NEW DELHI: Eight girls all in their 20s, along with a minor, escaped from a shelter home in northeast Delhi’s Sanskar ashram home on the intervening night of December 1 and 2. Till today, they remain untraced. Victims of trafficking and pushed into flesh trade, the girls were rescued from G B Road and sent to Sanskar ashram — a child care institution (CCI) in March. But this home was not meant for girls their age. Working as a security guard apprentices at the GTB Hospital, the girls dreamt of a future, which a CCI cannot offer.
This is not the first time girls have escaped from this or for the record other homes in the city. Though the authorities did not provide the exact numbers, they confirmed similar cases in the past too. The recent events point to the dismal state of rehabilitation programmes here, say experts. “These homes are being treated as dumping grounds. Rescuing is easy but what comes after is the main task. There is no proper framework for rehabilitation, which leads to frustration among these victims. In this case, these girls should not have been kept in an institution meant for children,” said Rishi Kant from Shakti Vahini, an NGO that works towards rescuing trafficking victims.
The CCI caters to children below 18 years of age. It is neither equipped to cater to adults nor to rehabilitate them of the trauma they have undergone. In the absence of any blueprints for rehabilitation, survivors often do not see how their life would pan out at these homes. In the recent case, a counsellor at Sanskar Ashram, who was interacting with the girls up till few days before their escape, said they were eager to get jobs and turn their lives. But the state’s lacunae in planning probably left them disillusioned.
“The vocational programmes that we have here are meant for children. These girls were around 21 and had different needs and demands. We were trying that they get jobs soon but nothing concrete could happen. We had written to the Juvenile Justice Committee (JJC) several times to shift them to after-care homes for adults,” said an official from the Delhi Women and Child Development (WCD) Department.
Age and financial autonomy, which drive adulthood, are paid little heed to in policy making. The failure to come up with a need-specific rehabilitation plan ails the current system. “If I am in such an institution where there is nothing to do and even if the street offers a lot of challenges, I will still run away. I will at least be free to struggle.
There should be separate policies and designs for different types of rescues. Rehabilitation plans should be made in consultation with the victims. Currently, agencies are not willing to take decisions. There is no convergence between departments and schemes are being implemented in isolation,” said Mohd Tarique, Project Director, Koshish, which is a field action project of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).
Koshish, which has been roped by the Delhi government and the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) to conduct an audit of 21 CCIs in Delhi, has earlier conducted shelter home audits in other states and was responsible in exposing the Muzaffarpur shelter home case in Bihar. The capital has no separate policy for rehabilitating victims of trafficking. According to the Supreme Court order in 2001, a task force in each state was to look into a rehabilitation plan. However, the committee in Delhi has not had any meeting till date, said its members.
“Delhi is the destination where girls from places such as West Bengal, Assam, Jharkhand, and Nepal are being brought and pushed into prostitution but the state government has no policy framework, which leads to frustration among these victims,” said Kant, who is also a member of the state task force.
DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal has been pushing for such a policy where the main focus will be to help the victims in getting professional placements for some years and a draft was framed in March.
Curious case of missing girls
On December 1 night, nine girl inmates went missing from Sanskar Ashram shelter home in east Delhi’s Dilshad Garden
After the incident, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia suspended two senior officials of the WCD department
On Thursday, DCW Chief Swati Maliwal summoned Delhi’s Deputy Commissioner of Police, asking him to appear before it on Dec 18