By Soph Stephens | Digital Manager
Garima, 25, belongs to a Scheduled Tribe family in a remote village in Madhya Pradesh, where daily wage labour is the family's only means of survival and access to government services is limited. It is exactly this kind of isolation that traffickers prey upon.
In December, Garima's family made a call that no parent wants to make. Their daughter, they told the Jan Sahas helpline, had been taken away days earlier by a woman she didn't know, under the promise of good work. What the family later discovered was far worse: Garima had been sold for 3 lakh, and the same amount was now being demanded to secure her release. When they first tried to file a police complaint, they were turned away — leaving them anxious, helpless, and without a clear next step.
The case was far from straightforward. Garima had been trafficked across district lines, her phone had been switched off, cutting off contact, and the perpetrators were reportedly using threats and false stories to manipulate the family further. With the local complaint initially unregistered, every part of the process demanded careful, persistent coordination.
The Jan Sahas team moved quickly. Field visits helped piece together the details and confirm Garima's location. The team then guided her family through the formal process of filing a complaint, accompanying them to district police offices to ensure their testimony — and Garima's own account, once she was reached — was properly recorded. Throughout, counselling sessions with Garima helped the team understand her wishes, ensuring her voice remained central to a process that was, ultimately, about her safety and her choices.
Through sustained field-level support, close coordination with law enforcement across multiple police stations, and continuous counselling for both Garima and her family, Garima was rescued.
Cases like Garima's are a stark reminder of how quickly vulnerability can be exploited, and how much patient, coordinated effort it can take to make a rescue possible. They also underline why Jan Sahas's work — bridging the gap between families and the authorities meant to protect them — matters so deeply for communities with the least access to support.
Thank you for making rescues like Garima's possible.
By Soph Stephens | Digital Manager
By Soph Stephens | Digital Manager
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