West Bengal: Trafficked girl becomes international child rights activist

Kolkata: An 18-year-old girl, who was trafficked from the remote islands of Sundarbans in West Bengal, is now an international child rights crusader and has been invited twice to speak at the United Nations.

Having met UN secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates, Anoyara Khatun is now a hero in her Sandeshkhali village in the North 24 Parganas district.

“Telling the stories from my village before an international audience and listening to stories from all over the world has made me more strong as an activist,” Khatun, who was once trafficked as a child domestic worker due to poverty, told this newspaper.

As a youth leader guided by an international NGO ‘Save the Children’, Ms Khatun now leads 80 groups of children, each having about 10-20 members who are fighting against evils like child marriage, trafficking, child labour, besides other issues related to health and education.

She said when she started raising her voice, the villagers did not take her seriously. “I faced a lot of criticism, but now things have changed. People have started listening to me,” the young activist said. Last year, she had attended the Sustainable Development Goals Summit at the UN and this year she represented the Children of India at the UN General Assembly.

Anoyara Khatun had also met many child activists from different parts of the world who like her had also suffered, but are now leading the fight for change in the society.

The youth activist described to this newspaper her meeting with Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi woman from Iraq, who is now the UN Goodwill Ambassador for dignity of survivors of human trafficking, reduced her into tears.