At least 23 children - most of them young girls - have been rescued from an alleged prostitution ring in northern India.
They were found in a privately-run shelter in Uttar Pradesh state after one of the girls managed to escape and complain to the police.
The home in northern India had been a charitable shelter for children without stable families. But last year its owners lost their license. The shelter should have closed.
Instead, according to the police, its owners kept girls captive, renting them out for sex.
Children being forced into prostitution is relatively common in India. The government’s National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights says care homes often hide it.
Al Jazeera's Andrew Thomas reports from New Delhi, India.
