Shanti, 19, had never stepped outside her village of Thakarnagar in India's West Bengal state. So when her best friend invited her to board a bus to a neighbouring village to meet some 'relatives', she readily agreed.

Instead, the friend took her to the railway station, where they boarded a train for a 2,000km ride westwards to the bustling metropolis of Mumbai.

Within 48 hours, Shanti found herself sold to a brothel owner in the notorious red light area of Kamathipura.

Eight months later, scarred and broken by sexual abuse, she was rescued by police and transferred to Liluah, the West Bengal state government's remand home in Howrah. But by then, she was five months pregnant and HIV-positive.

Grim examples

Nupur from Murshidabad was trafficked into prostitution at 14. Though rescued by police in 1995, her actual 'release' from custody only happened this year.

For the past seven years, she has been a captive of the state that took little interest in her plight and allowed her to languish at Liluah while her case dragged on in the courts.

Shanti and Nupur are grim examples of what happens to hundreds and thousands of nameless victims of the highly profitable business of prostitution.

Whether coerced, duped or abducted into the flesh trade, these women and girls seldom escape the clutches of pimps and brothel owners and are often doomed to lives of sexual slavery.

Even when rescued and shifted to welfare homes for rehabilitation and reintegration into society, stigma and rejection by their families often force them back into prostitution.

Shanti and Nupur were lucky that a Kolkata-based non-government organisation called Sanlaap (dialogue) intervened with a novel approach to rehabilitation and social mainstreaming.

Sanlaap, which has been campaigning against organised sexual exploitation of children and women, runs a psychological rehabilitation programme for children and young women rescued from prostitution and provides services in mental health and occupational training.

Guiding principle

Shanti and Nupur were shifted from the state remand home to Sneha, the NGO's shelter in Kolkata, where they were embraced with warmth and acceptance, the first step towards true and meaningful rehabilitation.

'Help them heal themselves' is the guiding principle of the home, says Sanlaap Executive Director Indrani Sinha.

The home strives to be one where the women and girls can begin to take stock of what they have been through, recognise that they are not responsible for what happened to them and thereby be rid of self-blame or guilt.

With patience and tenderness, the Sneha family of social workers and counsellors draw out the girls and interact with them on various mental health and behavioural issues, including those related to substance abuse and HIV.

At present, Sneha is home to 35 young women and girls who are discovering that life can offer tranquility and opportunities. Laila, one of the counsellors, says there is a lot of denial and self blame when the disturbed girls first come.

''We try to encourage them to think and reflect on the issues that are important to them through a process of supportive-expressive' therapy, wherein we create a supportive environment through rapport building,'' she explains.

Powerful voice

For sero-positive girls like Shanti, the home has started an HIV care and support group known as 'Asha'. Initially, the group functioned as a space where the girls who are living with HIV could talk about their health and treatment, get information and help newer members come to terms with

their status.

Now the group has become a powerful voice, campaigning through skits for the right of HIV-positive persons to care and support, and to protection from discrimination. The skits also touch on the demand for younger girls in prostitution, fuelled by the thinking that customers are less likely to get HIV from them.

Shanti, now one of the leading voices of the group, has also time and again come out strongly against forcible testing of trafficked victims.

She has big plans for her daughter, who is almost three years old. ''I want to send her to a good school. I have a lot to prove, I want to show people that even a girl like me can have a life in spite of everything.''

Acceptance and re-integration into the family is an important part of rehabilitation. "To sensitise the families of the girls who were awaiting restoration and are living with HIV, the programme has initiated a family counselling component whereby guardians and other family members are

educated on care and support of positive people", said Roop Sen, a veteran activist with Sanlaap.

Sanlaap started a vocational training programme at the home in 2001 that has helped give training and jobs to survivors of trafficking and the sex trade. ''A girl, even after restoration back to her home in the provinces, can make garments upon local orders and can even rely on self-employment,''

Roop says.

100,000 prostitutes

Take the case of Piya, 19, who came to Sneha when she was just 11 years old. Today, Piya is employed as a block-printing trainer at its vocational training centre.

For her, a childhood spent in the environs of a red light area brought realisation early in life that she was different from other children. She vividly remembers that her mother seemed to have temporary 'husbands' -- all of whom would beat, abuse and exploit her -- but now takes comfort in escaping the risk of second-generation prostitution.

Sanlaap also runs a hostel in the city for working women, and it now houses 17 young women who have found suitable employment.

According to figures compiled by Sanlaap, Kolkata alone is home to an estimated 100,000 women and children in prostitution.

''Women and girls are tricked into prostitution by their 'husbands' or trafficked with the promise of jobs. Once in prostitution, they are under the control of the commercial associates of prostitution and the mafia,'' observes Sinha. - IPS