This time last year along with ChildLine India we conducted a rescue operation at The New Raj Kamal Circus in Uttar Pradesh, north India. Twenty girls were freed from modern day slavery and sexual abuse (see the film on my post of 11th December). At the time another Indian NGO rather hijacked the legal action against the circus owner, Lakhan Chaudhary, who allegedly was himself raping the girls. It all went quiet and the NGO refused to reply to our enquiries about progress of the case. At the end of last year it emerged that nothing had been done and Chaudhary was still a free man.
Working with ChildLine we are now going to attempt to prosecute Chaudhary and 14 of the girls that we freed are willing to give evidence against him. These witnesses are much more relaxed and confident than they were a year ago and for the first time have just revealed a further tragedy to add to the catalogue of horrors from that circus. A seven year old Nepali girl performer allegedly had a kidney removed from her and she died shortly afterwards. Apparently her parents were summoned to the circus and paid off in return for their silence.
If proven, this will be the first case of organ theft that we have come across in relation to child trafficking to the circuses.
