Guwahati: Two teenagers from Myanmar, rescued from a human trafficking network in Mumbai in 2009 itself, are still to be repatriated, with all efforts by the organisation that is sheltering the two girls failing to evoke any positive results.
The two girls, brought to a shelter home run by an NGO GOLD in Guwahati in August 2011, have been given ‘asylum seeker’ cards by the United National Commission for Refugees (UNCR) during the intervening period, but the government of India is still to act to send them back to Myanmar.
GOLD general secretary Dr Rajib Sharma, addressing a press conference here on Friday, said, ‘We have been persistently writing to various agencies, from the state government and police to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), but nothing has materialized.’
‘Our efforts drew the UNCR’s attention and their representatives visited the girls at our shelter home and gave them asylum-seeker cards, since the girls’ native place in Myanmar is currently marred by communal riots,’ he added.
The two girls, still in their teens, were rescued by Mumbai Police and a local NGO on September 14, 2009, and were initially kept at a shelter home in Mumbai.
They were sent to GOLD, which has a repatriation facilitation component, on August 27, 2011, so that the organisation could help in sending the girls to their home country.
The girls had entered India through Bangladesh with their family for medical treatment at Kolkata, from where they were lured with promises of marriage and work to Mumbai.
Dr Sharma said their efforts to send back the girls got them in contact with the victims’ families and the girls even spoke to their parents over telephone.
‘To add to our problems, the ailing mothers of the two girls and one sister showed up at GOLD, illegally entering the country and without any valid documents,’ he said.
He added, ‘Now we have five Myanmar nationals living in our shelter, without any valid documents, and our best efforts to send them back have failed so far.’
Dr Sharma informed the GOLD had sent its personnel to MHA in New Delhi, where the ministry officials said they knew of the case but high pendency of cases was delaying its disposal.
‘With no other means at our disposal now, we have approached the media to highlight the plight of these two teenagers and their mothers and another sister, who are currently sheltered in GOLD,’ he added. (UNI)
