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Human Trafficking/Prostitution: Sid Harth

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Aug 15, 2009, 1:24:26 PM8/15/09

http://www.odanadi-uk.org/about-odanadi/trafficking/human-trafficking-a-definition.html

Human Trafficking: A definition

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (Trafficking
Protocol) was adopted in the year 2000 and came into force in December
2003.

Article 3 of the Protocol defines trafficking as:

“Trafficking in persons” shall mean the recruitment, transportation,
transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or
use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of
deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or
of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the
consent of a person having control over another person, for the
purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum,
the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of
sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices
similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended
exploitation set forth in sub paragraph (a) of this article shall be
irrelevant where any of the means set forth in sub paragraph (a) have
been used;

The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a
child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking
in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth
in subparagraph (a) of this article;

“Child” shall mean any person under eighteen years of age.
This definition outlines that trafficking covers not only the
transportation of a person from one place to another, but also their
recruitment and receipt so that anyone involved in the movement of
another person for their exploitation is part of the trafficking
process. Neither is trafficking limited to sexual exploitation only
for it could occur also for forced labour and other slavery like
practices. This means that people who migrate for work in agriculture,
construction or domestic work, but are deceived or coerced into
working in conditions they do not agree to, are also defined as
trafficked people. (Taken from: The Integrated Plan of Action To
Prevent & Combat Human Trafficking with a Special Focus on Women and
Children. 2006. Ministry of Women and Children, Government of India).
The government of India signed the Protocol on 12 December 2002. This
protocol both prevents and protects the victims of trafficking but
also punishes the traffickers.

Trafficking Facts and Figures

A 2005 study by UNIFEM (Sen, A. 2005: A Report on Trafficking of Women
and Children, UNIFEM) which interviewed victims of trafficking for
commercial sexual exploitation who had been rescued found that:

They were forced to service an average of seven clients a day. They
could not exercise choice with regards to wearing condoms or other
safe sex practices. 30% were suffering from a sexually transmitted
disease; 8% had contracted HIV

20% were children aged below 18 years of age, the majority of which
had been trafficked at a very young age.

57% of them had been previously arrested by the police but were not
offered any support or rehabilitation so were forced to return to
brothels

60% were also victims of child marriage

45.6% had their first sexual experience under the age of 16

22% had been working in a brothel when they were aged less than 16

68% were lured into brothels with the promise of jobs

50% of the traffickers interviewed for the study focused on rural
areas for recruitment, targeting communities which are particularly
vulnerable, due to lack of employment, illiteracy, social and gender
discrimination

http://www.odanadi-uk.org/about-odanadi/trafficking/womens-status.html

Women's Status

It is important to recognise that women are more vulnerable to human
trafficking because of their overall status within society. Their lack
of status is demonstrated by the skewed sex ratio of 933 women per
1000 men (the world average is 990 women per 1000 men).

Unequal status between men and women is an international problem and
is not confined to India, although socio, economic and cultural
inequalities between men and women are more acute in some countries
than in others.

Women's education:

Figures from the 2001 Census suggest that only 54% of Indian women can
read and write. This means that 245 million Indian women cannot read
and write. The average Indian female has 1.2 years of schooling.

Women's employment:

Women constitute 90% of the total marginal workers of the country;
only 4% of women are employed in the organised sector. Women get on
average 30% lower wages then men. A study by the Self Employed Women's
Association showed that 85% of women earned only 50% of the official
poverty level income.

These statistics demonstrate that actions to tackle human trafficking
have to take into account broader structural inequalities if the
vulnerability of women and girls to human trafficking is to be reduced

http://www.odanadi-uk.org/about-odanadi/trafficking/human-trafficking-in-india-an-overview.html

Human Trafficking In India – An Overview

India is a country of source, destination and transit for trafficking.
A 2004 study by the NGO Shakti Vahini, a leading Indian Human Rights
NGO, concluded that 10% of Indian trafficking is international whilst
90% is domestic. The 2007 US 'Trafficking in Persons' Report estimates
that the problem affects millions .

Profiles of trafficking victims

Men and boys as well as women and girls are trafficked within and into
India, although women and girls are most vulnerable to trafficking
into the sex trade. The vast majority of trafficked women and girls
are poor, many are from landless families, and most come from Dalit
(previously known as “untouchables”), Adivasi (indigenous and low
status tribals) or other low caste communities.

Profile of TraffickersDue to the clandestine nature of the problem,
little is known about those who carry out human trafficking. Studies
show that they may be family members or friends, brothel owners and
brokers, community leaders, women in sex-work or people in powerful
positions such as police and other government employees. Data
collected from victims of trafficking for the UNIFEM study, suggests
that 50% of traffickers are women (reported in Sen, A. 2005: A Report
on Trafficking of Women and Children, UNIFEM).

Purposes for human trafficking

Purposes for human trafficking in India include: forced prostitution,
marriage (on the increase as the birth rate of girl babies continues
to dwindle, reaching levels of 640 girls to every 1000 boys in some
states. It is alleged that many marriage bureaus are fronts for
trafficking networks), domestic labour, bonded labour (a bonded person
works in conditions of servitude to pay off a debt, all bonded people
have three things in common: they are working for nominal wages, in
consideration of an advance and they are not free to discontinue their
work), agricultural labour, industrial labour, entertainment, begging,
adoption, drug smuggling and peddling and organ transplants.

Mechanisms to tackle human trafficking

In spite of the magnitude of the problem, India has not put in place
appropriate measures to tackle human trafficking. The Indian
constitution prohibits human trafficking and successive governments
have formulated laws intended to tackle it, with the primary
legislative tool being the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act 1956.
However these laws are either weak or inadequately enforced.

The 2007 US Trafficking in Persons report identifies that the lack of
co-ordinated national action undermines attempts to combat human
trafficking. It recommends the need for an effective national-level
body to enforce the law. These problems are made worse by the reported
complicity of law enforcement officials in trafficking and related
criminal activity.

The combination of the lack of infrastructure and resources, in
conjunction with the powerful political and business connections of
the traffickers, means that the laws are inadequately enforced. In
addition, in practical terms the victims of trafficking suffer
disproportionately under the law: four times as many women as men are
arrested under the legislation intended to tackle human trafficking,
thus effectively criminalising the victims.

Women's Status

Women's education:

Women's employment:

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/india.htm

Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation

India

Trafficking

As of February 1998, there were 200 Bangladeshi children and women
awaiting repatriation in different Indian shelters. ("Boys, rescued in
India while being smuggled to become jockeys in camel races," www.elsiglo.com,
19 February 1998)

India, along with Thailand and the Philippines, has 1.3 million
children in its sex-trade centers. The children come from relatively
poorer areas and are trafficked to relatively richer ones. (Soma
Wadhwa, "For sale childhood," Outlook, 1998)

In cross border trafficking, India is a sending, receiving and transit
nation. Receiving children from Bangladesh and Nepal and sending women
and children to Middle Eastern nations is a daily occurrence.
(Executive Director of SANLAAP, Indrani Sinha, Paper on Globaliation
and Human Rights"

India and Paksitan are the main destinations for children under 16 who
are trafficked in south Asia. (Masako Iijima, "S. Asia urged to unite
against child prostitution," Reuters, 19 June 1998)

More than 40% of 484 prostituted girls rescued during major raids of
brothels in Bombay in 1996 were from Nepal. (Masako Iijima, "S. Asia
urged to unite against child prostitution," Reuters, 19 June 1998)

In India, Karnataka, Andha Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu are
considered "high supply zones" for women in prostitution. Bijapur,
Belgaum and Kolhapur are common districts from which women migrate to
the big cities, as part of an organised trafficking network. (Central
Welfare Board, Meena Menon, "The Unknown Faces")

Districts bordering Maharashtra and Karnataka, known as the "devadasi
belt," have trafficking structures operating at various levels. The
women here are in prostitution either because their husbands deserted
them, or they are trafficked through coercion and deception Many are
devadasi dedicated into prostitution for the goddess Yellamma. In one
Karnataka brothel, all 15 girls are devadasi. (Meena Menon, "The
Unknown Faces")

Hundreds, if not thousands, of Bangladeshi women and children are held
in foreign prisons, jails, shelters and detention centers awaiting
repatriation. Many have been held for years. In India, 26 women, 27
girls, 71 boys and 13 children of unknown gender are held in Lilua
Shelter, Calcutta; Sheha Shelter, Calcutta; Anando Ashram, Calcutta;
Alipur Children's Home, Delhi; Nirmal Chaya Children's Home, Delhi;
Prayas Observation House for Boys; Delhi; Tihar Jail, Delhi; Udavam
Kalanger, Bangalore; Umar Khadi, Bangaore; Kishalay, West Bengal;
Kuehbihar, West Bengal and Baharampur, West Bengal. (Fawzia Karim
Firoze and Salma Ali of the Bangladesh National Women Layer
Association," Bangladesh Country Paper: Law and Legislation")

Women and children from India are sent to nations of the Middle East
daily. Girls in prostitution and domestic service in India, Pakistan
and the Middle East are tortured, held in virtual imprisonment,
sexually abused, and raped. (Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India, "Paper on
Globalization and Human Rights")

In Bombay, children as young as 9 are bought for up to 60,000 rupees,
or US$2,000, at auctions where Arabs bid against Indian men who
believe sleeping with a virgin cures gonorrhea and syphilis. (Robert
I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption
Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

160,000 Nepalese women are held in India's brothels. (Executive
Director of SANLAAP, Indrani Sinha, Paper on Globalization and Human
Rights")

Approximately 50,000, or half of the women in prostitution in Bombay,
are trafficked from Nepal. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual
Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,"
The Nation, 8 April 1996)

The brothels of India hold between 100,000 and 160,000 Nepalese women
and girls, 35 percent were taken on the false pretext of marriage or a
good job. (Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Report on Violence Against
Women, Gustavo Capdevila, IPS, 2 April 1997)

About 5,000-7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked to India every day.
100,000-160,000 Nepalese girls are prostituted in brothels in India.
About 45,000 Nepalese girls are in the brothels of Bombay and 40,000
in Calcutta. (Women’s groups in Nepal, ‘Trafficking in Women and
Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, pp.8 & 9, UBINIG, 1995)

Calcutta is one of the important transit points for the traffickers
for Bombay and to Pakistan. 99% women are trafficked out of Bangladesh
through land routes along the border areas of Bangladesh and India,
such as Jessore, Satkhira, and Rajshahi. (Trafficking in Women and
Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, pp.18 & 19, UBINIG, 1995)

In shelters in India, there are 200 Bangladeshi women and children who
have been trafficked awaiting repatriation. (http://www.webpage.com/
hindu/daily/980220/03/03200004.htm, 19 February 1998)

Of the 5,000-7,000 Nepalese girls trafficked into India yearly, the
average age over the past decade has fallen from 14-16 years old to
10-14 years old. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and
Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

In Bombay, one brothel has only Nepalese women, who men buy because of
their golden skin and docile personalities. (Robert I. Freidman,
"India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to
An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

2.5% of prostitutes in India are Nepalese, and 2.7% are Bangladeshi.
("Devadasi System Continues to Legitimise Prostitution: The Devadasi
Tradition and Prostitution," TOI, 4 December 1997)

Some Indian men believe that it is good luck to have sex with scalp-
eczema afflicted prostitutes. Infants with the condition, called "pus
babies," are sold by their parents to brothels for a premium. (Robert
I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption
Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

70% of students surveyed at a wealthy high school seek a career in
organized crime, citing their reasoning as "good money and good
fun." (surveyed student, [Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual
Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe,"
The Nation, 8 April 1996]

Methods and Techniques of Traffickers

Every year between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked into
the red light districts in Indian cities. Many of the girls are barely
9 or 10 years old. 200,000 to over 250,000 Nepalese women and girls
are already in Indian brothels. The girls are sold by poor parents,
tricked into fraudulent marriages, or promised employment in towns
only to find themselves in Hindustan's brothels. They're locked up for
days, starved, beaten, and burned with cigarettes until they learn how
to service up to 25 clients a day. Some girls go through 'training'
before being initiated into prostitution, which can include constant
exposure to pornographic films, tutorials in how to 'please'
customers, repeated rapes. (Soma Wadhwa, "For sale childhood,"
Outlook, 1998)

Trafficking in women and girls is easy along the 1,740 mile-long open
border between India and Nepal. Trafficking in Nepalese women and
girls is less risky than smuggling narcotics and electronic equipment
into India. Traffickers ferry large groups of girls at a time without
the hassle of paperwork or threats of police checks. The procurer-pimp-
police network makes the process even smoother. Bought for as little
as Rs (Nepalese) 1,000, girls have been known to fetch up to Rs 30,000
in later transactions. Police are paid by brothel owners to ignore the
situation. Girls may not leave the brothels until they have repaid
their debt, at which time they are sick, with HIV and/or tuberculosis,
and often have children of their own. (Soma Wadhwa, "For sale
childhood," Outlook, 1998)

The areas used by traffickers to procure women and girls are the
isolated districts of Sindhupalchow, Makwanpur, Dhading and Khavre,
Nepal where the population is largely illiterate. (Soma Wadhwa, "For
sale childhood," Outlook, 1998)

Health and Well-being

Of the 218 Nepalese girls rescued in February 1996 from a Bombay
police raid, 60-70% of them were HIV positive. (Tim McGirk "Nepal's
Lost Daughters, 'India's soiled goods," Nepal/India News, 27 January
1997)

Cases

Activists discovered inter-state trafficking in teenaged girls from
poor families in 24 Parganas North districts. More than 300 teenagers
from Deganga, Harwa and Bashirhat may have been lured by false
marriages to Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Punjab. 32 victims from six
villages have been identified. After the girl was taken from her home
village she would be sold for Rs 2,500 to Rs 10,000, depending on the
number of middlemen involved. Those who escaped said the girls were
watched all the time and not allowed to speak to anyone outside their
room. Any attempt to resist resulted in brutal torture. All their
"earnings" was taken away by the so-called husbands or mistresses. The
"husbands" would occasionally write from fake addresses to their
parents to avoid arousing any suspicion. Women organized a rally to
protest the inaction of police, who they suspect knew about the
trafficking. (Mumtaz Khatun, Kolsur Nari Vikas Kendra, Cente of
Communication and Development, Madhyamgram, The Times of India News
Service, 1 October 1997)

A twenty year old Bangladeshi woman escaped prostitution in Calcutta.
A year before she had been sold for Rs. 10,000 to men who forced her
into prostitution and tortured her. She later escaped to become a
maid, then escaped from that to seek help from police. Along with
others, her husband was arrested by police. She informed police that
she knew a lot of Bangladeshi girls in Calcutta who were being
prostituted. (Ittefak report, 8 March 1993, Trafficking in Women and
Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, pp. 29 & 30, Ittefak, 5 March 1993,
UBINIG, 1995)

