Orphage children sexually exploited, sold outside

FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

IMPHAL March 13: Police are confident of framing the charge sheet against Timothy Changsang who was arrested on the basis of complaints of two girls who are inmates of his North Eastern Children Home. This orphage is run at Rengkai in Churachandpur district. Some of the girls had been raped for a long time by this founder president of the home.

Two of the girls who are students of class ten had mustered courage to lodge complaints with the police. Five other girls who are in the orphage tagged along with them. For the time being they have not come forth with a complaint.

Churachandpur has a considerable number of orphage and most of them get fincial help from home and abroad. One owner with high foreign connections is doing a good service with schools and other impressive constructions.

Investigations by The Sentinel however indicate that most of the children are exploited. They are subjected to various forms of harassments and deprivations although fund flows uninterrupted from India and many foreign countries.

Sources said that the arrested founder is a sex manic. Local residents said that he had committed many sexual offences in the past. It is however yet to be seen whether they come forward with formal complaints. The ugly incident urgently calls for a review of the way these so called orphages are run. There is no supervision by the state government and it is deplorable. It is also a sad fact that some of the children are secreted to other parts of the country. In the past many persons had been bbed while smuggling out the children.

The modus operandi was that first these children would be taken somewhere at Cheni. From there they will be taken to different parts. Grown up girls are taken outside the country for white slavery.

Some of them maged to return to India with the money doted by some generous tourists. However many others are stuck up in the foreign countries. Since their wages are forfeited by traffickers they have no means of coming back to India.

The government has miserably failed to supervise the despicable way these children’s homes are run. Till the time of filing this report the government has not reacted at all. There is no official move to monitor and check the functioning of several other children’s home.