The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : The `cynosure' of all eyes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 29, 2006

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

The `cynosure' of all eyes

Staff Reporter

HOPE BELIED: Weeping inconsolably for her daughter (not in picture) is Satyamma along with Andhra Pradesh Mahila Forum president K. Radha Mathews in Hyderabad on Friday.

HYDERABAD: A 20-year-old woman saved from trafficking and sent to a rescue home run by NGO Prajwala, might not have guessed that many people would come calling for her custody.

The NGO, fearing for her safety and security, has been refusing to produce her before those who have been calling to take her. However, on Thursday a woman Satyamma, accompanied by another NGO Andhra Pradesh Mahila Forum, called on Prajwala's office at Charminar claiming that she was her mother.

Prajwala staff said she would be taken directly to her parents' place at Suryapet.

Interested in job

"We will take her to her native place with two escorts for her safety and security. She wants to come back to the rescue home after meeting her family members as she wants to undergo vocational training and take up a job," Prajwala general secretary Suneetha Krishnan said. Dr. Suneetha Krishnan said the woman did not want to go back to her native place for the fear of being pushed into prostitution again. "She told us that she did not run away from home, but a woman relative brought her to the city on promise of a job and pushed her into trafficking."

When the Guntur police, after a raid, handed over the trafficking victim to an NGO Help at Guntur, there was pressure from various quarters to hand over the woman to them. Fearing for her safety, the NGO then sent her to us, Suneetha said. Dr. Krishnan maintained that she was getting threatening calls from one Bobby Reddy and Premalatha to handover the young woman to them. "We have a protocol to keep the confidentiality of the victim and not to show her to anybody unless we are satisfied with their credentials."

Meanwhile, Mahila Forum president K. Radha Mathews said that they were surprised that Prajwala did not even allow the mother to talk to her daughter. Satyamma said her daughter went away from home two months ago after an argument and she had been searching for her ever since. "I finally learnt that she was pushed into trafficking and was caught in a raid by Guntur police who sent her to Ongole. I was told that she was sent to a rescue home run by Prajwala."

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