13-year-old Mira of Nepal was offered a job as a domestic worker in
Bombay, India. She arrived at a brothel on Bombay’s Falkland Road,
where tens of thousands of young women are displayed in row after row
of zoo-like animal cages. Her father had been duped into giving her to
a trafficker. When she refused to have sex, she was dragged into a
torture chamber in a dark alley used for ‘breaking in’ new girls. She
was locked in a narrow, windowless room without food or water. On the
fourth day, one of the madam’s thugs goonda wrestled her to the floor
and banged her head against the concrete until she passed out. When
she awoke, she was naked; a rattan cane smeared with pureed red chili
peppers shoved into her vagina. Later she was raped by the goonda.
Afterwards, she complied with their demands. The madam told Mira that
she had been sold to the brothel for 50,000 rupees (about US$1,700),
that she had to work until she paid off her debt. Mira was sold to a
client who then became her pimp. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame:
Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS
Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

In 1982, 13 year old Tulasa was abducted from a village near Kathmandu
in Nepal and sold to a brothel in Bombay. She was dressed in European-
style clothes and taken to luxury hotels to serve mostly Arab clients
until a hotel manager called the police. Hospitalized, Tulasa was
found to be suffering from three types of venereal disease and
tuberculosis. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and
Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation,
8 April 1996)

Policy and Law

The UN Convention of the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and the
Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949), and the
supplementary convention on the abolition of slavery, the slave trade
and institutions and practices of slavery have been signed by most of
the SAARC countries, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka. (Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, p.
9, UBINIG, 1995)

In 1992, Bombay, India, police intercepted the traffic of 25
Bangladeshi children, 5 to 8 years old. The children and trafficker
were held in the same jail. Three years later, 12 of the children were
returned to their homes. (Fawzia Karim Firoze & Salma Ali of the
Bangladesh National Women Layer Association," Bangladesh Country
Paper: Law and Legislation")

Actions of NGOs

A major trafficking network was discovered by the Karnataka State
Commission for Women (KSCW), smuggling 12-18-year-old girls from
various impoverished districts to contractors who run brothels in Goa.
The contractors pay the parents for their girl children under false
pretenses. (Seethalakshmi S., "Karnataka girls being sold to Goa
breothels," Time of India, 28 May 1998)

The exploitation of Nepalese women and girls may never end. "[F]or
some there is too much easy money in it, for others there's nothing to
be gained by lobbying for its abolition. But surely, for now, it can
be monitored. Its magnitude can be lessened," says Durga Ghimire,
chairperson of a 98-NGO-strong pressure group National Network Groups
Against Trafficking. She feels that the alarmingly low rates of female
literacy, coupled with the traditionally low status of the girl-child
in Nepal have to be addressed to tackle the problem. Gauri Pradhan of
Child Workers in Nepal Concerned Centre (CWIN) emphasizes the need for
collaboration by the two governments on this issue. (Soma Wadhwa, "For
sale childhood," Outlook, 1998)

There are several shelters run by various Katmandu-based NGOs working
against trafficking and towards rehabilitation of girls who manage to
escape or are rescued from Indian brothels. This is not easy work.
Relatives of the rescued girls generally don't want them back and
Nepal's government is worried about the spread of HIV, as many of the
trafficked girls have contracted HIV while enslaved in India. (Soma
Wadhwa, "For sale childhood," Outlook, 1998)

Official Response and Action

139 prostituted Nepalese girls were rescued through a police raid in
Kamatipura, India and were then repatriated to Katmandu. (Soma Wadhwa,
"For sale childhood," Outlook, 1998)

Rehabilitation of trafficked women and children forced into
prostitution in Indian brothels is hampered by lack of Indian
government support and agenda for their rehabilitation. The sending
country may not come forward to claim them and younger children may
not know where they originally came from. (Soma Wadhwa, "For sale
childhood," Outlook, 1998)

Prostitution

There are approximately 10 million prostitutes in India. (Human Rights
Watch, Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and
Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation,
8 April 1996)

There are more than 100,000 women in prostitution in Bombay, Asia’s
largest sex industry center. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame:
Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS
Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

At least 2,000 women are in prostitution along the Baina beachfront in
Goa. (Frederick Moronha, India Abroad News Service, 9 August 1997)

There are 300,000-500,000 children in prostitution in India. (Rahul
Bedi, "Bid To Protect Children As Sex Tourism Spreads,"London’s Daily
Telegraph, 23 August, 1997)

Men who believe that AIDS and other STDs can be cured by having sex
with a virgin, are forcing young girls into the sex industry; seven
year old girls are neither uncommon nor the youngest. (Tim McGirk
"Nepal's Lost Daughters, 'India's soiled goods,"Nepal/India News, 27
January 1997)

Approximately 20,000 or 20% of women in prostitution in Bombay are
under 18. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and
Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation,
8 April 1996)

Every day, about 200 girls and women in India enter prostitution, 80%
of them against their will. (Centre for Development and Population
Activities (CEDPA) and Planning Rural-Uraban Intergrated Development
through Education (PRIDE), "Devadasi System Continues to Legitimise
Prostitution: The Devadasi Tradition and Prostitution," TOI, 4
December 1997)

Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil, Nadu and Uttar Pradesh
are the high-supply zones for women in prostitution. Belgaum, Bijapur,
and Kolhapur are some common districts from which women migrate to
cities either through an organized trafficking network, or due to
socioeconomic forces (Central Social Welfare Board, Meena Menon,
"Women in India’s Trafficking Belt", 30 March 1998)

Bangalore is one of the five major cities in India which together
account for 80 percent of child prostitutes in the country.
(Seethalakshmi S., "Karnataka girls being sold to Goa breothels," Time
Of India, 28 May 1998)

90% of the 100,000 women in prostitution in Bombay are indentured
slaves. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and
Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation,
8 April 1996)

Prostitution is increasing in India where there have been fears over
the spread of AIDS and reports of young girls being abducted and
forced into prostitution. ("Asian prostitutes meet to demand legal
status," Reuters, 29 July 1998)

It takes up to fifteen years for girls held in prostitution via debt-
bondage to purchase their freedom. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s
Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS
Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

Children of prostituted women are victims of sexual abuse as well.
Children are forced to perform dances and songs for male buyers, and
some are forced to sexually service the males. (Activists, Meena
Menon, "Tourism and Prostitution," 1997)

Of 1,000 red light districts all over India, cage prostitutes are
mostly minors, often from Nepal and Bangladesh. (CATW - Asia Pacific,
Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

In Bombay, 95% of the children of prostituted women become
prostitutes. One child, who had repeatedly been sodomized by the men
who bought his mother, decided to become a eunuch. He was ritually
castrated. (Sheela Remedios program director of Project Child, Robert
I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption
Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

There are three routes into prostitution for most women in India. 1)
Deception; 2) Devadasi dedication and 3) Bad marriages or families.
For some women their marriages were so violent they preferred
prostitution. Husbands or families introduced some women to
prostitution. Many families knew what the women had to do, but ignored
it as long as they got the benefits from it. (Malini Karkal "Down
Memory Lane," (interview, The Maharashtra Times, 19 November 1997)

The red light district in Bombay generates at least $400 million a
year in revenue, with 100,000 prostitutes servicing men 365 days a
year, averaging 6 customers a day, at $2 each. (Robert I. Freidman,
"India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to
An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

The largest red light district in India, perhaps in the world, is the
Falkland Road Kamatipura area of Bombay. (film,"The Selling of
Innocents" 1997)

In Kamathipura brothel district in Bombay more than 70,000 prostituted
women and girls are bought by three men a day. Condoms are seldom
used. Escape is rare. (Tim McGirk "Nepal's Lost Daughters, 'India's
soiled goods,'" 27 January 1997)

There are many dhabhas, or small-scale brothels, along the Solapur-
Hyderabad highway, which provide women as an "additional service" to
truck drivers and motorists. One woman who runs a dhabha had
previously been in prostitution. Now, with a shed, two cots and a few
girls from nearby villages, she owns the brothel. "I rented this place
for Rs 1000 a month and take Rs 20 per man from the girls. (Meena
Menon "The Twilight Zone," The Hindu, 27 July 1997)

A brothel owner along the Solapur-Hyderabad highway reported that he
has two women. He takes a Rs 15 commission for each man. Since this is
illegal, he pays the nearest police station Rs 1,000 a month as hafta,
or bribe. If a girl is beautiful, she will be bought by five to ten
men a day. The owner’s monthly earnings can reach Rs 4,000 to 5,000 a
month. (Meena Menon "The Twilight Zone," The Hindu, 27 July 1997)

A brothel owner along the Solapur-Hyderabad highway reported that
prostituting women is good a business. He had ten to 12 girls. He paid
the police Rs 6,000 as a monthly bribe. He goes to Bombay to bring
women and girls, implying he was part of a bigger network. (Meena
Menon, "The Twilight Zone," The Hindu, 27 July 1997)

The women and girls in the dhabhas, or brothels, along the Solapur-
Hyderabad highway, are threatened, harassed, forced to service men, or
goondas, freely and beaten by men and police. Local farmers abuse them
also. Police do not register any complaints of assault. In one cases,
a woman who was running over unfamiliar fields to escape the police in
pitch darkness; she stumbled into a well and was killed. Sometimes,
bodies of women are found on the fields, half eaten by animals.
Another woman had her ears cut off, was robbed and left unconscious on
the road. (Meena Menon, "The Twilight Zone," The Hindu, 27 July 1997)

Eunuch Lane in Bombay has more than 2,000 eunuchs in prostitution. The
eunuchs, or hijras, have deep religious roots in Hinduism. As young
boys they are abandoned or sold by their families to a sex ring and
taken into the jungle, where a priest cuts off their genitals in a
ceremony called nirvana. The priest then folds back a strip of flesh
to create an artificial vagina. Eunuchs are generally more available
to perform high-risk sex than female prostitutes, and some Indian men
believe they can’t contact HIV from them. (Robert I. Freidman,
"India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to
An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

A survey of prostituted women in India reveals their reasoning for
staying in prostitution (in descending order of significance):
poverty/ unemployment; lack of proper reintegration services, lack of
options; stigma and adverse social attitudes; family expectations and
pressure; resignation and acclimation to the lifestyle. (CATW - Asia
Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

Health and Well-being

Madams take sick women to one of the red light districts 200
unlicensed doctors, who give the women mood elevators, IV drips of
colored water or medicinal herbs. The women must pay for this
"treatment" with cash from moneylenders, and the Mafia collects a
percentage from the "doctors." (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame:
Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS
Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

60% of prostituted women in Bombay's red-light district areas are
infected with STDs and AIDS. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in
Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

More than half of Bombay’s 100,000 prostitutes are infected with HIV.
A magazine publisher in Bombay said AIDS will benefit the country
because it will depopulate the vast underclass. (Robert I. Freidman,
"India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to
An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

In July 1990, mob bosses permitted Savahdan, a charity group, to
repatriate 700 South Indian prostitutes to Madras, most of whom were
HIV positive. It was perceived as a cheap way of getting rid of HIV
infected girls. Many women, too sick to prostitute are thrown onto the
street. Government hospitals won’t treat prostitutes who are HIV
positive, or are developing symptoms of AIDS. In Bombay’s J.J.
Hospital an HIV infected woman was refused treatment, though she was
bleeding and her condition was life threatening. She delivered a baby
in the brothel. [government report, Robert I. Freidman, "India’s
Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS
Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996]

In Bombay, on average the girls are bought by six men a day, who pay US
$1.10 - 2 per sex act, the madam gets the money up front. To pay for
movies, clothes, make-up and extra food to supplement a diet of rice
and dal, the girls have to borrow from moneylenders at an interest
rate of up to 500%. They are perpetually in debt. (Robert I. Freidman,
"India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to
An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

In 1991, Bombay’s 100,000 prostituted women averaged 600,000 sexual
contacts a day. At the time 30% were HIV positive, the chance of
transmission was 0.1%. On that basis, 200 clients were being infected
with HIV everyday, 6,000 each month. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s
Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS
Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

Prostitution Tourism

Foreign tourists are frequenting India because of its relaxed laws,
abundant child prostitutes and the false idea that there is a lower
incidence of AIDS. (Rahul Bedi, "Bid To Protect Chedren As Sex Tourism
Spreads," 1997)

India is one of the favored destinations of paedophile sex tourists
from Europe and the United States. ("Global law to punish sex tourists
sought by Britain and EU," The Indian Express, 21 November 1997

Multinational tour operators, hotel companies, airlines and travel
agencies are setting up the tourism agenda for Goa, India and the
world over. However, they ignore the host community. (Roland Martins,
Jagrut Goenkaranchi Fauz, "While the Locals Visit the Temple to Pray,
You Will Have Bikini-Clad Women Moving Around," Herald, 4 October
1997)

Cases

December 1997, a nine-year-old girl from Pune was found living with a
54- year- old Swiss national in a Goa hotel for over nine months. A
local NGO filed a complaint with the police and the girl was sent to
an observation home. When contacted, her father said she was there
with his consent. The man was released following an investigation.
Inspector General, Goa Police, Mr. P.R.S. Brar said "paedophilia is a
myth, it just does not exist." Ms. Mohini Giri, chair of the National
Commision for Women met with the girl and said she had admitted to
being sexually abused. (Meena Menon, "Tourism and Prostitution," The
Hindu, 14 February, 1998)

In 1990 an orphanage owner in Goa was arrested for allegedly supplying
children to British, French, German, Swiss and Scandinavian
prostitution tourists. He was freed on bail and the case has still not
gone to court. (Rahul Bedi, "Bid To Protect Children As Sex Tourism
Spreads,"London’s Daily Telegraph, 1997)

The main frequenters of prostitutes in Goa are tourists, local men and
college boys. United States "seamen" ask locals in Goa which bars to
find prostitutes in. Taxi drivers take tourists from Delhi, Gurjarat,
Bangalore, Bombay and Punjab to brothels in Baina. Some men have taxi
drivers bring prostituted girls from Baina back to their hotels in
Panjim. The next morning, the taxi drivers rape the girls before
taking them home. (taxi driver, Meena Menon, "Tourism and
Prostitution,"The Hindu 1997)

Policy and Law

Although prostitution is legal in India, brothel keeping, living off
the earnings of a prostitute, soliciting or seducing for the purposes
of prostitution are all punishable offenses. There are severe
penalties for child prostitution and trafficking of women. (Robert I.
Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are
Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

Since mid-1997 the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustment
policy for India has given rise to the economic and sexual
exploitation of women in export processing zones, where 70-80% of
workers are young women. (Sujatha Fernandes, "Growing Women’s Movement
in India," Green Left Weekly, 20 July 1997)

The devadasi tradition, still prevalent in many parts of India,
continues to legitimise child prostitution. A devadasi is a woman
married to a god and thus sadasuhagan or married, and hence at all
times blessed. As such, she becomes the wife of the powerful in the
community. Devadasi is known by different names in different states.
In the Vijapur district of Karnataka, girls are given to the Monkey
God (Hanuman, Maruti), and known as Basvi. In Goa, a devadasi is
called Bhavin (the one with devotion), In the Shimoga District of
Karnataka, the girls are handed over to the goddess Renuka Devi, and
in Hospet, to the goddess Hulganga Devi. The tradition lives on in
other states in South India. Girls end up as prostitutes in Bombay and
Pune. The Banchara and Bedia peoples of Madhya Pradesh also practice
"traditional" prostitution. (Farida Lambey, vice-principal of the
Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work, "Devadasi System Continues to
Legitimise Prostitution: The Devadasi Tradition and Prostitution,"
TOI, 4 December 1997)

