While I am writing this I am in utter fury. Last night I was watching the Ross Kemp Extreme World program and I feel many emotions; sadness, disgust, anger, empathy and I also feel frustrated. Like many of you I am of Indian origin and I just cannot believe the police can be bribed and are involved in the trafficking of young girls in India. Now, if you didn’t see the program it is a new series on Sky 1 called Extreme World and in this particular episode Ross travelled to the big Indian cities to explore how girls as young as 9 are stolen from villages and sold for sex. The police don’t help these girls and if they threaten to run away or argue against the people that stole them they are killed. Even if they do get back to their parents somehow they are shunned because of the shame. One man even admitted to killing 400-500 girls.
During the whole program I had controlled my tears but at that point I let go. I felt ashamed to be from that part of the world. Even though my parents are from East Africa I am basically Indian and that is my heritage. I cannot begin to fathom how I would feel if I was sold for sex at 9, and paid a mere equivalent of £200 just because I was a virgin. I could not also imagine how I would feel if I had a daughter and she was taken from me. Then I had gone to the police and they refused to help me.
I know it happens across all of the world and probably my writing this blog wont help or change anything but I am reaching out to you INDIA as a nation – don’t let this happen anymore. Police can you stop being corrupt and return all these daughters to their families. A film is due to release, directed by one of India’s finest off beat film makers Nagesh Kukunoor and the film is called Lakshmi, the film talks about the issue of women being sold into the sex trade. I want everyone to watch it and take a stand.
I am planning on contacting charities to see if I can help them at all – who’s with me?
Priya Mulji
priyamulji.com 
I heard people talking about this morning at work and it was sad to hear. I only caught snippets of the conversation whilst waiting at the coffee machine. It’s a disgrace and you’re right. An utter shame that governments, the local police etc do nothing to discourage the pain and torment that these young girls have to go through. Don’t programs and companies like Sky do anything to chase this up? It’s easy to turn a blind eye, we do it all too often but you’re right. Something needs to be done! Recently Bill Gates of Microsoft fame and his wife made India Polio Free, perhaps I will get in touch with him by means as to reach out to his humanity and raise the awareness.
I’m with you. We all know it happens but to see it documented in Ross Kemp’s programme and hear about the individual stories and statistics made it all the more real.
Being a writer from an Asian newspaper definitely puts you in a good position to help publicise this issue further so I’m really happy that you have. As we’ve seen, media attention seems to be one step in triggering change and pushing people towards action.
I will also join you in approaching charities as I’m sure their insights will highlight the depth of the issue further.
What also angers me is the huge divide between the poor and the rich. When Ross Kemp stated the huge number of millionaires in India, my heart sank further. With a country full of wealth, what are the rich doing to help their fellow Indians? I’m not putting blame on them because I’ve never lived in India so I don’t face brutal poverty every day. But I would like to know what is being done and by whom.
Bollywood is also a powerful influence in India and around the world so I’m glad a movie is being shown about trafficking. I hope it addresses the deeper parts of the issue and highlights the great need for change with some solutions. I wonder how much Bollywood does apart from this movie? Do the actresses and actors push for change? If not, why not? It’s all well and good having escapism now and again but we can’t escape this brutal trafficking of young children forever.
With great power comes great responsibility. If I had any influence over Bollywood, I would demand for all actors and actresses to publicise the police corruption while in India or other countries when promoting their movies and themselves. They can’t live in fear over the mafia forever. More people generally need to stand up together as a whole community. We saw what Ross Kemp’s crew did while there. They were just outnumbered unfortunately.
This is just my initial response. I know this is a complex issues so I will carry on trying to understand it more and help in any way I can.
Let me know how you progess with dealing with this issue further.
Thanks for writing the article xxx
I started looking into this and found Ross talking about slavery and his experiences :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25771586
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I’m with you. I can’t believe Ross met that man and let him live! Wtf! This has to stop. Perhaps a systematic military pruning of that side of the underworld? Blogging wont help.