Bangladeshi Woman Who Crossed Illegally into India Hopes for Repatriation After Overcoming Trauma
Bangladeshi Woman Who Crossed Illegally into India Hopes for Repatriation After Overcoming Trauma
A woman who crossed into India in 2020 now awaits a return to her home in Bangladesh, having recovered from postpartum psychosis and traumatic experiences.
In December 2022, a young woman was found by a Government Railway Police team on a long-distance train at Borivali. Disheveled and undernourished, she showed signs of mental illness. The woman, a Bangladeshi national, had been illegally trafficked into India three years earlier.
The team contacted Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation, a center for the mentally ill destitute in Karjat near Mumbai. There she was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis, a severe mental condition affecting new mothers. Now, at 22, she has nearly recovered and works as a support worker at the rehabilitation center. She hopes to return home to her five-year-old daughter.
The center has approached the Bangladesh High Commission to facilitate her repatriation and is waiting for authorities to process the request. An official at the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Mumbai confirmed that they have forwarded the relevant documents and are awaiting a repatriation order.
The woman’s journey began in Bangladesh, where she went through a divorce and was treated for postpartum psychosis. She eventually stopped taking her medication and wandered off, fleeing from what she perceived as a threat to her life. Her memories of crossing into India are vivid, recalling a man who promised to help her seek medical assistance. She described hiding under a fence and crossing the border when guards were not looking.
Once in India, she was taken to West Bengal, where she was confined with other women and brutally assaulted. She was forced into prostitution in Kolkata and Delhi but eventually escaped to a relative’s house in Pune, where she faced further assault.
At the Karjat rehabilitation center, she initially suffered from nightmares and anxiety attacks, symptoms of the trauma she endured. Her doctors, recognizing the impact of her experiences, chose not to delve further into her past to avoid triggering a relapse.
To trace her family in Bangladesh, the foundation contacted an NGO, Rights Jessore, and located her family near Ichamati College and Ichamati River in Jessore, a district known for human trafficking. Her father, a cycle rickshaw driver, expressed joy at knowing his daughter was found and hoped for a speedy repatriation process.
“I will miss the hills and the lake I used to visit here,” she said, emotional at the prospect of leaving the country that has been both a place of suffering and recovery for her.