Official Response and Action

After raiding Kamathipura, Mumbai's largest red district, Mumbai
police 160 women were sent to the St Catherines Rescue Home. Many
women were HIV positive and a large number were pregnant or already
had children. (Sister Shiela, Mitu Varma, "India: Children of a Lesser
God," InterPress Services, 27 October 1997)

In Goa, India there are at least 400 children in prostitution. After
Ms. Mohini Giri, chair of the National Commission for women, visited
and declared there to be rampant child prostitution in the area,
police have conducted some raids in order to find prostituted
children. Although police conduct raids, brothels recieve tip-offs and
hide the minors before raids are conducted. (Meena Menon, "Tourism and
Prostitution," 1997)

Official Corruption and Collaboration

In Bombay, top politicians and police officials are in league with the
mafia who control the sex industry, exchanging protection for cash
payoffs and donations to campaign war chests. Corruption reaches all
levels of the ruling Congress Party in New Delhi. Many politicians
view prostitutes as an expendable commodity. (Robert I. Freidman,
"India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to
An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

The mafia kidnapped a Dutch doctor compiling an ethnographic study for
the World Health Organization. He was released three days later and
warned to stop probing the links among politicians, the mob and
prostitution. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and
Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation,
8 April 1996)

Underage girls are rarely found in brothels because the pimps and
owners receive tip offs from police about impending raids. (Meena
Menon, "Tourism and Prostitution," The Hindu, 14 February,1998)

In one brothel in Bombay, the police receive weekly bribes called
haftas from the madams. Cops harass the girls, take their money, and
demand free sexual services. (Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame:
Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS
Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April 1996)

South Central Bombay is home to the biggest organized crime family in
Asia, run by Dawood Ibrahim. In 1992, 40 candidates in Bombay’s
municipal elections, and 180 of 425 legislators in Uttar Pradesh had
criminal records. Shantabai, Bombay’s most powerful madam controlled
as many as 10,000 pimps and prostitutes’ votes in a 1985 election.
Bombay’s sex industry has evolved into a highly efficient business. It
is controlled by four separate crime groups: One in charge of police
payoffs, another controlling money laundering, a third maintaining
internal law and order, and the fourth procures women through a vast
network streching from South India to the Himalayas. Of the four mafia
groups in Bombay, the most powerful is Mehboob Thasildar, the procurer
of women. Thasildar opened a restaurant on the ground floor of a two-
story, blocklong brothel he also owned, one of the biggest in Bombay,
with more than 50 prostituted women. (Indian government sources,
Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery and Political
Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The Nation, 8 April
1996)

Action of NGOs

As of mid-1998, Sanlaap shelter in Sneha, India has 25 to 30 rescued
prostituted children. 60% of the children rescued from prostitution
are HIV positive. (Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India, "Paper on
Globalization & Human Rights")

NGO workers, who urge prostitutes to use condoms, have to get the
Mafia's consent, and promise to ignore the child prostitution.
(Shilpa, a 30-year-old social worker who has spent five years in the
red-light district, Robert I. Freidman, "India’s Shame: Sexual Slavery
and Political Corruption Are Leading to An AIDS Catastrophe," The
Nation, 8 April 1996)

Pornography

Most of phone sex numbers called from India are phone sex businesses
run in the United States, Hong Kong and Australia. ("India cuts access
to phone sex numbers," Reuters, 20 August 1998)

Official Response and Action

India has blocked access to international numbers used for phone sex.
"These services are obscene...they are against the moral fibre of the
country and a drain on foreign exchange," said Communications Minister
Sushma Swaraj. She said the government had directed state-run monopoly
international carrier, Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL) to cut off the
calls. The minister said many Indian government phones were being
misused to make calls to sex lines. Swaraj said that she hoped there
would soon be technology to stop people accessing Internet
pornography. ("India cuts access to phone sex numbers," Reuters, 20
August 1998)

Organized and Institutionalized Sexual Exploitation and Violence

50 million girls and women are missing from India's population, the
result of systematic sex discrimination, such as abortion of female
fetuses, which is officially banned. (United Nations report, Sonali
Verma, "Indian women still awaiting independence," Human Rights
Information Network: Indi News Network Digest, Volume2, Issue1648, 16
August 1997)

In 1990, more than 50 widows were burnt alive when their husbands'
bodies were cremated in a ritual known as "sati," based on the belief
that a Hindu woman has no existence independent of her husband.
(Sonali Verma, "Indian women still awaiting independence," Human
Rights Information Network: Indi News Network Digest, Volume2,
Issue1648, 16 August 1997)

Although dowry is legally banned, at least 5,000 women are victims of
"dowry murders," in which they are killed by their husband or his
family because of "insufficient" dowries. At least 12 women "die"
every day from bazzier kitchen fires, which are typically concealed
dowry murders. The dowry system has also led to an inflating female
infanticide. especially among very poor families. Few of these cases
are ever even brought to trial. (UNICEF, United Press International,
23 July 1997)

A very large percentage of marriages are arranged. "The custom of
arranged marriage is a legitimized institution. In a majority of cases
the bride has little or no say. She and the bridegroom are virtual
strangers. In many rural communities the bridegroom does not even
attend his own wedding. The sex act (between the two) is nothing but a
rape. The Indian woman’s acceptance of the inevitable has, sanctified
this abhorrent practice, and, subsequently legitimized it." (Sudhir
Vaishnav, "Legal Indian Rape: The new bride can be an unsuspecting
victim of a legal rape," Femina, 17 September 1997)

More than 5,000 women are murdered each year as the result of dowry
killings in India. (Mindelle Jacobs, "Abuse of Women is Sadly Common,"
Edmonton Sun, 11 July 1998)

In 1993, in-laws killed about 16 women every day for dowry, although
the government declared accepting dowry illegal in 1961. Women's
groups say the number of cases reported is a fraction of the real
figure. (Sonali Verma, "Indian women still awaiting independence,"
Human Rights Information Network: Indi News Network Digest, Volume2,
Issue1648, 16 August 1997)

During the armed conflict in Kashmir, Punjab and other Northeastern
states women are victimized, raped, tortured, sexually abused and
violated by military personnel, militants or insurgents, para-military
units, rebel groups, religious sects, fundamentalist armed groups,
warlords, state security forces, armed opposition groups, or
terrorists and peace-keeping forces. (Indrani Sinha, executive
director, "Paper on Globalization and Human Rights," SANLAAP)

In 1997, there were reports of Indian armed forces arresting,
torturing and molesting women and girls in Kashmir. Every day the
local newspapers report such incidences. (KASHNet, Human Rights
Information Network, 14 August 1997)

Women and girls have been systematically brutalized and raped by
Indian forces in house to house searches in Kashmir between October
1996 and December 1997. ("Rape and Molestation: A Weapon of War in
Kashmir," The Institute of Kashmir Studies," 1998)

Official Response and Action

To halt child marriages, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)
in India has recommended compulsory registration of marriages to be
added as an amendment to the Child Marriage (Restraint) Act. ("NHRC
for amendments to Child Marriage Act," Hindu Daily, 17 August 1998)

A considerable number of child marriages, performed on April 29, 1998
(Akshay Thithiya day), were witnessed and took place without any
obstruction from the authorities or members of the public in Bikaner
and Jodhpur, India. (Senior Superintendent of Police, National Human
Rights Commission’s (NHRC) Investigation Division, "NHRC for
amendments to Child Marriage Act," Hindu Daily, 17 August 1998)

The National Girl Child Week began in India on 23 September 1998 as
part of a regional celebration of the rights of the girl child in
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka to reaffirm
commitment to the SAARC Decade of the Girl Child. The UNICEF India
Country Office has identified high maternal mortality, low birth
weight babies and discriminatory post-natal attention to boys in India
as some of the major reasons for disparity in male-female child ratio.
The week will highlight governmental, inter-governmental, and non-
governmental efforts to end this disparity. ("Steps to strengthen
rights of the girl child," Hindu Daily, 23 September 1998)

Cases

In September 1987, 18-year-old Roop Kanwar was forced to commit
suttee. Cans of ghee cooking butter were poured on her as she burnt to
death on her husband's funeral pyre. Conch shells were blown like
horns after she died. And a trishul was left as a symbol of the faith
of the sati, or "true wife" in Sanskrit. In October 1996, all 38
defendants in the Kanwar cases were acquitted. Following this, more
than 1,000 devotees staged a major festival at the Rani Sati temple in
Jhunjhunu, in contravention of the 1988 Act, which prohibits
glorification of suttee. The court refused to stop the nine-day event
in late November and early December, but ruled there must be no direct
reference to suttee, and that the rituals must be held outside rather
than within the temple. Protesters violated this order, and filed a
contempt petition. (Muku; Sharma, "Women Fight New Threats of Widow
Sacrifice," 7 February 1997)

Indian armed forces stormed into the house of Kamal Dar, in Padshahi
Bagh area and locked his daughter Madeeha in a separate room where she
was subjected to severe torture for many hours. Kamal Dar said the
person gave electric shocks to his 18-year-old daughter and molested
her. The armed personnel also treated in a similar way another woman,
wife of one Bashir Amad and mother of five children. They also
molested two girls in Pahalgam. A group of security forces men in the
village of Dehar Muna raided the house of Ghulam Muhammad and abducted
her daughter, Raja Bano, at gunpoint. The girl was taken to a security
camp. After her release she explains that she was interrogated for
whole night and kept naked throughout the night. She also showed
torture marks on her body. She was taken to hospital for medical
examination. (police sources, KASHNet, Human Rights Information
Network, 14 August 1997)

Maimun, 19 was gang-raped and attempts made to murder her following
her love marriage to Idris, 28. A team from the National Commission
for Women to investigate the torture of the young woman was attacked
by nearly 1,000 villagers. Maumun’s cousin had cut Maimun’s abdomen
and neck with a butcher knife, leaving her to bleed to death. (Piyush
Mathur, "NCW members probing rape of girl attacked," Times of India,
16 August 1997)

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/06/12/human.trafficking/index.html

India escapes U.S. list of worst human traffickers
POSTED: 2:21 a.m. EDT, June 13, 2007

Story Highlights

• Report singles out countries not doing enough to combat human
trafficking
• Worst offenders have 90 days to improve or face possible penalties
• India to receive special evaluation in six months
• Nearly 800,000 people are trafficked across borders each year

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- India, which advocacy groups say may have as many
as 65 million forced laborers, was spared the worst ranking on the
State Department's new list of nations where humans are bought and
sold.

Countries not doing enough to combat human trafficking could face
sanctions if they don't take steps to improve.

The annual Trafficking in Persons report, released Tuesday, says that
as many as 800,000 people -- largely women and children -- are
trafficked across borders each year. Many are forced into
prostitution, sweatshops, domestic labor, farming and child armies.
(Watch why India isn't on Tier 3 )

U.S. officials told CNN the question of India's ranking caused a
heated debate between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy
Secretary of State John Negroponte.

Negroponte wanted India listed as a Tier 3 country, or worst offender.
Rice overruled him out of concern about alienating the Indian
government. India is on the Tier 2 watch list.

Rice agreed to undertake a special evaluation of India in six months,
and then take action if India does not make improvements.

Mark Lagon, ambassador at large for the State Department's Trafficking
in Persons office, said Tuesday that "many different variables" played
into the decision.

"I would be perpetuating a fraud to say that we don't look at multiple
factors in our relationship with countries any time we take a step on
a particular issue like human trafficking," he said.

Worst offenders could face penalties

The United States added Kuwait, Malaysia, Qatar and Bahrain to Tier 3
as countries that are destinations for trafficking victims who are
exposed to sexual exploitation and forced labor. (Read the report)

Saudi Arabia, a nation considered friendly toward the United States,
also is a Tier 3 country.

The State Department also lists Burma, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Iran,
North Korea, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan and Venezuela as Tier 3
countries, defined as those "whose governments do not fully comply
with the minimum standards" set by American law and "are not making
significant efforts to do so."

These countries have 90 days to take additional steps to combat
trafficking or face penalties. Penalties could take the form of
sanctions, including withholding of non-humanitarian and non-trade-
related U.S. assistance and U.S. opposition to assistance through
international financial institutions.

President Bush can waive sanctions if he deems it in the United
States' interest.

The Bush administration has increased attention to the trafficking
problem in recent years as a part of its focus on promoting democracy
and human rights as the cornerstone of Bush's foreign policy agenda,
specifically in the Middle East.

The United States, however, is not immune to the problem. The State
Department estimates 14,500 to 17,500 people are trafficked into the
United States each year.

Trafficking victims rescued in the United States are eligible for a
special visa and help getting their passports back from their
traffickers.

Other countries on the watch list

The United States put several countries on notice that they risk being
put on the Tier 3 list if they fail to take adequate steps to combat
human trafficking. China, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Mexico, the
Philippines and Russia were among 32 on a Tier 2 watch list, and under
U.S. law will receive special scrutiny and be subject to an interim
assessment before next year's report.

India was put on the watch list for the fourth year in a row "for its
failure to show increasing efforts to tackle India's large and
multidimensional problem," according to the report.

The report found while the Indian government was making significant
efforts to combat trafficking, it "did not recognize the country's
huge population of bonded laborers," which advocacy groups estimate to
range from 20 million to 65 million.

The report also found efforts by Indian law enforcement agencies to
punish traffickers "uneven and largely inadequate."

Rahul Chhabra, spokesman for the Indian Embassy in Washington, told
CNN that the Indian government is reviewing the report.

The U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 mandated the State
Department report as a way of combating human trafficking around the
world and punishing those responsible.

CNN State Department Producer Elise Labott and State Department
Correspondent Zane Verjee contributed to this report.

http://www.odanadi-uk.org/about-odanadi/trafficking/trafficking-karnataka.html

Trafficking: Karnataka

A report by Shakti Vahini (2004) confirms that Karnataka, where
Odanadi is located, as one of the major trafficking supply states.
There is a high volume of trafficking to tourist destinations such as
Goa and Mumbai. It is estimated that 45% of the prostitutes in Mumbai
are from Karnataka. 15% of trafficked women who were interviewed in a
study carried out by UNIFEM were trafficked from Karnataka; the second
highest total after Andra Pradesh (Sen, A. 2005: A Report on
Trafficking of Women and Children, UNIFEM).

Devadasi

Karnataka is also in the “devadasi belt”. Devadasi is a traditional
cultural practice in which a woman / girl is 'dedicated' to a God.
Although illegal in Karnataka, the practice continues and provides a
front by which trafficking can be legitimised.

...and I am Sid Harth

bademiyansubhanallah

unread,

Aug 15, 2009, 1:30:09 PM8/15/09

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/11/india.prostitution.children/index.html

Official: More than 1M child prostitutes in IndiaStory

Highlights
Around 1.2 million children are believed to be involved in
prostitution in India

Federal police say human trafficking is a major problem

Authorities believe 90 percent of human trafficking in India is "intra-
country"
updated 11:24 a.m. EDT, Mon May 11, 2009Next Article in World »

NEW DELHI, India (CNN) -- Around 1.2 million children are believed to
be involved in prostitution in India, the country's federal police
said Monday.

