Best Investigative Broadcast Story of the Year 2014: Mumbai Press Club: RedInk Awards

‘Girls In Bondage’ is an investigative report which exposes how minor girls from poor and tribal areas of India are trafficked and sold in cities as forced labour and forced brides. With the help of hidden camera where necessary and extensive interviews, the documentary shows how young girls are recruited by ruthless agencies and subsequently sold into a life of modern day slavery and made to work as bonded labour in middle-class urban families. Through detailed investigation, hard-hitting reportage and interviews with the traffickers the documentary also exposes the modus operandi of the traffickers and the route taken by them to traffic the girls. The documentary is filmed in real time as the story unfolds. It traces the search of a mother for her daughter who was trafficked 2 years ago. Along with the mother, the camera travels to police stations and to raids at illegal placement agencies, records interrogations with traffickers until she is finally reunited with her daughter.

The report simultaneously also tracks the life of a survivor of trafficking, who due to lack of proper rehabilitation and counseling is struggling to make ends meet and is at the risk of being trafficked again. This as she fights her case in court to get her trafficker convicted. Through the documentary the viewers not only understand the magnitude of this huge crime of selling girls but also journey along with the families and survivors through their most trying times. At a time when the Global Slavery Index report has come out with the embarrassing statistic of India having the maximum number of modern day slaves, this report not only exposes the crime but also looks at the way forward of rehabilitation of the survivors and bringing about stringent laws and policies to prevent this crime.

The report was done over a period of two months and in different locations. To successfully tell all sides of the story the reporter had to go undercover and expose how the traffickers operate, visit many illegal placement agencies and take the risk of filming on hidden camera the room in which trafficked girls were kept locked up.The reporter managed to expose one of the biggest trafficker in this business in the national capital ultimately leading to his arrest. The report also captured the untold story of what happens to trafficked survivors after they have been rescued. The lack of shelter homes and rehabilitation schemes pushes these girls to return to the same poverty they tried to escape ultimately leading many of them to be trafficked again.