'The World Cannot Sit By And Watch'
By Alex Crawford - Asia Correspondent
Immediate action from Britain is needed to help stop slavery in India, charities say, where around 250,000 women and children are being trafficked every year - many of them forced into the sex trade.
At meeting to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the UK's slave trade, campaign group Apne Aap warned that the problem is alive and well in India.
Ruchira Gupta, the group's founder and director, told Sky News: "The numbers are growing every year and the ages of the victims are going down each year.
"The world cannot just sit and watch this happening. Everyone has got to take responsibility and do something to stop this."
A quick tour of the red light area of Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) shows how bad the situation is.
The streets are lined with girls - mostly young ones - selling themselves.
But they will not see any of the money they earn. Instead, they will hand over most - if not all - of their meagre earnings to the male pimps who control them.
Many have been tricked into this life through false promises of marriage, others have been 'sold' - sometimes by their own families. All are trapped.
When Sky News producer Neville Lazarus went undercover posing as a customer, he found himself talking to a young girl who could not be more than 14 years old.
She offered her services for 80 rupees - the equivalent of about £1. She would stay with him for a whole night for 400 rupees (or £4.50).
When he prevaricated, she locked him in the room until he paid up, so desperate was she for the money - or so fearful was she of the consequences if she failed to hand over any cash to her pimp.
Apne Aap runs shelters in Kolkata that offer some respite from this life. They are positioned within the red light area.
You can see the girls walking the streets from the windows. But here the children of the prostitutes are given food and a bed for the night - and most importantly, protection from the sex trade outside.
Many of the shelters' guests are girls, young girls whose mothers still work the streets for a living and who desperately want another life for themselves once they reach puberty.
So, lessons are laid on and there are classes in, for instance, carpentry to try to give the children options, to encourage them to crush this cycle.
Angelie is in the shelter dropping off her eldest daughter, 12-year-old Kali.
She takes her youngest, three-year-old Puspa with her to work - out on the streets.
It is a horrifying thought but she believes her eldest child, nearing puberty, is much more at risk and needs protection.
Angelie herself was sold into prostitution many years before her children were born. Now, she is trapped in the trade by poverty.
"I have to take care of my parents and my two daughters," she says. "So I don't care (about my safety). I have to earn to live."
She might have four customers a night and if she is lucky earn around 200 rupees in all - that is just over £2.
For charity workers like Ruchira Gupta, it is a never ending battle - to find the funds to pay for shelters and training for these poor women; to raise awareness of this scourge of the new Millenium; to persuade the women themselves to have the courage to break out of this life.
So, celebration of the abolition of the slave trade? It is just a little premature according to Ruchira Gupta.
:: For more information of the charity please visit
http://www.apneaap.org