Ashwani Kumar, who heads the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI),
told a seminar on human trafficking, that India occupied a "unique
position" as what he called a source, transit nation and destination
of this trade.

India's home secretary Madhukar Gupta remarked that at least 100
million people were involved in human trafficking in India.

"The number of trafficked persons is difficult to determine due to the
secrecy and clandestine nature of the crime.

"However, studies and surveys sponsored by the ministry of women and
child development estimate that there are about three million
prostitutes in the country, of which an estimated 40 percent are
children," a CBI statement said.

Prostitution in pilgrim towns, exploitation through sex tourism and
pedophilia are some of the "alarming trends" that have emerged in
recent years in India, it noted.

Authorities believe 90 percent of human trafficking in India is "intra-
country."

http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/India.htm

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

Republic of India

India's diverse economy encompasses traditional village farming,
modern agriculture, handicrafts, a wide range of modern industries,
and a multitude of services. Services are the major source of economic
growth, accounting for more than half of India's output with less than
one third of its labor force. Slightly more than half of the work
force is in agriculture, leading the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
government to articulate a rural economic development program that
includes creating basic infrastructure to improve the lives of the
rural poor and boost economic performance.

The economy has posted an average growth rate of more than 7% in the
decade since 1997, reducing poverty by about 10 percentage points.

India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women,
and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and
commercial sexual exploitation. Internal forced labor may constitute
India's largest trafficking problem; men, women, and children in debt
bondage are forced to work in industries such as brick kilns, rice
mills, agriculture, and embroidery factories. Although no
comprehensive study of forced and bonded labor has been carried out,
some NGOs estimate this problem affects tens of millions of Indians.
Those from India’s most disadvantaged social economic strata are
particularly vulnerable to forced or bonded labor and sex trafficking.
Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of
commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage. Children are also
subjected to forced labor as factory workers, domestic servants,
beggars, and agricultural workers. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in
Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report]

CAUTION: The following links have been culled from the web to
illuminate the situation in India. Some of these links may lead to
websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even
false. No attempt has been made to verify their authenticity or to
validate their content.

*** FEATURED ARTICLES ***

Never too young to be sold

One wishes the circumstances were the same, but they seldom are. How
does one equate a girl lured away from a village in Meghalaya to a
brothel in Delhi with the one pushed into beedi-binding by her own
parents just so there is enough money to feed all the mouths in the
family? Or a boy thrown into the laps of paedophiliac foreign tourists
in Goa with one who runs away from starvation and poverty at home, to
be picked up and employed by a brick-kiln owner who gives him a paltry
daily wage and lunch? Which arm of the State — women and child
development, labour, police, or home affairs if there is border-
crossing — has failed to do its job in each of these cases, and which
is responsible for ensuring that the trafficked person gets a
livelihood and a respectable life?

This is why trafficking is such a tricky crime in developing countries
with their many areas of darkness. In Haryana, for instance, where it
is acceptable to destroy female foetuses and kill baby girls, young
women are trafficked from Bengal and the Northeast and forced into
marriage to keep the family line going. How does one, in the absence
of a complaint from the girl or her family, initiate criminal
proceedings against those who claim the girl as their daughter-in-law?

Police rescue trafficking suspect from mob fury

Police on Tuesday rescued a former employee of a Bhubaneswar-based
placement agency facing charges of trafficking youths from this region
to Malaysia from a frenzied mob in Nikiraia village, 15 km from here.
The villagers gave vent to their anger as about four youths from the
area reportedly enslaved in Malaysia since their departure three
months back.

The mob badly beat up Sunil Das and held him captive in the village.
The irate mob pounced on him demanding the refund of money that the
Malaysia bound youths had paid to the placement agency, police said.

A Dalit youth from this part of the state had undergone a two-month-
long nightmarish ordeal in Malaysia and escaped from the clutches of a
well-knit human trafficking racket, bringing to the fore the harrowing
plight of a number of unemployed local youths still stranded in
Malaysia in their quest for greener pastures.

The Enslavement Of Dalit And Indigenous Communities In India, Nepal
And Pakistan Through Debt Bondage [PDF]

SUMMARY - This paper describes the gross and continuing violation of
the rights of millions of people in India, Pakistan and Nepal, who are
trapped in debt bondage and forced to work to repay loans. Their
designation as persons belonging outside the Hindu caste system is a
major determining factor of their enslavement. Evidence from all three
countries shows that the vast majority (80%-98%) of bonded labourers
are from communities designated as “untouchable”, to whom certain
occupations are assigned, or from indigenous communities. In the same
way that caste status is inherited, so debts are passed on to the
succeeding generations.

*** ARCHIVES ***

CHILDLINE - Toll Free Call 1098 - Night & Day

CHILDLINE reaches out to all children in need of care and protection
such as: street children, child labourers, children who have been
abused, child victims of flesh trade, differently-abled children,
child addicts, children in conflict with the law, children in
institutions, mentally challenged children, HIV/AIDs infected
children, children affected by conflict and disaster, child political
refugees, children whose families are in crises.

Delhi Govt. Started the toll free 'Youth Phone service’ 1-800-11-6888

The Government of Delhi running the 'youth' helpline named Yuva Phone
line in Delhi. The counsellors are available round the clock on toll
free no 1800116888. The helpline is specially for students.

Website to track missing children launched

Anyone who has lost their child can post a message on this website and
a search will be set in motion simultaneously in 40 cities in the
country. Launched by Don Bosco National Forum for Youth at Risk in
association with UNICEF, www.missingchildsearch.net will be closely
watched and monitored by child welfare organisations in all major
cities in the country and a search will be generated immediately. The
Don Bosco National Forum for Youth at Risk is a major partner of
Childline India Foundation and extends service to hundreds of children
who are victims of war, conflict, natural calamities, sexual
exploitation, trafficking and HIV/AIDS. They also take care of street
and working children.

U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs

INCIDENCE AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Bonded or forced child labor is
a problem and exists in several industries. Recent reports indicate
that the practice exists in carpet manufacturing and silk weaving.

India is a source, destination, and transit country for trafficking of
children for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and other
forms of exploitive labor. Children are reported to be trafficked
from India to the Middle East and Western countries such as the United
States and Europe; into India from Bangladesh and Nepal; and through
the country to Pakistan and the Middle East. Mumbai, Calcutta and New
Delhi are major destination cities for young girls trafficked from
Nepal and Bangladesh for the purpose of commercial sexual
exploitation. Children are also trafficked within India for sexual
exploitation and forced or bonded labor. Organized crime and police
corruption were common factors that contributed to the overall
situation of trafficking in India. An August 2004 study by the
government estimated that almost half of the trafficked children
interviewed were between the ages of 11 to 14 years.

Bur of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices - 2005

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – Within the country, women from economically
depressed areas often moved to cities seeking greater economic
opportunities, and once there they were often forced by traffickers
into prostitution. In many cases, family members sold young girls into
prostitution. Extreme poverty, combined with the low social status of
women, often resulted in parents handing over their children to
strangers for what they believed was employment or marriage. In some
instances, parents received payments or the promise that their
children would send wages back home.

According to the Indian Center for Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, more
than 40 thousand tribal women, mainly from Orissa and Bihar, were
forced into economic and sexual exploitation; many came from tribes
driven off their land by national park plans. A Haryana-based NGO
revealed widespread trafficking of teenaged girls and young boys from
poverty-stricken Assam to wealthier Haryana and Punjab for sexual
slavery under the pretext of entering into arranged marriages or for
forced labor. There was also significant trafficking for real
marriages due to decades of large-scale and increasing female
feticide.

Boys, often as young as age four were trafficked to the Middle East or
the Persian Gulf as jockeys in camel races, and many boys ended up as
beggars in Saudi Arabia during Hajj (pilgrimage). The majority of such
children worked with the knowledge of their parents, who received $200
(Rs. 9,300) for their child's labor. Many children were kidnapped for
forced labor, with kidnappers earning approximately $150 (Rs. seven
thousand) per month from the labor of each child. The child's names
were usually added to the passport of a Bangladeshi or female citizen
who already had a visa for the Gulf. Girls and women were trafficked
to the Persian Gulf states to work as domestic workers or for
commercial sexual exploitation

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child
(CRC) - 2004

[74] The Committee welcomes the ratification of the South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Convention on Preventing
and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution; the
adoption of a plan of action to combat trafficking and commercial
sexual exploitation of women and children; the initiative to undertake
a study, inter alia, to collect data on the number of children and
women who become victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking; and
the Pilot Projects to Combat Trafficking of Children for Commercial
Sexual Exploitation in Destination and Source Areas, but remains
concerned that the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1986 does not
define trafficking and limits its scope to sexual exploitation. In
addition, the Committee expresses its concern at the increasing number
of child victims of sexual exploitation, including prostitution and
pornography. Concern is also expressed at the insufficient programs
for the physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration
of child victims of such abuse and exploitation.

Indian workers' struggle shines light on human trafficking, slave
labor

The plight of immigrant Indian workers who were deceived into virtual
slavery has brought attention to the vile practice of human
trafficking. Indian workers protest slave-like conditions before the
Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., June 11. The workers took
jobs with Signal International to work on the U.S. Gulf Coast
following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Indian
workers were told they would receive "green cards," allowing them
permanent legal residence in the United States. Many who left their
families behind in search of better wages had been told they would be
able to bring their relatives. The promises were all lies. Instead of
receiving permanent legal status, the workers—who had paid fees of up
to $20,000 to Signal—received 10-month H-2B temporary worker visas.
The workers were essentially trapped, and their employers knew it.
Their documents were stolen and wages were withheld. For all practical
purposes, slavery had returned to Louisiana.

Prostitution thriving on teenagers in northeast

howrah.org/top_story/14415.html

All is not well with children in India's northeast. A study conducted
by a Guwahati-based NGO along with the police has revealed that a
shocking 20 percent involved in prostitution in the region are aged
between 11 and 17 years.

In addition, the report also states that most of the children are
victims of acute physical torture. "They are initially raped and
flogged almost to death to take up the profession," the report said.
Almost half of the child prostitutes were from Assam, followed by
Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh,
said Sarma. Some of the victims were also sold to brothels in Mumbai,
Pune and Ahmedabad. "We have reports that sheikhs from the Middle
East are also buying northeastern girls from these brothels. Also,
trafficking gangs from Southeast Asian countries are taking a keen
interest in the girls because of their Mongoloid features," Sarma
said.

CBI goes after foster parents in child racket

The case had originated on the basis of complaints from parents about
missing children. One of them, the child of Kathiravel and Nagamani,
pavement-dwellers in Pulianthope, had been allegedly kidnapped and
sold to a Dutch couple. Similarly, the four-year-old child of Sylvia,
a woman from Otteri, was kidnapped from an auto and sold to a couple
in Australia. Another couple from the city had lost their one-and-a-
half-year old child, who was traced to the US.

The racket was busted in the city in the first week of May 2005 after
the Otteri police received specific information about kidnapping of
children in and around Otteri. The police team then started
investigations and arrested seven people identified as Varadharajan,
Sheikh Dawood, Navjeen, Sabeera, Manoharan, Salima and K.T. Dawood.
They subsequently traced the racket to an illegal adoption agency,
Malaysian Social Service, which had kidnapped street children and sold
them to foreigners after forging certificates. The case was
subsequently transferred to the Crime Branch. - htsc

Child trafficking could become rampant in state unless tackled
urgently, feels activist

Every year thousands are trafficked across India for a variety of
reasons including sexual exploitation, bonded labour, organ
transplantation, adoption, coerced marriage etc. Women and children
are particularly vulnerable to human trafficking and in Manipur child
trafficking appears to be a growing epidemic. Though the number of
cases are rising, the state government has failed to take any measures
Anee Mangsatabam, the chairman of Child Welfare Committee told IFP.

Various NGOs and organisations of the state who are working to prevent
human trafficking in the state, have said that due to lack of funds
and other reasons they were unable to take any action against the
traffickers.

Assam human trafficking: A startling revelation!

Every year thousands of tea tribe girls are lured by people and taken
to different parts of India, to work as slave and in most of the cases
they lands up in brothels. Those who are forced into sex work, or who
are vulnerable to sexual exploitation as domestic labourers, are
particularly at risk of sexually transmitted infections, including
HIV, and unwanted pregnancy.

The plight of the women from this community has remained unheard and
unattended, since ages and they are have no other options but to
migrate and to follow the people who lure them and assure them good
jobs out side the state. - htcp

Punjab girls' NRI dream turns nightmare

Every year thousands of Punjabis fly to foreign lands for employment
and better future. But for some, this dream turns sour as they are
cheated by travel agents and given false assurances.

It was the last thing her father, Gurdev Singh, expected to hear. He
had sold land and took loans to pay Rs eight lakh to a travel agent
for her job in London. But she ended up in Ukraine where she was
forced into prostitution.

"We ran away and sought help from a lady in Ukraine and narrated my
entire story and told her that my travel agent took away my passport
and travel documents. With her help, I was able to contact my family,"
added Manjit Kaur.

The scourge of human trafficking in India

When Mona was 13 years, her mother died and her father remarried. The
stepmother was uncomfortable with Mona and wanted to send her away for
some job, where she would be able to look after herself. Along came a
”contractor” who arranged jobs for youngsters as domestic help, etc.
He paid a certain sum of money to the stepmother and took Mona to a
town far away. He got her a job in a massage parlour as a
‘receptionist’. Even before Mona got to know the work profile, she
realized that she had been trapped into sexual exploitation. She had
become a sexual slave to the ‘customers’ who frequented the place for
full-body massage.

Ravi promises support to Indian trafficking victims in US

About 100 Indian victims of human trafficking in the US have found
support from Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi who has
promised all help. The workers, who Wednesday quit working for Signal
International at Pascagoula shipyard in Mississippi, met in New
Orleans, Louisiana, Saturday to discuss their course of action, said
Stephen Boykewich, a media spokesperson for the New Orleans Workers'
Centre for Racial Justice that is helping them. The workers were
recruited by Dewan Consultants of Mumbai, and brought by Signal, a
marine construction company, to the US over a year ago and made to
live and work in abysmal conditions.

'Dr Kidney' arrest exposes Indian organ traffic

The arrest of "Doctor Kidney" Amit Kumar for running a sizeable racket
in live kidneys has highlighted the role that South Asia plays as the
hub of an international trade in human organs. A sophisticated but
unregulated healthcare industry, a "donor pool" of desperately poor
people ready to sell a kidney, and a corrupt monitoring system have
combined to create a special brand of "medical tourism" in the region,
especially in India and neighboring Pakistan.

