, “and enough money to send money home to my parents every month. They can buy food for my brothers and sisters with that money.”
Ajish hears a similar story every day. The reality is that “Uncle” was planning to sell him to an employer who would make him slave 12-14 hours a day in filthy conditions at a roadside food stall, factory, or garment sweatshop.
Indian railways carry 25 million passengers daily. But they are also a fulcrum for human trafficking.
Three years ago, the Childline Foundation – set up under the auspices of the Ministry for Women and Child Development – started collaborating with Indian Railways with the aim of rescuing children in transit. That meant training railway staff, who are the first to set eyes on the children and most likely to detect something amiss.
“We began training the entire railway system – the porters (who board the train as it arrives), ticket collectors, catering staff, platform staff, platform vendors, sweepers. All of them are taught to be alert, to look out for telltale signs. That’s the only way to intercept children en route, to catch them before it’s too late,” says Dr Anjaiah Pandiri, executive director of the foundation.
Railway personnel are trained to look out for children who appear distressed or confused; children dressed more shabbily than the adults accompanying them, or speaking a different dialect; children who give limited, repetitive, or evasive answers about where they are going; and any kind of mismatch between the children and the adults with them.
Neeraj Kapoor, who runs a kiosk selling books and newspapers on platform one, has dialled up his antennae. “Once you know the signs, it’s not hard to detect trafficked children. It’s just that earlier we weren’t paying attention. Earlier, I had no idea the problem was so serious,” he says.
In 2016, a total of 8,132 cases of human trafficking were reported across India, an 18% jump from the 6,877 cases reported in 2015, according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
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