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What happened
Investigators with International Justice Mission, a Washington-based aid group that fights human trafficking, had spotted “Chutki” (nickname for “little girl”), a young teen, while undercover looking for prostituted children. New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof accompanied the I.J.M. investigator (who wanted to remain anonymous for his own safety) into the alleys of the Sonagachi red-light district one evening, slipped into the brothel, and climbed to the third floor. And there were Chutki and three other girls in a room, with a pimp hovering over them. The girls were offered to the investigators who demurred but said they’d return.
Response and intervention
The Kolkata police agreed to raid the brothel to free “Chutki”. I.J.M. told them the location of the brothel at the last minute to avoid a tip-off from local police. Along with a carload of police, Mr. Kristof and the IJM investigator drove to the brothel and rushed inside to avoid giving the pimps time to hide Chutki or to escape themselves. With the I.J.M. representative in the lead, they hurtled up the stairs, brushed past the pimp and found Chutki and the three other girls in the same room where they had seen them before. Two female social workers from I.J.M. immediately began comforting Chutki, who police said was about 15 and looked terrified. They explained that this was a police operation to rescue her, and they helped her put on a robe for modesty’s sake. Then another of the girls in the room asked if she could be rescued — but a few days later. She explained that if she left now, the brothel-owners would blame her for the raid and possibly harm her grandmother, whose address they knew. Investigators told the girl that this chance might not come again. She dissolved into tears, wavered and then decided to come out. Then a third said that she wanted to escape as well. Next, the girls tipped off the police that the brothel-owner was in another building, arranging to sell a new girl named Raya for the very first time, either that evening or the next night. The police hurried off and returned with Raya, a wide-eyed girl of about 10 years. It appears the brothel had “purchased” Raya just a week earlier, after her own brother-in-law tricked her and trafficked her. If the raid had been delayed by a few hours, Raya might have faced the first of many rapes. With Raya was a 5-year-old girl who seemed to have been abandoned. Investigators drove the five girls to a police station to fill out paperwork so that they could move into shelters and receive schooling or vocational training. Raya, the 10-year-old who otherwise at that moment might have been enduring her first rape, was giggly and carefree as she pretended to drive the car. International Justice Mission http://www.ijm.org/ijm-rescue-operation-featured-in-the-new-york-times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/26/opinion/26kristof.html