Kumar is accused of luring poor laborers to his "hospital" in the New
Delhi suburb of Gurgaon with promises of job offers or large sums of
money. Typically, they were promised 300,000 rupees (US$7,500) but
paid only 30,000 ($750) after the surgery, police said. He is alleged
to have conducted more than 500 transplants over an unspecified
period, charging up to $50,000 dollars for each operation.
Investigators say his patients came from Britain, the United States,
Turkey, Nepal, Dubai, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

Four child labourers freed

Saddam said, "Our parents face severe hardships in making both ends
meet due to abject poverty. Sagir took advantage of this and one day
he came to our house and offered to 'help' the family by ensuring
education for us. Gaining our parents' confidence and consent, Sagir
brought us to Nagpur." He added, "When we arrived in the city, Sagir
took us to his zari embroidery unit in Farooq Nagar, near Teka Naka.
He forced us to work in the embroidery unit. We used to work right
from 8 am to 2 am, and he (Sagir) used to pay us a very meagre Rs 15
to Rs 20 per week."

New cases on human trafficking

Trafficking of poor girls by unscrupulous persons or gangs along the
Indo-Nepal border here is common, but local people were shocked to
know that a father sold his daughter and a husband sold his young wife
for money.

West Bengals sex workers remarkable fight against HIV

To stop human trafficking in sex trade, a self-regulatory board has
been established by the sex workers. The board works as a filter and
it checks whether the new girl joining the trade is an adult or a
minor. This board also tries to find out if any new girl joining the
profession is under any pressure to do so. This has been very
successful way to check human trafficking, police raids have also
reduced considerably, said Swapna Gayen, who too is a sex worker in
Sonagachi for over two decades.

Is Christmas really Merry for Indian Children?

The much-hyped policy against child labour has shown little results.
In Shahpur village in Vaishali district in Bihar, children were being
used as beasts of burden. But the mindset of people was such that,
none of them wanted to help those children. The boys were being used
instead of bullocks for ploughing the land and the land under question
belongs to the minister for rural development Raghuvansh Prasad’s
brother Raghuraj Singh. Child labour right under the nose of the
ministry!

Children under the age of 14 are forced to work in glass, fireworks,
and most commonly, carpet-making factories. India has the largest
number of uneducated children in the world. We boast of abysmal
numbers, with 75 million children suffering from malnutrition and more
than a 100 million being uneducated. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the
Mid Day meal scheme have not shown the desirous results yet, with 70
per cent dropout rate of children before the 10th standard.

Trafficking victim awaits permanent home

Abandoned at the Gurgaon bus stand on Thursday, a 14-year-old victim
of human trafficking is left in the lurch with no one willing to offer
her a solution, or a long-term shelter. Neither the local police
stations nor NGOs are ready to take care of her.

A resident of Gopalganj in Bihar, the victim was married off to a 45-
year-old man (one Pramod) as her father could not repay money he had
borrowed, the victim has said. The marriage took place in Bihar on
March 10, and she was brought to Rohtak a couple of months ago, the
victim said.

Trading flesh, selling souls

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),
between two to three million people are trafficked annually in and out
of India. Most disturbingly, a large number of people, especially
girls and women, from states such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa and the north-eastern region, are
trafficked to the metros such as Delhi and Mumbai.

People from these states are trafficked to work in brothels, dance
bars, pubs, restaurants, friendship clubs, massage parlours and for
domestic chores, says Dr P M Nair, a senior police official and co-
author of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) study entitled
'Trafficking in Women and Children in India'.

Human trafficking burst in Chhattisgarh, 400 villagers rescued

Over 400 villagers from Mahasamund district have been rescued by the
Chhattisgarh government officials when they were being transported
outside the state, a senior official said on Friday.

"All the villagers were put inside the containers which did not have
have sufficient ventilation or light and were being transported like
animals," she said.

Women emerge as primary victims in trafficking

Porous borders with economically poorer Bangladesh and Nepal (from
where none need visa to visit India) aggravate the problem of cross-
border trafficking. Bangladesh remained a source country for women and
children for a quite a long time, traffickers target their preys in
the poverty stricken rural areas. On the other hand, Nepal is
identified as a source country in the region. Fair looking Nepali
young women are the primary victims of the trafficking, though new
trend emerges with attraction for boys too. Unconfirmed statistics
reveal that in average 12,000 Nepali women with minors are trafficked
every year for sexual exploitation in outer countries. Most of the
trafficked women from Nepal were later found infected with HIV/AIDS
and also tuberculosis.

Addressing the conference, the minister Ms Chowdhury also argued that
trafficking is by and large a gendered phenomenon. The trafficking in
India is primarily for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.
There are nearly three million sex workers in India and 40 per cent of
them are children or adolescent girls. Statistics reveal that children
below the age of 10 years are also found in the brothel of Indian
cities like Mumbai and Delhi now a day, the minister disclosed. "Many
believe that having sex with young and virgin girls would cure them of
diseases. It is nonsense," Ms Chowdhury uttered. She emphasized on
reducing the demand for prostitutes, engagement of children in
workplaces, use of forced labour and empowering all collaborative
efforts of governments, NGOs and other institutions to deal with the
situation. - htcp

25 arrested for human trafficking; 200 labourers rescued in Indian
state

At least 200 persons, including women and children, were rescued from
forced labour and 25 middlemen were arrested in this regard, police
said Friday.

The rescued include 70 persons, who were confined for three days in a
forest in the jurisdiction of Turekela police station area and 30
others, who were rescued from Titilagarh railway station.

Never too young to be sold

UN seeks end to human trafficking

GOALS - Every day in South Asia children and young women are lured or
taken from their homes with promises of a job, marriage or a place in
the entertainment industry. Instead, they end up in the sex trade or
as forced labour. India is the hub of this trade, with organised
crime syndicates trafficking women and children both within the
country and from across the border in Nepal or Bangladesh.

Sarpanch held for human trafficking

www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20071006015628&

Page=Q&Headline=Sarpanch+held+for+human
+trafficking&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0

A country-made revolver was seized from the sarpanch. On a tipoff,
Patnagarh police, led by DSP (crime) N C Dandsena, rescued the 40
labourers when they were being taken to a nearby railway station to
work in a brick kiln unit. Police said the Sarpanch had given some
money to the labourers in advance and forced them to go to Hyderabad.
They were to work in the brick kiln for five months.

Over 650 Indian trafficking victims rescued: UNODC

www.giftasia.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=218&Itemid=389&

phpMyAdmin=4f584d8c4572365487e8bfe7282ef5aa

Over 650 Indians, including 138 minors, who were victims to human
trafficking, were rescued during the first six months of this year, an
United Nations agency said here today.

He claimed the average age of girls being trafficked in South Asia was
dropping. "While in 1980, the average age of trafficked girls was 14
to 16 years, it dropped to 10-14 years in 1994. The figure in 2006 has
decreased," he said.

Human trafficking has become a billion-dollar business: UN report

The United Nations report also said, that girls and women from West
Bengal and Assam are being increasingly trafficked to Punjab and
Haryana, where they are sexually exploited until they bear a male
child.

“(There is an) emerging pattern of trafficking in girls from West
Bengal and Assam to the more prosperous states of Punjab and Haryana,
where the gender gap is most acute…The woman is either abandoned or
passed onto another man after the birth of the male child,” the study
said.

Human trafficking helps spread HIV/AIDS in Asia: UN

"Trafficking ... contributes to the spread of HIV by significantly
increasing the vulnerability of trafficked persons to infection," said
Caitlin Wiesen-Antin, HIV/AIDS regional coordinator, Asia and Pacific,
for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). "Both human
trafficking and HIV greatly threaten human development and security."

Major human trafficking routes run between Nepal and India and between
Thailand and neighbors like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Many of the
victims are young teenage girls who end up in prostitution. "The link
between human trafficking and HIV/AIDS has only been identified fairly
recently," Wiesen-Antin told the International Congress on AIDS in
Asia and the Pacific.

Police rescue trafficking suspect from mob fury

Church organizes struggle against human trafficking

Many girls from the region are also taken to Indian cities with
promises of jobs, said Shimray, a native of Manipur state. Shimray
said many women are taken from their homes after being promised jobs
as domestic maids. The educated ones are promised jobs in hotels and
city firms, she added. In many cases, those who entrap the women are
members of their own families, relatives or people close to them.

In the period, the state recorded 3,718 missing female adults. Among
them, 1,837 are still untraceable. During the same period 4,259 girls
went missing and only 1,918 were traced, Borah said.

Guard Against Human Trafficking

These marriage offers come for a consideration ranging between Rs
5,000 and Rs 1 lakh,which are ascertained on the basis of her beauty.
In some situations, poor family members sell children hoping that they
will get a good life, job or education. However, most of them end up
in a brothel or simply they are forced to have sex with clientele."

Traffickers often use local people (sub-agents) in a community or
village to find young women and children, and target families who are
poor and vulnerable. "One of the major problems with making arrests is
that the victim's family does not complain as it does not want to be
used as witnesses against the agents or gangs involved in
trafficking," an officer said.

Human trafficking on the rise

www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEK20070427021745&Page=K&

Title=Southern+News+-+Karnataka&Topic=0

The increase in human trafficking cases in the last couple of years is
worrying NGOs and exposes the government’s apathy towards the social
evil. Figures say that more than 60 girls from Karnataka, who fell
prey to human trafficking, have been rescued from brothels and red
light areas in Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. These rescued girls, in the
age-group of 12 to 20 years, are mostly from the northern districts of
Bijapur, Bagalkot, Shimoga, Mysore, Mandya and Chamrajnagar. They
fall easy prey to the agents who assure them of jobs and attractive
earnings, but they land up in brothels.

State unaware of child abuse situation, projecting deflated figues

www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20070410122717&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0

The pilgrim town of Puri is a haven for child prostitution and rampant
paedophilia. A recent study conducted by the Institute of Socio
Economic Development with support from United Nations Development Fund
for Women says that Puri is the heart of child trafficking and
accounts for over 43 percent of the cases.

But the State Administration and Police make no attempt to move
because the holy town also happens to be a tourist hotspot.

But the real cause of concern lies elsewhere. Domestic abuse continues
unabated and even in the face of newer and stringent legislation.
Having children as domestic helps is a common practice and they are
the major victims of abuse.

The sensational incident of child torture by royals of Khariar in 2004
had amply revealed the magnitude of the problem. The Crime Branch of
Orissa Police arrested the former royal BP Singh Deo and his wife
Pushpalata Singh Deo who allegedly branded their 8-year-old domestic
help.

The new and stringent legislation has not been able to rein in the
menace. Children are not only afraid of reporting the abuse in fear of
retribution, loss of livelihood also deters them to disclose.

How to change the world - The role of the social entreprenuer

www.dailymirror.lk/2007/03/15/opinion/1.asp

As Childline expanded to new cities, the call-tracking system also
emerged as an important source of child protection information.
National data showed that the biggest killer of street children was
tuberculosis, but regional call patterns revealed a variety of local
problems. In Jaipur, for example, childline received reports of abuse
in the garment and jewelry industries. In Varanasi, there were reports
of children being abducted to work in the sari industry. In Delhi,
many calls came from middle-class children. In Nagpur, a transit hub,
there were frequent reports of children abandoned in train stations.
In Goa, a beach resort, a major problem was the sexual abuse of
children by foreign tourists.

Panel Draws Attention to Human Trafficking

Thirty families living in a village in the Tiruvallur district of
India all have one thing in common: They are now free after spending
years in bonded labor at a nearby brick kiln, said Gayatri Patel, who
visited the village in 2006.

"The people I met with told me the owner of the brick kiln who had
practically enslaved these people had been arrested, but he was only
sentenced to one night in prison," Patel recently told a Georgetown
audience. "The next morning when he left, he just went back to his
brick kiln, rounded up another 100 bonded laborers and put them to
work."

NGO worker involved in human trafficking arrested

htnext.in/news/181_1948302,0009.htm

Arrest of an activist working for a non-government organisation (NGO)
for his alleged involvement in human trafficking of 13 Nepalese women
in Maharajganj district on Thursday has put a question mark over the
very genuineness of such agencies involved in the eradication of the
menace. This worker, arrested along with a policeman, was working for
the NGO Manav Sewa Sansthan.

March denounces child trafficking

LURED BY SWEETS - Kailash Satyarthi, chairman of the Global March
Against Child Labour, says South Asia is a major source, destination
and transit area for child trafficking of all forms. “Children are
being taken for forced labour and bonded labour," he says.

"Children are being used for child marriages. Child prostitution is of
course there, then a lot of children are taken as camel jockeys."
Thousands of children work in roadside food stalls

Some children, he says, are kidnapped and sold so their organs can be
harvested for transplant operations.

One of the young marchers is a boy of 13 who says he was lured from
his village in Bihar by a man with sweets, kidnapped, and taken to
Punjab where he was made to work 12 hours a day, every day.

Human trafficking is a $32 bn worldwide business

Afsana Khatun, a 15-year-old Muslim girl from Kolkata's Kidderpore
area, has never met 13-year-old Rakesh who works for 18 hours in a
Punjab village like a slave after he was trafficked from his native
village in Bihar. But on Sunday, Afsana will march with thousands of
others from Kolkata so that Rakesh and other boys and girls of his age
who are trafficked every day are not enslaved in a stone quarry or a
red light area forever.

'The objective of this march is to build a mass movement against child
trafficking and forced labour. There is no regional protocol to
prohibit trafficking. We would march to make the government answerable
and people aware,' he said.

Four held for human trafficking; three girls rescued

Three young women aged 18 to 20 years were rescued from being
trafficked and four persons arrested in this connection here on
Tuesday, police said. The girls belonging to Vijayawada city were
lured on the promise of jobs in Hyderabad.

Child Trafficking

TRAFFICKING AND CHILD MARRIAGE - Due to a demographic imbalance in
Haryana (850 girls/1000 boys), men find it difficult to find a bride.
The easy way out has been through a network of touts who help men,
young old and widowed men to find wives from West Bengal, Assam and
Bihar. An estimated 5000 girls were sold in the Mewat region of
Haryana.

Of Serious Concern

www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=10333

Incidents of human trafficking are on the rise in the country despite
the presence of a number of organisations, both in the private and
government sectors, and the powerful media that makes each incident of
human trafficking public. The latest case of human trafficking was
revealed in Nepalgunj the other day when a suspected trafficker was
arrested while trying to traffic four boys and five girls across the
border. Thanks to Maiti Nepal, an NGO working for the well-being of
helpless girls, the police arrested the suspected trafficker. Though
there is no official record regarding the number of Nepalese girls
trafficked to Indian brothels, thousands of Nepalese girls are said to
live lives of untold misery in the Indian brothels.

Four arrested for human trafficking

CID Crime Branch sleuths on Saturday said they’ve arrested four
persons who are involved in trafficking two girls allegedly for the
purpose of trafficking.

On interrogation, police found that the girls were brought from
outside the state and were being supplied by a couple to a middleman
in Goa, who in turn sent girls to prospective customers.

4 held for human trafficking, inter-state racket busted

Samir went the to urinal while the announcement was being made but
when he returned, both his daughter-in-law and the man, identified as
Ramesh, were missing, said police.

