Story By: Michael Leidig, Sub Editor: Alex Cope, Agency: Asia Wire Report

A schoolgirl who realised a little child had been kidnapped and then snatched her to safety has been asked to head a new anti-trafficking campaign in local schools.

The girl, Carolyn Malsawmtluangi, had been playing volleyball with friends in the north-eastern Indian state of Mizoram when she spotted the child with a woman who she assumed was the mother.

The little girl aged seven looked unhappy, and so Carolyn who is aged 11 asked her if she wanted to play volleyball with them.

But when the youngster returned home and learned on the news that a child matching the description of the little girl had been kidnapped from a neighbouring village, she suspected straight away that it was the girl she had tried to play with.

She managed to find the woman and child again, and attempted to talk to both to test whether it was indeed the kidnapped girl.

When she realised that they were not mother and daughter, she offered to watch the child so that the woman could run an errand in a nearby shop.

When she did so, the 11-year-old ran off with the younger girl chased by the older woman who even threw stones at them when she realised she had been rumbled, according to reports.

Malsawmtluangi said: “I carried the girl on my shoulders because it was faster. The woman threw stones at us but we managed to avoid them.”

A spokesman for the Mizoram State Council for Child Welfare, Khawlhrinj Lalhlupuii, said: “If Carolyn had not stopped her the trafficker would have simply disappeared with the little girl. She was very brave to understand the danger the child was in and to step in to save her. We plan to share her story in all schools in order to create an awareness campaign of the dangers of trafficking.”

The latest statistics from the crime bureau show there are two 6,000 victims of human trafficking in India every year with 50 percent of those children.

Carolyn’s mother Lalsangzeli said news of the honour was amazing and added: “We are very proud and very happy, now the entire village are going to celebrate my brave daughter.”

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