India's child flood victims vulnerable to traffickers
Updated
![Human traffickers are taking advantage of vulnerable children in India's Bihar state. [AFP]](http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/img/news/base/india_floods_afp_150807.jpg?<BR> "Human traffickers are taking advantage of vulnerable children in India's Bihar state. [AFP]")
Human traffickers are taking advantage of vulnerable children in India's Bihar state. [AFP]
Human traffickers are targeting vulnerable children in India's flood-effected Bihar state.
Radio Australia's Karon Snowdon reports it appears to be going largely unchecked as authorities struggle to handle evacuation and relief operations.
The director of the New Delhi-based Save the Children Movement, Kailash Satyarthi, says Bihar is notorious.
"The trafficking of children from those districts were quite rampant even in the past," he said.
His volunteers in a town in Bihar rescued six children aged about 10 from a man taking them to West Bengal.
Once there, they would have been sold into forced labour in tea shops or possibly prostitution.
Kailash Satyarthi says he has asked for urgent action to protect children but with authorities fully engaged in rescue efforts, criminals are freer to operate.
"The trafficking is not (the authorities) priority.
"Unfortunately the army personnel and the police could not go to those remote areas where the traffickers have gone," he said.
Mr Satyarthi says traffickers are taking advantage of the human tragedy of the floods.
He says the children will are kidnapped for the purpose of forced labour, beggining and even prostitution.
Focus on flood rescue
Floodwaters are receding slowly yet hundreds of thousands of people might see no relief for another week, acccording to Bihar's disaster minister Nitish Mishra.
The Army has sent in more troops but operations are slow with vast distances and roads and bridges destroyed.
The Government hasn't called for international assistance beyond working with local and international non-government organisation's already in the country.
The Indian Red Cross Society's Bihar secretary, S.P. Singh, says the task the 1,000 Red Cross volunteers face is very difficult.
"Thousands of people are marooned and stranded.
"Thousands of people are without shelter, without food, without water," he said.
Air drops are being made to some of those in need.
Repair work to divert Nepal's Kosi River back to its normal course can't get underway until the end of the rainy season in October.
As one of India's most impoverished states Bihar faces the prospect of many months of misery even after the immediate crisis eases.
Save the Children Movement is mobilising volunteers to protect children.
They will watch at train stations and other areas where human traffickers might be identified with groups of children.
Kailash Satyarthi is not satisfied the authorities are doing enough.
"Unfortunately wherever the natural calamity of flood or drought or anything happens the children are the worst victims," he said.
"Children are more traumatised, children are more frightened.
"In this case the whole distribution of food and all those things are not really enough so far."