During investigations, police found that Ramesh, who stays in Usmanpur
Pusta, northwest Delhi, had gone to Roorkee in Uttaranchal and
followed him. At Roorkee bus stop, Ramesh and one Sandhya Devi were
arrested while they were settling a deal of Rs 20,000 for the victim,
police said. Police raided Sandhya's house in Roorkee and rescued a 15-
year-old girl, who was kidnapped from Old Delhi Railway Station
earlier.

Pak one of the key sources of women trafficking in world: UN report

A UN report has described Pakistan as the “one of the key sources of
women trafficking” in the world. It said that India had also lately
emerged as a key destination and transit point for global trafficking
of women and girls.

Bombay HC Lambasts Police Inaction in Curbing Human Trafficking

The court was hearing a petition filed by a non-government
organisation "Prerna" which has sought reinvestigation into the case
wherein nine girls, who had been rescued from a brothel in 2002, had
gone missing.

The court was told that the number of minor girls rescued from
brothels during the last three years was shocking. As many as 26 girls
were rescued in 2003, twelve in 2004, 31 girls were rescued in 2005
and 27 during the current year, the court was told.

Human trafficking from Nepal on rise

Trafficking of Nepalese women and children into India, especially from
the western districts, has increased significantly in recent days due
to lax security at border checkpoints.

A large number of women and children are being trafficked into India
from checkpoints west of Butwal, representatives of several Indian and
Nepalese non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and security officials
stated during an interaction on 'controlling cross-border human
trafficking'.

Woman held for human trafficking

A middle-aged woman allegedly engaged in trafficking of humans was
caught at New Delhi railway station on Monday after a woman she had
sold to a brothel-owner on G.B. Road here eight years ago identified
her. The accused had come to the Capital to sell another young woman
from Latur in Maharashtra to flesh traders.

Nodal cell in Home Ministry to deal with human trafficking

The centre has directed state governments to deal with such crimes in
a holistic manner and to evolve an effective and comprehensive
strategy encompassing rescue, relief and rehabilitation of victims
besides deterrent action against violators.

Govt push to drive against human trafficking

A total of 8900 cases of trafficking were registered in 2004-2005.
13,300 persons were arrested, 93% of them women and minors. 85% of
them were convicted, IPS officer P Nair, currently on deputation to
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), quotes these
figures to illustrate how the justice system is criminalising victims,
but not traffickers.

The boy racer

Budhia Singh was sold as a baby by his illiterate and impoverished
mother. Now, aged five, he is India's most improbable young sports
star, famed for his astonishing feats of endurance running.

India to fight human trafficking at grassroots

Village heads across impoverished rural India will be asked to help
fight human trafficking by keeping a register of people who leave in
search of work. The United Nations Development Project (UNDP) is also
asking village chiefs to watch out for traffickers who lure villagers
with promises of well-paid jobs but force them into the sex trade.

India is transit hub for human trafficking

The study said 72 percent of human trafficking is for commercial sex,
80.26 percent of trafficking of women takes place in Bihar - most of
it happening during migration for labour - and 12.36 percent of the
total trafficking is due to family traditions.

Human trafficking turning into organised crime in India

"Trafficking can be disguised as migration, commercial sex or
marriage. But what begins as a voluntary decision often ends up as
trafficking as victims find themselves in unfamiliar destinations,
subjected to unexpected work," said E Rajarethinam of GCT.

Pointing out that trafficking is deeply related to deprivation, Jill
Shirey, a consultant at American Centre for International Labour
Solidarity (ACILS) said that people are "forced into accepting unknown
jobs due to lack of options."

India rejects U. S. criticism for inability to control human
trafficking

The Indian ministry statement said India and the United States have an
ongoing dialogue on the trafficking in persons, and the annual report
"certainly is not helpful to furthering our dialogue."

Rep. Christopher Smith, a Republican author of the 2000 law that
established the annual trafficking reports, said in Washington that
the Bush administration went too easy on India by placing it on the
watch list instead of among the dozen worst offenders.

Microsoft Teams with CAP to Train Victims of Human Trafficking in IT

Microsoft Corp. India Private Limited, under its Project Jyoti
program, has announced a grant of around Rs. 2.2 crore to CAP (Child
and Police project), a Hyderabad-based NGO, to provide IT skills
training to victims of human trafficking as well as vulnerable
communities at risk of trafficking.

Press release: Friday, November 15, 2002

gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-press.mbox/fsf-press.mbox

The Free Software Foundation of India would like to bring to the
attention of the Government and the general public the negative
implications of the "investment pledges" made by the Microsoft
Chairman, Bill Gates, during his present visit to India. At the
outset, it needs to be made very clear that the proposed investments
have no motive other than the motive of profit and nobody should be
under the illusion that these "investments" are being made for the
betterment of society or for the development of India. On the
contrary, the type of software developed and sold by Microsoft,
proprietary software, -- software which is supplied without its
underlying source code and without the freedoms to study, modify and
redistribute it -- constrains indigenous development and divides
society.

Human trafficking in the northeast fuelling HIV/AIDS

We visited 25 relief camps of internally displaced persons [IDPs] in
Kokrajhar in Bodoland Territorial Council, Assam [state]. Nearly
200,000 people are living in these camps without proper food.
Traffickers carry out recruitment drives in such relief camps. They
make false promises of jobs as domestic help in big cities.

Bangladesh busts human trafficking ring: 34 rescued

The women and children, some as young as five-years-old, were brought
by the traffickers from four neighbourhood districts with false
promises of lucrative jobs in India.

But they are mostly forced into prostitution as they illegally enter
India, said Adhikar, a local non-government charity for children from
poor families.

Need to rid Gujarat of human trafficking

Last August, the city police had raided several embroidery units in
Rakhial and rescued 84 child labourers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The boys, aged between seven and 17 years, had come to Gujarat in
search of employment. Subsequent raids by juvenile remand home
officials and cops on jewellery production units revealed that child
labourers from West Bengal and Orissa were working in sub-human
conditions for some money to send back home.

Slavery in Our Time

Historians will look back in puzzlement at the way our 21st century
world tolerates the slavery of more than a million children in
brothels around the world.

India alone may have half a million children in its brothels, more
than any other country in the world. Visit the brothel district in
almost any city in India, and you can meet 14-year-old girls who have
been kidnapped off the street, or drugged, or offered jobs as maids,
and then sold into a world that they often escape only by dying of
AIDS.

Indo-Pak girls forced into prostitution

In a startling case of organised women trafficking that has come to
light, Pakistani and Indian girls aged between 11 and 13 are being
smuggled to the Middle East countries for being forced into
prostitution there. The girls, who are shown as aged between 20 and 22
on their passports, are brought to these countries on the pretext of
getting them attracting jobs.

Hitting Brothel Owners where it Hurts

[24 January 2006] Imagine what you would have done if you'd been in
Hasina Bibi's sandals. She was a lonely 16-year-old working in a
garment factory in Bangladesh when an older employee began mothering
her. They grew close, and one day the older woman gave Hasina some
cakes to eat. Two days later, Hasina emerged from a drug-induced
stupor in India, sold to a brothel in faraway Gujarat. The brothel's
owner beat Hasina and threatened to deform her face with acid if she
tried to escape. She had to do whatever the customers wanted, with or
without condoms.

Caritas India Campaign against Hunger and Disease, 2005

THE TRAFFICKED VICTIM IS SUBJECTED TO WORST FORM OF HUMAN RIGHT ABUSES
- Mona, (not her real name) a girl from Jharkhand, aged 14 years, had
been trafficked to Delhi for domestic work. Her father sold her to an
agent for Rupees 18, 000. In Delhi, the agent told her employers that
they should pay her salary directly to him, so that he can forward the
money to her poor parents. But in reality, no money reached Mona’s
parents.

Prostitution of Nepalese girls rampant in Indian brothel

''Young girls are trafficked from Nepal to brothels in Mumbai and
Kolkata at an average age of twelve. They are trapped into the vicious
cycle of prostitution, debt and slavery. By the time they are in their
mid-twenties, they are at the dead end or 'cul-de-sac','' the study
noted.

US accuses NGO of 'trafficking'

US government is getting tough on the issue of trafficking of human
beings. Indicating its seriousness on the issue, the US government-
funding agency USAID terminated funding to the NGO Sampada Grameen
Mahila Sanstha (SANGRAM) for reportedly supporting brothel owners and
obstructing the rescue of minor girls from red light areas.

Northeast girls in metros forced into prostitution

Gullible young girls from the northeast are being forced into
prostitution in the metropolises after being lured by organized
syndicates promising them glamorous careers and lucrative jobs, a
rights group has said. "The situation is extremely serious with smart
operators flooding the northeast hunting for good looking young girls
for modeling assignments or jobs in call centers with good salaries,"
said Hasina Kharbih, chairperson of Impulse NGO Network. "But in
reality, many of these women were pushed into the notorious world of
prostitution."

Stopping the traffic

Slavery is not dead in India. Fuelled by trafficking, it is spreading
far and wide. Thousands of Indians, especially women and children, are
trafficked everyday to some destination or the other and are forced to
lead lives of bondage. They survive in brothels, factories,
guesthouses, dance bars, farms and even in the homes of well-off
Indians, with no control over their bodies and lives. Women and
children are also being trafficked for illegal adoptions, organ
transplants, the circus and the entertainment industry.

Police rescue 24 girls from red light area

Police said the rescued girls had been whisked away from various
places in Nepal, West Bengal, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and
Maharashtra. Some of them had been restrained at the brothels for as
long as two years.

Teen escapes sex trade

Tasmina Khatun agreed to elope with Muku Mondal, a man she loved, not
knowing the nightmare she was inviting. Police yesterday rescued the
15-year-old girl from the Sunderbans when she was about to be taken to
Kashmir to be sold off to flesh traders.

Bangla prostitution racket busted in Goa

[07-20-2005, 08:23 PM] The minor girl, Mallika, hailing from a poverty
stricken family, was approached by a 'sympathetic-looking' Bangladeshi
woman, who offered to take the girl to Mumbai with the promise that
the family would see a change in their fortunes. At Apna Ghar,
Mallika narrated her woeful tale of being bought in from Bangladesh
and being forced into the prostitution trade, to the counselor
appointed by the government.

Speaking out for the `nameless'

"Anamika" (the nameless) is a documentary on trafficking of women and
children from Andhra Pradesh to various parts of the country. It
narrates how young girls are deceived, forced or coerced to enter the
trade every year.

The face that launched a thousand shares

Thousands of Indians, especially women and children, are trafficked
everyday to some destination or the other and are forced to lead lives
of slavery. They survive in brothels, factories, guesthouses, dance
bars, farms and even in the homes of well-off Indians, with no control
over their bodies and lives. Women and children are also being
trafficked for illegal adoptions, organ transplants, the circus and
the entertainment industry.

Little Hands of Slavery

In the tender age of five or six these children are made to work up to
fifteen hours a day in stone quarries, fields, picking rags on city
streets or as domestic servants. They do not go to school, and
throughout their lifetime they possibly wouldn’t even have the barest
skills of literacy.

Couple Arrested For Human Trafficking

Sunil Dayalkar alias Sanjay More and wife Kushi alias Nishikant Biswas
allegedly bought Asha (name changed) from one Sanjay Dutt for Rs
65,000 and then forced her into prostitution.

This Will Force Us To Clean Up Our Act

NGOs estimate that at least 7,000 girls are trafficked into India from
Nepal every year. They mostly end up in brothels in metros, condemned
to a life of deprivation and torture. Children who are trafficked end
up either in the flesh trade or become child labor.

17,000 Nepal Women Forced Into Prostitution In India

According to the study, the investigators talked personally to the
Nepali women in the brothels of India in course of doing research.
Most of them fall prey to the avarice of family members. Local brokers
come second in the line of the process of selling them there.

The Saving of Innocents - The Satya Interview with Ruchira Gupta

An uncle or a family friend pays the parent something like $30. There
is the middleman in a packed city, the border guard who takes a
payoff, and the agent who takes the girls across the border to the
people who then transport them to Bombay and on to the brothel madam,
who buys the girls for $50 to $100.

Human Trafficking Situation In India Grim

"The Government of India has shown little progress in addressing anti-
trafficking in persons concerns since May... In Mumbai, convictions
for trafficking-related offences increased from three in 2003 to 11
thus far in 2004 but remain grossly unrepresentative in a city of over
18 million inhabitants."

Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties:
3 Status: Free

Human Rights Overview by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights
Worldwide

U.S. Library of Congress - Country Study

Slavery Today | Introduction

[scroll down] The most common form of slavery today is debt bondage or
bonded labor. A person enters into debt bondage when his or her labor
is demanded as a way to pay back a loan. In India, for example, debts
running from $14 to $214 are usually incurred for basic necessities,
such as food, medical emergencies, marriage dowries (a long-standing
cultural tradition), or funeral expenses. Taking into account the
outrageous interest rates, often in excess of 60 percent, and the
debtors’ meager wages, these loans are difficult, if not impossible,
to repay. Moreover, inaccurate bookkeeping on the part of the
moneylender ensures that the debtor never pays off the loan.
Individuals are then forced to repay loans by working for the
moneylender for the rest of their lives and often pass the same debt
on to their children and grandchildren. Human rights groups estimate
that there are approximately 20 million bonded laborers throughout the
world.

India could lead the fight against human trafficking

In a bid to combat the menace, the U.S. would like to expand its
dialogue with India, including its law enforcement agencies. Talking
to The Hindu here, the visiting U.S. Assistant Attorney-General, R.
Alexander Acosta, said that India faced a handicap in the fight
against such crimes due to the lack of a federal law enforcement
agency.

During the past three years, the Vajpayee Government has tried to push
the idea. But several States have expressed doubts that it would usurp
the rights of their police organisations.

Lauding the shift in India's approach to nab the traffickers, rather
than the victims, Mr. Acosta hoped that the trend would continue. The
three Ps — prosecution, prevention and protection — played a crucial
role in checking trafficking.

Probe into Iraq trafficking claims

Indian press reports said that Indian nationals in Jordan and Kuwait
were recruited for jobs in U.S. military camps in Iraq as cooks,
butchers, laundry workers and handymen. Some of the Indians charge
they signed up through Indian employment companies to work in Kuwait,
but ended up in Iraq working for low pay and were refused permission
to leave the country.

Pulling the Rug out from Under Us - A Report on Debt Bondage, Carpet-
Marking, and Child Slavery

Ironically, India, the world’s largest democracy, is also home to more
slaves than all the other countries of the world combined.1 With
roughly one billion inhabitants, India supports over 15% of the
world’s population.2 And with more than half of India’s population
living below the income poverty line3, nearly 40% of the population
cannot afford a sufficient diet.4 As inadequate government expenditure
on education, health, and welfare increases the high vulnerability of
much of India’s vast population, exploitation – even enslavement – are
everyday realities for many Indians.

Unresolved Crisis

A recent study by International Labor Organization (ILO) showed that
around 12000 Nepalese women and children are trafficked every year.
They are mostly trafficked across the border to India for the purpose
of prostitution. Although Nepal has been suffering from this problem
for long, there are still no comprehensive data regarding the actual
situation of trafficking.

