Arijit Bhattacharyya

LIFE STORY: Human trafficking

It was mid 2005,something new came in the market, called social media.
I was making a lot of social media friends. Unknown ones and known ones. While sending friend request to various different people, I got a friend from Vietnam. Jenny used to go to school; she was a 16 years old cute little girl. We often used to chat, usually about her study and her love for comics. She used to fan of few Asian characters.

Almost every week on Sundays we used to chat and she used to show what she eats and how is her family, she was from a poor family background, sometimes when she had chicken in meal, she used to share her love for chickens. I was becoming busy day by day, one day all of a sudden I saw her picture in her profile in very short dress, I asked her why she put that picture as her profile. She said, her uncle did that, he will be really angry if she removes it. I was asking her what kind of uncle will put a picture like that, she didn’t reply me back properly, and she said it’s complicated.

Responsibility was increasing day by day, number of student’s and number of works is growing and I was paying more money to some local goons as “Chanda”. After a month I opened the social media, and I saw Jenny send me few texts, it was about her friendship for me, she used to call me “Ari from Indu”, and few lines about her family, that she have to save her family and she have to earn money. I replied her back if she will not study more and what type of job she is looking for, after few weeks, she replied me back in chat engine that she will never be online again; her uncle is taking her some other part of the country to sell her. Her last text was – “I’ll never forget you Ari from Indu, life became different for me, I’ll never come back again in to my family, I’ll miss my parents and brothers, you do well in life, make more games, please make a character which looks like me.”

I lost Jenny after that. While working hard, till date I remember her words, I remember how poverty takes away a girl from family, I had no power to do anything, I tried to go to Indian police, they couldn’t help me, today I am asking my own soul, did I really tried hard to save her? May be if I could give more time to her I could know her address, may be that helped to find her? She asked for her character, we never did that. Do we know how many girls lose their dignity and how much human trafficking happens around the world? I felt helpless that time, in due course of time, I never even felt for sharing this small little girl’s story. Shame on me, I didn’t act like a human. It’s not that I never thought of going to Vietnam and search for her, unfortunately that social network site stopped working, they shut down, and I don’t have her any other details.

It’s not about anything related to business, but sharing a real life story of a little girl who lost everything and as a human I couldn’t save her. I did a drawing to show my anger, that's not enough.

Disclaimer: This is a personal blog, narrating my personal entrepreneurial journey. While on this long journey, I have come across different people, companies and unexpected quarters; each of whom have helped shaped my life. My writing is an attempt to reflect and capture some of the moods and emotions that have occurred over the last two decades. Kindly excuse any grammatical errors, typos or mistakes of any kind. This blog is written from the heart and is purely an expression of my experiences.


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