YOUNG girls are being forced to work in Bangladesh's twisted brothels where they are beaten by cruel traffickers and fed steroids to look more womanly. Rupa said she was locked in a room for three days after arriving at Kandipara and beaten mercilessly when she tried to leave.
The young girl was also fed Oradexon, a cow steroid, to force her body to "develop" quicker so she looked older. Although such places and sex work are legal in the country, prostitutes are supposed to have State Magistrate-approved certificates to prove they are over A recent survey of sex workers, conducted by the Girls Not Brides charity, found almost half 47 per cent were former child brides forced into prostitution.
They are understood to be locked up in squalid brothels where they are at risk of physical and psychological abuse, as well as contracting HIV, until they can buy their freedom. Rupa, now 19, told the Telegraph: "I get scared when the men start forcing me to do things I haven't agreed to.
She was trafficked into the brothel aged just 11 and forced to marry a man in his 30s who she had never met before. I only felt pain. She soon fell pregnant and after her husband died in a work accident, her family refused to let her come home.
Although human trafficking can be punishable by death in Bangladesh, the madams in such brothels claim they are law abiding. And at 18 per cent, Bangladesh has the highest rate of marriages involving girls under the age of 15 anywhere in the world, according to UNICEF statistics.
