Odisha: 13 teenagers rescued from traffickers

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Thirteen teenagers, including two girls, have been rescued from the railway station in Berhampur while allegedly being trafficked from Odisha, an NGO claimed on Sunday. The children aged between 14 and 16 years are from Ganjam, Gajapati and Kandhamal districts. They were waiting to go to Goa, Surat, Bengaluru and Mumbai, where they would have worked as daily labourers.

The teenagers, who were rescued in past three days, were produced before the district child welfare committee (CWC) on Saturday and their parents will be counselled, Kamala Kanta Nayak of the Society for Children (Soch), an NGO, claimed. Most of them are school dropouts. The rescued children could not give much information on the identity of the traffickers, said Nayak.

He claimed 34 children have so far been rescued by the volunteers of his organisation from Berhampur railway station during the current month. Lack of awareness and poverty are some of the reasons for which they go to out of the state to work as labourers, he said.