Naga children lured with false promises

Despite numerous shocking cases widely reported in both national and local media, where conmen and their accomplices were caught after luring children from poor economic background with free hostel and educational facilities and also young girls with big and rosy promises of jobs in cities, the trend continues.

The reality, as per past cases revealed, that most of the children were either used as child labour or as inmates for the bogus religious charitable institutions that seek financial support from donors.

Children as young as five were kept in so-called homes run by ministries without proper accommodation or decent food; a far cry from the rosy promises.

Children were also not given education as promised but made to work for their living while the promoters sent pictures of their ‘ministries’ to make money.

Incidentally, a large number of such children are from the north eastern states such as Assam, Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland.

In the latest case, on March 14,2013 forty nine(49) children(aged between 4 and 14) including 27 girls from the north east including Nagaland, were rescued by Police in Rajasthan from the clutches of a so-called pastor Jacob John.

A television news channel, had shown numerous bottles of liquor found in the illegal orphanage in Jaipur.

The fraud pastor had collected the children from various state of the north east with the usual promises of free hostel and educational facilities.

It has also been widely reported in the past, that some foreigners conned many young girls from the north east including Nagaland with promises of free training and lodging for jobs in beauty parlours.

In reality, in most cases, the young girls are given “in -house training” as waitresses in bars or massage parlours.

This was the case when on November 23,2011 this newspaper published reports of seven Naga girls from Nagaland (aged between 17-25),who were lured to Chennai by a Korean national, posing as a God-sent man with promises of excellent job opportunities.

The girls eventually ended up working in massage parlours and a hotel-cum-bar and lured into prostitution.

Last year in June 2012, 179 girls were trafficked from many places including eight from Nagaland, to Goa with promises of good jobs but were eventually used for commercial sexual exploitation.

On June 9,2011, some 19 children among the 25 children were rescued from Detheaba Children Home in Maharashtra’s Karjat district by officials of the Tamenglong Child Welfare Committee, Manipur Social Welfare Department and Indigenous Women and Children Foundation (IWCF).

On January 25,2010, some 76 northeast children were rescued from an unregistered children’s home in Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu.

Earlier on July 31,2009, police rescued 22 child labourers hailing from Nagaland’s Samziuram village in Peren district in Nagaland when they were allegedly being used for menial jobs.

The 22 children aged between six and 14 years were kept in an orphan children’s home in Miryalaguda in Nalgonda district run by EARE and Harvest India, promising them food and quality education.

It is reportedly learnt, that some Asian foreigners were still coming to Nagaland posing as missionaries, seeking young boys and mostly girls and promising them training so as to get employment either in cities or abroad.