[NAME CHANGED] Parul hides her face in Proshanti, a shelter managed by the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association (BNWLA) in Dhaka, the capital. She was married at 14 years old, but her husband abandoned her when she became pregnant. She left the baby with her parents when her aunt offered to find her a job in Dhaka. The aunt instead brought her to Kolkata, India, and sold her to a brothel in Sonagachi, the red-light district. Parul was forced to become a sex worker under the name ‘Puspo’, an Indian name that made it difficult for her to be identified or located. She was later sold to another brothel, where she was arrested in a police raid. When it became clear that Parul was a Bangladeshi victim of trafficking, she was sent to a local women’s shelter, where she learned she was HIV-positive. After a year and a half, she was sent to the Proshanti shelter in Dhaka. There, she is learning tailoring and embroidery skills and receives antiretroviral (ARV) medications. She is uncertain where she will go when she leaves Proshanti; she says that she cannot go home. In October 2009 in Bangladesh, children and women remain highly vulnerable to trafficking, sexual exploitation and physical abuse – a situation exacerbated by poverty, entrenched gender inequality and increasing inequalities between rural and urban populations. Domestic and international trafficking are common, with many children being sold into bonded labour or brothels. Violence against women is also widespread: In a 2005 World Health Organization (WHO) survey, 40 per cent of Bangladeshi women reported physical abuse by their husbands, and 43 per cent reported sexual abuse by husbands. An additional 20 per cent of rural women reported abuse by non-partners, including fathers, relatives and teachers. Girls are especially vulnerable to abuse; some 64 per cent of brides are under the legal age of 18 at marriage, and child brides suffer higher rates of physical and sexual violence. Though dowr