Jharkhand woman raped, forced to conceive a baby by placement agents in Delhi

A 30-year-old woman from Simdega district in Jharkhand was allegedly beaten up by owners of a Delhi-based placement agency when she refused to conceive and produce a child. The woman was later raped and impregnated by another placement agent. The survivor, who is now one-and-a-half-months pregnant, said that the placement agency owners planned to sell the child she gives birth to.

The matter came to light when two women, the one from Simmdega and a 40-year-old from West Bengal, escaped the placement agency and reach the office of Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on Thursday and narrated their ordeal.

A DCW team along with the Delhi Police raided the placement agency and arrested two agents. Six women, some of them pregnant, were also rescued by the team. The owners of the placement agency were arrested and an FIR was lodged against them.

In her statement to the DCW, the girl from Simdega said she was lured to Delhi by a trafficker named Virendra Sahu who promised her a job at the national capital. She was initially kept in the office of a placement agency at Shakurpur, where her phone and Aadhaar card was taken away. She was later taken to Arti Placement Agency at Nihal Vihar. The agency was run by Aarti and her husband Babu Raj.

The survivor said: "I was beaten up when I did not agree to conceive and produce children. I was raped for two continuous days by an agent, Baratu, and that made me pregnant," the victim said. She said she escaped when the agency owners were in a rush to take a pregnant woman to the hospital and forgot to lock the door.

DCW chairperson Swati Maliwal said, "The statement and prima facie evidence does indicate that the women were probably forced to get pregnant so that their children coule be sold. However, the claims can be confirmed only after the police completes its investigation."

Jharkhand IG (CID) Sampat Meena said, "We will send a team to Delhi to get the details of the case after which we will investigate the matter independently. This is a new type of case and we need to stop this illegal and inhuman practice immediately so that no more women are exploited."