KARACHI- Poverty forced a woman to sell her juvenile daughter into prostitution, The Nation has learnt on Friday.

Twelve-year-old (K), currently residing at the Ansar Burni Trust, confessed that she worked as a prostitute in Jhelum after her real mother sold her to a man for Rs 100,000. She said that her mother, Allah Rakhi, married one Shaukat in Lahore, after getting divorce from her first husband, the father of the ill-fated K.

“About one year back, my mother sold me to a woman, Parveen, who ran a brothel in Jhelum. When I resisted this inhuman act, my mother tortured me severely and later handed me over to Parveen”, the girl told.

Initially, K thought that she had been sold to work as a housemaid but such delusions subsided quickly when she began to be assaulted by unknown men daily despite her tender age. Whenever she refused to fulfill the evil desires of Parveen’s clients, she was subjected to severe physical torture even by her own mother. One day, K managed to flee from the brothel with a view to reach Lahore, where her real father was working as vendor, but mistakenly boarded a Rawalpindi-bound bus.

In Rawalpindi she met some philanthropists and told them her tale of woe. They arranged a lawyer for her and consequently produced in the court of the judicial magistrate, who ordered to send her to Dar-ul-Aman, Rawalpindi, where she is presently living.

The police have not, so far, registered a case however the Ansar Burni Trust is looking for accused Parveen, who was incidentally arrested a few days back, for her involvement in some others cases, but was later released.

The ill-fated girl further that there was another underage girl forcibly serving as prostitute at Parveen’s brothel. Fahad Burney of the Ansar Burney Trust has appealed the Punjab government to take immediate steps to rescue the second girl being subjected to inhuman treatment in Parveen’s custody. He further said that his organisation was looking for Javed, the father of ‘K’.
Source: The Nation
Date:8/16/2008