Open Menu

Dipti

2007 (Narrative date)

The Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that on any given day there were nearly 8 million people living in modern slavery in India. The GSI 2018 reports an emerging trend in northeast India where organised trafficking syndicates operate along the open and unmanned international borders, duping or coercing young girls seeking employment outside their local area in to forced sexual exploitation. Many women and girls are lured with the promise of a good job but then forced in to sex work, with a 'conditioning' period involving violence, threats, debt bondage and rape. 

Dipti* was forced to marry a man at a young age. She was subjected to physical violence by her in-laws and ran away back home. Dipti was then sold to a brothel and forced to provide sexual services.

Because … I want to help all those who need help, like God has helped me.’

I am 25 now. My mother died when I was 7 or 8. Maybe my aunt killed her with witchcraft. Soon after, I was married off to some man. My in-laws beat me and so I returned home. Some local boys convinced me to go away with them. I was so foolish. They sold me into a brothel in Mumbai. I was only rescued because the police thought I was a minor. Otherwise, I’d still be there. The police say they can’t find my home. I’ve got nowhere to go. I’m not angry. I just want to stand on my own feet and forget those times. I made a mistake once, but never again.

 

*name given

Narrative ‘GOD’ featured in the project ‘Another Me: Transformations from Pain to Power