“An analysis of information from print media, case studies and surveys
on trafficked survivors shows the age groups, 11-18 years for girls
and 6-12 years for boys to be more vulnerable to trafficking. The
percentage of trafficking is the highest among hill ethnic groups,
followed by Brahmin, Chhetri and occupational castes. There is a great
variation in data relating to the educational level of trafficked
persons. Nevertheless various reports show that illiterate persons are
more vulnerable than literate persons are,” states the book.

Child Prostitution in Nepal/India

Every year, thousands of Nepalese girls, some as young as 11 are sent
to or procured for brothels in the big Indian cities, like Bombay or
Calcutta.

They are often the daughters of poor farming families, where everyone
must help with the family income. Girls have little or no earning
potential, and if they are to marry need substantial dowries. So, when
the middleman arrives in the village, and promises parents cash in
return for taking the girls to work in India, or perhaps in "the
circus", and that they will be fed, housed and cared for, the offer is
hard to resist.

In reality, many of these girls are taken to work in Indian brothels,
where new, young girls are much sought after, and their families may
never hear from them again.

Anti Trafficking -Save Our Sisters Movement (SOS)

EVERY HOUR, FOUR WOMEN AND GIRLS IN INDIA ENTER PROSTITUTION, THREE OF
THEM AGAINST THEIR WILL - 13-year-old Mira of Nepal was offered a job
as a domestic worker in Mumbai, India. Instead she arrived at a
brothel on Mumbai's Falkland Road, where tens of thousands of young

women are displayed in row after row of zoo-like animal cages. Her
father had been duped into giving her to a trafficker. When she
refused to have sex, she was dragged into a torture chamber in a dark

alley used for 'breaking-in' new girls. She was locked in a narrow,

windowless room without food or water. On the fourth day, one of the

madam's goondas (thug) wrestled her to the floor and banged her head

against the concrete until she passed out. When she awoke, she was

naked; a "rattan" cane smeared with pureed red chilli peppers shoved

into her vagina. Later she was raped by the goonda. Afterwards, she
complied with their demands. The madam told Mira that she had been

sold to the brothel for 50,000 rupees (about US$ 1,700), that she had

to work until she paid off her debt. Mira was sold to a client who

became her pimp.'

[ Robert I. Freidman, "India's Shame" Sexual Slavery and Political
Corruption Are Leading to AN AIDS Catastrophe," - The Nation, 8 April
1996 ]

India: Freeing the Small Hands of the Silk Industry

TINY HANDS AT WORK - In the glow of apparent prosperity, what went
unnoticed for the most part were tiny hands that pulled, twisted and
separated the yarn, so the fiber could become strong enough for
weaving into cloth -- tiny hands that often bled from cuts and
sometimes suffered permanent damage at the unrelenting machines in
front of them. They belonged to children as young as 6 or 8, who stood
all day on tired feet, laboring away at the twisting machines.

These children worked in the midst of ear-splitting noise all day
long, in many cases for up to 14 hours a day. Those were the average
working conditions for the children of Magadi. No one in their town
had heard of children’s rights, let alone of the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Young flesh in the trade

Every year, an average of 22,480 women and 44,476 children are
reported missing in India. Out of these, every year, an average of
5,452 women and 11,008 children are not traced. A recent report,
Action Research on Trafficking in Women and Children in India -
2002-2003 indicates that many of the missing persons are not really
missing but are instead trafficked.

Take the story of Parvathi Vinayak, a young girl in Maharashtra who
was reported missing. She was abused and sexually exploited in a beer
bar, according to the report. Even when it was confirmed that PV had
been trafficked, the police records still had her name listed in the
'missing' list. Similarly, Suhasini Lakshmi, a Class 9 student in
Karnataka, was brought to Mumbai by her neighbour for a job. While her
parents complained to the police that she was missing, SL was sold to
a brothel-owner in Mumbai and was rescued after 20 days when the
brothel was raided by the police. - htcp

Child labourers speak out

BEATEN UP - For 11-year-old Mansoor, life was hellish. "I used to
work 15 hours a day and earn about 20 rupees (less than $0.5) per
week," he said. Mansoor, who is from Muzaffarpur district in Bihar,
said he used sleep hungry in a small dingy room on most days after
work. He has been working for the past nine months. "My parents came
into contact with a middleman who had promised good money for working
in Delhi," he said.

SOLD THREE TIMES - Narayani, in her 50s, said she had been sold three
times during the last three decades by her employers. "I was working
with my husband and three children in the northern state of Haryana in
a factory, and all that we used to get as salary was food," said
Narayani.

Combating Trafficking Of Women And Children In South Asia - Regional
Synthesis Paper for Bangladesh, India, and Nepal [PDF]

FOREWORD - Every year, millions of Asian men, women, and even
children, venture to new pastures—from the village to the city and
sometimes to another country. They are driven by poverty, social
exclusion or civil unrest. Their goal is to survive and earn money for
their families. For many—disproportionately women and children—these
journeys end tragically, as they fall into the hands of traffickers.

Modern Slavery

CHILD "CARPET SLAVES" IN INDIA - Kidnapped from their villages when
they are as young as five years old, between 200,000 and 300,000
children are held captive in locked rooms and forced to weave on looms
for food. In India—as well in other countries—the issue of slavery is
exacerbated by a rigid caste system.

The Enslavement Of Dalit And Indigenous Communities In India, Nepal
And Pakistan Through Debt Bondage [PDF]

The Dark Side of Football

www.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.indianet.nl%2Fiv.html

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The NLI report estimates the average daily earning
of an adult male in the sports goods industry to be around Rs.20 (less
than half a US dollar) which is about one third of the present minimum
wage of Rs.63 a day. Stitchers are normally not aware of the concept
of minimum wage and are not organized by any trade union. Any protest
or attempt to organize themselves can be easily crushed as they are
dependent on the contractors for work.

THE SMALL HANDS OF SLAVERY - Bonded Child Labor In India

SUMMARY - With credible estimates ranging from 60 to 115 million,
India has the largest number of working children in the world. Whether
they are sweating in the heat of stone quarries, working in the fields
sixteen hours a day, picking rags in city streets, or hidden away as
domestic servants, these children endure miserable and difficult
lives. They earn little and are abused much. They struggle to make
enough to eat and perhaps to help feed their families as well. They do
not go to school; more than half of them will never learn the barest
skills of literacy. Many of them have been working since the age of
four or five, and by the time they reach adulthood they may be
irrevocably sick or deformed-they will certainly be exhausted, old men
and women by the age of forty, likely to be dead by fifty.

India/Nepal: Rape for Profit

In a report released today, Human Rights Watch, the New York-based
human rights organization, charged that women and girls trafficked
from Nepal into India for the purpose of prostitution are kept in
conditions tantamount to slavery. Held in debt bondage for years at a
time, they are raped and subjected to severe beatings, exposure to
AIDS, and arbitrary imprisonment. Both the Indian and Nepali
governments are complicit in the abuses suffered by trafficking
victims.

All material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17
USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use

Sid Harth

unread,

Aug 15, 2009, 1:39:54 PM8/15/09

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/sex-trafficking-in-india/

May 11, 2007, 10:27 am
Sex Trafficking in India
By Nicholas D. Kristof

Last month I visited India and wrote about the horrific sex
trafficking situation there, through the story of a woman named Meena
who had been imprisoned in a brothel herself, was bred, and then had
her daughter prostituted as well. Meena is an incredibly gutsy woman,
and she was able to rescue her teenage daughter, Naina.

So here’s an update. Ruchira Gupta, head of a first-rate anti-
trafficking group called Apne Aap, helped Meena rescue Naina and has
been trying to keep her alive. Ruchira is now visiting New York, and
she says that Naina has finally gotten out of the hospital and is
getting counselling. Lots of Times readers sent checks to Ruchira for
Apne Aap, and the money was used to start a boarding school where the
girls will — hopefully — be safe from the brothels. I’d been terribly
worried about Meena’s two younger daughters, for fear that the brothel-
owners would punish Meena by kidnapping and prostituting them, but now
they’re safe in the boarding school.

Ruchira sends her thanks to the donors, and she also says she would
welcome any Americans who want to volunteer to work with her group for
a few months or more. So for those of you who didn’t win the “win-a-
trip contest,” here’s your chance. I can’t think of an experience more
eye-opening than working in Bihar, one of the most wretched places in
India, trying to stop this 21st century slavery.

A Wealth of Poverty

9 Comments

1. June 23, 2007
2:55 pm

Link
After witnessing the sex-slavery of India first-hand, I co-founded
Cents of Relief (www.centsofrelief.org), a 501(c)3 nonprofit, aimed at
assisting women in prostitution and their children gain access to
medical and educational support. It is a travesty to refer to these
women as “commercial sex-workers” — a term that insinuates a minimum
wage, a code for safety, and health benefits. Sadly, none of these
things exist. These women are sex slaves and the legalization of
prostitution in India would be a grave mistake.
Below, I share with you an excerpt from a piece I have written for the
Yale Journal of Public Health due out this fall entitled “Funding a
Red-Light Fire.” It aims to depict why DMSC (an NGO receiving $1000000
from the Gates Foundation), that is fighting for the legalization of
prostitution in Sonagachi (red-light area in Kolkata, India) is
failing miserably at preventing human trafficking.

The fire-red lipstick, the bangles dangling on her wrists, the fake-
gold necklace, and the bright, Dhaka sari wrapped around the teenage
girl’s body might have appeared precocious elsewhere, but here, in
Kolkata, it was clear that she was a sex slave. Pressure from foreign
governments and philanthropists to crack down on minors in
prostitution, has made sights like these less common in this bustling
city of fourteen million people. But those who have had the
opportunity to speak with prostitutes and “buyers of prostituted sex,”
and those who have toured the insides of brothels realize all too well
that teenage prostitutes have simply been moved from the streets to
secretive brothels. Kolkata’s success in combating HIV and AIDS has
been touted with much fanfare internationally, but teenage sex slavery
is only one of the problems still facing this city on the mouth of the
Bay of Bengal.

Well-meaning philanthropists, without fully understanding the nuances
of these red-light areas, must be wary of what projects they are
funding. Approaching the challenges of prostitution and HIV infection
requires a knowledge of local languages and cultures. If public health
officials are to better the lives of prostitutes in India and
elsewhere, simultaneously navigating the challenges of rampant
corruption, they must be both sensitive and critical in their
approach.

In 1992, the World Health Organization, the National AIDS Control
Organization, and the All Indian Institute of Hygiene and Public
Health launched the Sonagachi Project, a now-famous venture that
sought to evaluate the sexual behavior and HIV prevalence among
prostitutes in the red-light district of Sonagachi in Kolkata. The
project was a three-month survey examining issues involving the
district’s demographics, the sexual behavior of women in prostitution
and buyers of prostituted sex, and the prevalence of STDs and HIV
among them.

The Sonagachi Project soon turned its leadership over to the Durbar
Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a group of prostitutes who had joined
together to fight for their rights and to reduce the transmission of
HIV. The Sonagachi Project and the DMSC’s efforts led to a increase in
condom use and decrease in HIV infection, and these successes have led
many foreign philanthropists – the Gates Foundation, a major donor,
among them – to examine why the project was so successful, and assess
whether it is replicable elsewhere.

My own experiences in Kolkata’s red-light areas, however, have made me
question how some of this money has been used, and how successful the
Sonagachi Project has actually been. Some of these issues have been
raised before — the Irish Independent recently published a narrative
by Tom Vater, whose time in Sonagachi and with the DMSC led him to
draw similar conclusions.

With a Yale Downs Fellowship to conduct medical research overseas, I
went to India in the summer of 2005 to explore HIV risk perception in
the city’s red-light areas. I spoke to prostitutes, interviewed buyers
of prostituted sex, and toured the insides of brothels. I used a
connection with a former prostitute to recruit and interview current
prostitutes and buyers of prostituted sex. I tried, where possible, to
speak to prostitutes alone, away from pimps or madams. I also spoke
with buyers of prostituted sex, whose own opinions are rarely heard
because of the difficulty of speaking free of stigma. What I learned
in Kolkata suggests to me that a more cautious and judicious approach
is necessary in bettering the lives of prostitutes in the red-light
district.

Interviewing a buyer of prostituted sex is never easy. It takes time
for an interviewer to convince someone that he is not collaborating
with pimps, madams, or government officials. And once trust is earned,
there is still no guarantee of consistent answers. Asking a question
in two different ways could draw out two very different responses.
When asked, “How many times do you wear a condom?” many buyers of
prostituted sex would claim to always use protection. But these same
buyers of prostituted sex, when asked if there were factors that would
prevent them from using condoms, would often respond that alcohol made
them forget or choose not to wear condoms.

I wondered at first whether I was posing the questions wrong – but I
later learned that the buyers of prostituted sex had no difficulty
understanding the questions. They had merely lied at first because
they worried I was conspiring to have them arrested. After I gained
their trust, we could talk more openly. Trouble in gaining information
became a constant theme in my research: many statistics that come from
the Sonagachi project haven’t been verified or confirmed, and the
resulting perceptions might skew philanthropists’ understandings of
the projects.

In Kolkata, not surprisingly, the price of sex is negotiated between
the pimp or madam and the buyer of prostituted sex, not between the
prostitute and the buyer of prostituted sex. Prices can range from a
few pennies to thousands of dollars for a virgin or adolescent girl,
and are determined by the type of sexual act, the time of day, condom
use, and the age and ethnicity of the prostitute. Buyers of
prostituted sex would frequently pay a few extra rupees to avoid using
a condom, and I learned in conversations with them that buyers of
prostituted sex, not the prostitutes, were the ones deciding whether
or not to use one. It’s clear that merely having access to condoms
doesn’t mean that buyers of prostituted sex will actually use them.

A prostitute in Kolkata is almost entirely without rights, and is
subject to forced unprotected sex and gang-rapes – on occasion,
prostitutes even have crushed red peppers shoved into their vaginas.
Even in Sonagachi, a prostitute is a sex slave, not a human being.
Most buyers of prostituted sex report that they “almost always”
consume alcohol before visiting a prostitute, and some reported
getting drunk with prostitutes, burning them with cigarettes, or
beating them with empty alcohol bottles before intercourse. Without
any sort of safety regulations in place in brothers, prostitutes
remain at the mercy of pimps’ and buyers’ of prostituted sex whims, no
matter how atrocious.

At the end of my research, I decided to take a tour of brothels in to
see why many believe the Sonagachi Project could represent a new
paradigm in prostitution. The tours in Sonagachi are given by DMSC,
the group having cultivated working relationships with pimps and
madams. I contacted DMSC and the organization made the necessary
arrangements for me and six other people to go inside a group of pre-
selected brothels by DMSC.

Our first stop was the DMSC headquarters, where we received a brief
introduction to the NGO’s achievements: a low HIV prevalence, a high
rate of condom usage, the small number of minors in prostitution, and
a reduced rate of trafficking in Sonagachi. The hallways were adorned
with enlarged newspaper clippings featuring power brokers like Melinda
Gates on tours like these, and quotes from high-ranking government
officials lauding the group’s accomplishments. I left the tour
impressed, like many foreign philanthropists. But after speaking with
prostitutes outside of the official tour, my views would shift
dramatically.

