Jaipur: A 14-year old girl, sold as a child bride to a 40-year-old man, was rescued from this city on Thursday.
The girl, who hails from a remote village in Dholpur district, has been sent to the city’s government shelter home after a medical examination.
According to the minor girl’s statement before the police, she was married off to a 40-year old man for Rs 3 lakh by her mother’s live-in partner in December last year.
Her husband belongs to a different village in the same district.
The incident took place when she came to stay with her mother who had moved in with the man a few years ago.
There she was constantly assaulted by her mother’s lover who called her a “liability”.
He then sold her off to a 40-year-old man who married her.
After her marriage, she was constantly subjected to verbal and sexual asault by her husband. Not only was she made to do the entire household chores, she would be repeatedly raped by the man and tortured if she resisted.
Also, she was publicly shamed and mentally harassed by her husband and in-laws for failing to conceive. Unable to bear the torture, she had made several futile attempts to run away from the house but finally succeeded this week.
After escaping from her in-laws house, she reached Jaipur. On receiving information about a girl wandering aimlessly in the Jawahar Circle area, activists from Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) founded by Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi rescued her.
They then took the girl to Jawahar Nagar police station and registered an FIR.
The police have registered a zero FIR under Section 5 & 6 of POCSO and 376 of IPC. They are also looking into the prospect of invoking relevant sections of trafficking laws as the minor girl was sold and trafficked to a different location.
Manish Sharma, director of Bachpan Bachao Andolan said: “This incident highlights the plight of victims of child marriage and the pain they go through early in their life. It is high time that child marriage is looked at as a major crime rather than an acceptable social practice”.
