Eleven women, including five minor girls, were rescued from a prostitution racket during a raid conducted in Dwarka by Dabri Police Station, South West District, Delhi. Acting on a tip-off and credible information provided by the Association for Voluntary Action (AVA), whose members had been posing as decoy customers to gather details of the racket, the rescue and raid team arrested eight customers and two persons suspected to be the brothel operators from the scene. The girls were trafficked from various states, including West Bengal, Assam and Uttar Pradesh, on the false pretext of better opportunities and employment. An FIR has been registered under Section 143(3) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 which deals with trafficking of persons.

“Used and unused condom packets were recovered, and 7 dogs were also found at the location. Shockingly, one minor girl was found hidden inside an almirah,” the FIR stated adding that the girls “were forced to stay at the premises under bonded conditions and were not allowed to leave freely.”

The house from where the brothel was being operated was locked from all sides, and the dogs were kept presumably to ensure that none of the girls could step out of the premises. During the rescue operation, when the girl was rescued from inside the cupboard, she was visibly shaken, scared and trembling. During counselling, the rescued girls revealed that they were kept under strict surveillance, were not allowed to step out at all, and were subjected to constant monitoring and control.

Elaborating on the rampant involvement of trafficked children in such rackets in the Capital, Manish Sharma, Senior Director, Association for Voluntary Action, said, “This incident is a reflection of the grave reality of the present. Children are lured from neighbouring states, trafficked and pushed into such heinous conditions. Law enforcement agencies have been acting promptly to rescue such children, but we must recognise that trafficking is an organized crime with deep roots so our strategy too needs to be organized and multipronged, and our investigations need to be time-bound. Unless all the accused are brought to justice and the law tightens its noose around them, such trafficking and exploitation rackets will continue to operate fearlessly.” Association for Voluntary Action (AVA) is a partner of Just Rights for Children, the country’s largest child rights network with over 250 NGO partners working across 450 districts to protect children from abuse, exploitation and trafficking.

To ensure that the evidence was solid and verifiable, members of the Association for Voluntary Action conducted a thorough investigation before passing on the information to the police. Based on detailed field reports, the team contacted the brothel operators while posing as decoy customers. Following initial conversations, the pimps sent photographs of the girls to the prospective ‘clients’, allowing them to choose, which conclusively confirmed the ongoing trafficking and prostitution racket. The team immediately alerted the Deputy Commissioner of Police, South West District, and the Special Police Unit for Women and Children, leading to the successful rescue operation and arrests.