In the first brothel we entered, the madam escorted us into a room
where two prostitutes were sitting on adjacent beds. A prostitute
invited me and two others from our group to join her on the bed. As we
sat down, the DMSC official asked the madam and the prostitutes to
speak about life in the brothels.

Almost all of the women, the madam told us, come to Sonagachi on their
own to enter the “noble profession of sex work,” realizing the quick
money and the rights that the DMSC will afford them. The prostitutes
nodded in agreement, but did not say anything. The madam explained
that under the DMSC’s leadership, all prostitutes had access to
condoms and used them during every sex act. Thanks to these same
efforts, she said proudly, the trafficking of minors had been sharply
curtailed. Again, the prostitutes silently nodded.

I began to wonder how these stories could differ so vastly from the
experiences of buyers of prostituted sex with whom I had spoken. Had
the buyers of prostituted sex fabricated their stories? Had the DMSC
actually been making strides, or was it just a front? I interrupted
the madam, and asked the prostitutes what they thought about these
changes. I was greeted by silence. The madam turned to me, assuring me
that “the girls are very shy, but all of you have seen that they agree
with me.”

While the madam spoke with others in the room, gushing about the
group’s success, the three of us on the bed asked the prostitute in
Hindi to tell us if those things were true. Afraid and timid, the
prostitute remained silent until we assured her that we wouldn’t get
her in trouble. Barely audible, she told us that almost none of the
prostitutes in Sonagachi came with aspirations of becoming a sex
worker. Most of them, like herself, were trafficked into trade from
other parts of India or the region. Yes, she said, condoms were
everywhere in Sonagachi, but prostitutes would not use them if a
customer paid a higher rate, scared of costing the brother business
and of dealing with the violent repercussions. Fearful of punishment,
she and the other prostitutes stay silent during these tours, agreeing
with the madam in front of the foreigners. When I asked her if she
wanted to leave Sonagachi, her eyes lit up, before she could say
anything, the DMSC official put her hand on my back and said that it
was time to move on.

We continued to the next brothel on the tour, passing hundreds of
prostitutes along the way. A person in our group asked if we could
visit Neel Kamal, the brothel that was rumored to still prostitute
minors. The DMSC official quickly rejected the idea, suggesting that
the DMSC had not asked for prior permission, and didn’t want to
violate the prostitutes’ rights before warning them. Big talk goes far
in India – faced with a stern threat to “make the appropriate phone
calls” if the terrified-looking DMSC official did not cooperate, she
took us in the direction of the notorious Neel Kamal.

Five pimps guarded the locked gate that marked the entrance to the
multi-story brothel. While one pimp unlocked the gate, the four others
ran inside with a clarion call: “Visitors are here!” Our group rushed
in, climbing the staircase to the first floor, but stopped dead in our
tracks: dozens of girls, no older than sixteen, with bright red
lipstick, began running down the dingy hallways, disappearing into
hidden rooms.

The pimps kept shouting as the DMSC official told us to remain still.
Everywhere I looked, girls were fleeing. In the meantime, I had
managed to block a doorway where two teenage girls, no more than 14
years old, were sprawled on the bed with their legs wide open, their
genitals visible through denim mini-skirts. Recognizing our shock, the
official asked me nervously how old I thought the girls were.
“Fourteen – maybe not even that,” I responded. She turned to me with a
terse laugh, and told me that “an outsider from America,” faced with
poor lighting, couldn’t judge age particularly well, assuring me
improbably that the girls were all over thirty.

Coming out of the Neel Kamal, I flicked a giant cockroach off my shirt
– the conditions there were utterly filthy. Despite their best
intentions, Bill and Melinda Gates will likely never have a tour like
this one. With their high profiles, even if they spoke Hindi fluently,
they would never be able to escape the eyes and cameras to converse
freely with prostitutes and hear their side of the story. They could
never show up unexpectedly at Neel Kamal and witness minors in
prostitution. Without a fuller picture and direct access to the
stories of prostitutes and buyers of prostituted sex alike, foreign
philanthropists might become misguided in their well-intentioned
efforts.

Neel Kamal demonstrated that minors still exist in prostitution, and
its very existence begs the question of the decriminalization of
prostitution, an ideal that the DMSC enthusiastically espouses, could
actually reduce the sexual trafficking of young girls.

Prostitutes and buyers’ of prostituted sex testimonies alike confirm
that condom distribution does not mean condom usage. Statistics lose
meaning in such a corrupt setting, and need to be held to higher
standards of accountability. Only when this is done will groups like
the Gates Foundation know for certain if their dollars are being used
in the best way possible.

The testimony of the buyers of prostituted sex raises the question of
whether the Sonagachi Project is a success story and a model worth
emulating. Even with the group’s advances, prostitutes still appear to
have no rights, and there are not even standard rates for sex with
prostitutes in the district. Foreign philanthropists must take greater
strides making themselves familiar with the intricacies of projects
they fund considering perspectives outside of the organizations they
aim to fund to broaden their understanding.

Just as a smoke detector alerts us about the possibility of a fire,
these observations from Kolkata serves as a similar warning system.
There is a red-light fire in that metropolis right now – but if
philanthropists adequately investigate the projects that they choose
to fund, they may be able to help extinguish that fire.

— Anup Patel, Cents of Relief

2. October 3, 2007
12:40 am

Link
We must free these abused women and children

— Felice Silk

3. February 26, 2008
6:52 pm

Link
What a joke.

Kristoff before analyziny sexual traffic in India.

Look at home.

Across rural and urban america, we have these seedy asian massage
parlors. Where korean women offer sex to american men.
California to Newyork, Michigan to Texas, Montana to Lousiana.
Wake up. and focus on issues at home kristol

— Smith

4. May 19, 2008
2:47 pm

Link
I want to help, What can I do? i have very little money, but I can
go.

— deborah

5. November 10, 2008
6:39 pm

Link
I know this article is old, but I’d love to look into helping! Can
you put me in contact with someone who knows more about working in
Bihar?

— Cali

6. January 13, 2009
10:37 pm

Link
As I have read and seen this horrifing video of sex trafficking I
have alot of hope for young girls that have of have to deal with this
through out their life.I am so sorry for all these young girls and
what has happened or what is happening to them.My opinion is that all
these men that capture young girls and put them into brothels and make
them have sex and then tourture them are sick , unhealthy men/women.I
just have hope for all these young girrls going through this.

— Cassidy

— cassidy

7. January 29, 2009
6:12 am

Link
Once again:Can you put us in contact with an organiztion that teaches
young girls to read and to speak English?
Regina Krummel, Ed.D

— Regina Krummel

8. February 10, 2009
9:30 am

Link
thank you for giving such information.i will be glad to help this
thing end

— ben hammond

9. July 6, 2009
1:36 pm

Link
My heart breaks as I read of the plight of these enslaved women. How
very, very evil it is. We must all not let those around us forget
about these women and girls. Things must change. They must. Oh may God
do a great work by using us!

— Casey Cashell

bademiyansubhanallah

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Aug 22, 2009, 7:41:12 AM8/22/09

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-sax/human-trafficking-a-probl_b_264789.html

Robin Sax Former Deputy District Attorney, Legal Commentator, Author

Posted: August 21, 2009 01:59 PM

Human Trafficking: A Problem of Language?

CommentsWhy is that human trafficking is so pervasive and yet so
misunderstood? Why do we assume that it's really an "overseas" issue?
Why do most people think of Cambodia or Thailand when the words "human
trafficking" are uttered?

It's not because it does not exist here in the United States--we know
it does. As a matter of fact, the numbers are astounding: the sex
trade is a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide. UNICEF estimates
that approximately 1 million children around the world unwillingly
become sex slaves every year. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates
that there are 200,000 U.S. citizens yearly, mainly children and young
women, who are at high risk of being trafficked throughout the U.S for
sexual purposes.

The perception of human trafficking as an "overseas" issue has
persisted even though the U.S. passed the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act in October, 2000 to criminalize the issue domestically.
It was the first law specifically intended to prevent victimization,
to protect victims, and to prosecute perpetrators of human trafficking
here in the States.

Added to society's lack of understanding the truly epidemic
proportions of human trafficking is a similar lack from law
enforcement and prosecutors. Even though we have federal human
trafficking laws, many states do not have a version of these laws.
Even worse, some prosecutors don't even know these laws exist!

The effect of this lack of awareness is that many prosecutors will
file charges only on the "sex act" aspect of this crime. They may omit
the crime of human trafficking from the rap sheets, charging
documents, and ultimately, from the view of our society.

I am not alone in believing that much of our ignorance of human
trafficking and the subsequent lack of prosecutions are because the
terminology is vague and confusing. The very phrase, "human
trafficking," is a poor description of what really happens.

Human trafficking is not synonymous with moving people overseas.
Instead, the U.S. Federal Act of 2000 defines it as the "recruitment,
harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining and person for
labor or services through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for the
purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage
or slavery; sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced
by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to
perform such an act has not attained 18 years of age."

With this definition we see two aspects of trafficking, both highly
repugnant: trafficking involves commercial sexual exploitation of
women and children (also known as "forced prostitution") AND it
involves involuntary servitude (also known as "slavery"). Not
surprisingly, most Americans cannot accept the idea that a form of
slavery still exists within the United States!

Shared Hope International, founded by former Congresswoman Linda
Smith, is a nonprofit leading a worldwide effort to eradicate the
marketplaces of sexual slavery. They have coined the term "Domestic
Minor Sex Trafficking" (DMST) to refer to what is happening here in
the United States. DMST is defined as "commercial sexual exploitation
of American children within American borders."

Wake up, folks! It's real, and it's really happening here!

DMST is a term that more accurately describes the nature of the crime,
as well as the victim status, by avoiding the vague term, "human
trafficking" or the poorly received term, "child prostitution." The
organization believes that the status of "victim" will be clarified,
as opposed to looking at the child as the delinquent. Child
prostitutes are frequently thought of as "bad kids" and therefore they
often they do not get the specialized care that they need.

In truth, these kids are a special group of sexual assault victims.
They have not chosen this lifestyle, despite what the perception is.
Unfortunately, the term "child prostitution" implies to some people
that there is some complicity from the victim.

Not true. Instead, more and more children are involved in sex
trafficking because that the supply is becoming younger in response to
buyers' demands. These perverts want to be with young people so they
can be associated with their victims' youth, health, and
vulnerability.

It's the commercial aspect that separates the crime of trafficking
from other sexual acts children, and it is this aspect where we need
to see change. Frequently, law enforcers and prosecutors do not
recognize the commercial aspect or are too lazy, understaffed or under-
budgeted to investigate. Instead, they rationalize that just getting
the "perp" in the process of committing the act is enough. However,
they are failing to get to the real source of the traffickers, the
pimps, etc. and are not fully utilizing the power of this law.

Trafficking happens right here at home, not just in poor places by
"pimps." Surprisingly, it often involves people you would never
expect. For example, just last week, Ronald H. Tills, 74, a retired US
State Supreme Court Justice, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on a
felony charge of transporting prostitutes across state lines.

In this case, Tills was trafficking a young illegal woman to serve as
a prostitute at a convention he was attending. A human trafficking
task force investigated the case. Its members included investigators
from the FBI, U. S. Border Patrol, and U. S. Immigration & Customs
Enforcement, as well as the Erie and Niagara County sheriff's offices.
But this never really made the news - few people heard about it.

As I pondered the case, I couldn't help wondering why most of us
hadn't heard about it. Perhaps there were other pressing news bits,
but what is more pressing then protecting children and other victims
of sexual assault? Is it more important to know whether Dr. Conrad
Murray is going to be charged for manslaughter in Michael Jackson's
death? Or is it more likely that human trafficking is a crime we
simply don't understand--mostly because of a simple problem with
semantics?

If you know someone who is being trafficked or sexually exploited,
call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-3737-888 or
9-1-1.

Follow Robin Sax on Twitter: www.twitter.com/robinsax

Sid Harth

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Aug 29, 2009, 11:40:57 AM8/29/09

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/hyderabad/Its-boom-time-for-brothels-in-city/articleshow/4943065.cms

It's boom time for brothels in city
Bushra Baseerat,

TNN 28 August 2009, 01:46am IST

HYDERABAD: The organised business of brothels is becoming big time in
Hyderabad with an estimated 5,000 brothels dotting the Twin Cities.
According to officials of Andhra Pradesh State Aids Control Society
and ‘coordinators’ of flesh trade, the number of brothels has doubled
in the city in the last two years.

The business, which has been recession-proof, is booming in brothels
with girls in the trade charging anywhere between Rs 500 and Rs 10,000
a day or even more, depending on their age, appearance and the
client’s spending capacity. These brothels are largely being operated
from residential apartments that are spread across Twin Cities,
according to non-governmental organisations and networks working with
the People Living with HIV/Aids (PLHAs).

What is new in the city’s flesh trade is the organised business model
that they have adopted with pimps saying that Hyderabad brothels are
going the Mumbai way. Pimps say that the number of such brothels would
be around 2,000 to 3,000.

Take for instance, this brothel in a residential area in Kukatpally
that TOI visited. Managed by a ‘madam’, the ‘brothel’ appears like a
normal flat with sparse furniture. The madam is a 25-year-old sex
worker and says she has now recruited four girls who operate from this
flat. These girls give a portion of their income to the woman who sub-
lets her flat to them. She also has two male members in her ‘family’
to ward off curious neighbours and police raids.

The trend of ‘contracts’’ too has come to stay in Hyderabad. “I was
taken on a contract for ten days by a pimp and catered to ten clients
a day earning Rs 23,000. Now, I have set up my own business,’’ says a
sex worker who continues to work. She maintains that she insists on
condom use by her clients, a claim that officials aren’t too sure of.

Sex workers share that girls in the age group of 15 to 25 years are in
demand and their customers are mostly married who range from
businessmen, software engineers to even auto-walas.

A pimp who operates in the Yousufguda area, told TOI that coordinators
lure girls with ‘good money’, showcasing Hyderabad as a cash-rich
destination with the IT and real estate boom. “Girls are being brought
from rural areas of West Bengal as well as Maharashtra and tribal
Gujarat. Even girls from Warangal and Nalgonda are being inducted.
Earlier, they were mostly natives of Andhra from districts like
Krishna, Guntur, East Godavari (Kakinada and Rajhamundry) and Vizag,”
said the broker, in the business since past five years. Officials said
they started mapping brothels as it became impossible for them to fan
out to each sex worker to spread Aids awareness messages. That there
could be a considerable number of minor girls operating from these
brothels is a serious area of concern, but police officials admit it
is difficult to keep tabs on these brothels as they are temporary in
nature and sex workers shift out of their flats every month.

C Ravi Verma, DCP west zone, said that girls are promised money up to
Rs 40,000 and brought to the city and says that more people in the
city are visiting sex workers than before. “The problem is even after
we catch them, they come out on bail and start operating from a
different place all over again,’’ he says, ruing that very few people
lodge complaints.

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