Central to the light-hearted OTT film Kathal is the fight to save missing girls in Uttar Pradesh. The protagonist while searching for a ‘stolen’ kathal or jackfruit of a local politician stumbles upon a racket for trafficking young girls.
It’s a film close to the heart of the women and child development ministry as one of the biggest challenges it faces is to ensure this reckless and random trafficking of young girls and women stops. Picked up and lured into the flesh trade because of poverty, stopping women’s trafficking is now a priority of the government, especially with its focus on women’s empowerment.
The initiative comes under the Nirbhaya Fund, and over the past few years, the district police units have been sensitised to make certain that they are quick with their response in case there are alerts of possible trafficking of women and girls. There are over 25,000 officers per district to ensure forensic analysis in case of any such alert. The most important issue is alerting the railway stations as trains are used frequently to ‘transport’ girls.
The most successful have been the measures at Konkan Railways where 980 train stations have been sensitised and equipped to deal with any possible transport of girls for the flesh trade. Konkan Railways is an important segment as one of the top zones in the country where trafficking of girls is high comprises Goa, Mumbai, and Hyderabad.
But the Eastern Railways segment is critical too as this is where flesh trade is rampant in states like Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal. An official in the ministry said, “We don’t want to make this a political issue, but we need more cooperation from state governments as well.”
The government is reworking the anti-women’s trafficking bill which it hopes to clear soon. This is an amended version of the 2018 bill which was passed in the Lok Sabha but not in the Rajya Sabha. While the 2018 bill dealt with trafficking, rescue, protection, and rehabilitation of victims, the latest version includes offences taking place outside India. This is an acknowledgment of the fact that the trafficking of women outside India is rampant. The bill also involves the National Investigation Agency in its probes.
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