Alarming rise in trafficking of women

Visakhapatnam: Reports of trafficking in young women by unscrupulous agents and whisking them away to far off lands like Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia and forcing them in flesh trade have come to light. Pathetic tales of young women and semi-skilled and unskilled youths being either pushed into flesh trade or into hazardous work are plenty.

• Abject poverty is driving girls into flesh trade
• Unscrupulous agents trafficking in women send them to far off lands like Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia

Middlemen are targeting the girls and young women, who are steeped in poverty, by offering jobs in Dubai, Singapore and Malaysia. Those willing to work abroad are being sent to far off lands on tourist visa. Sunitha (named changed), a woman from West Godavari, was lured to work in a honey packing unit in Muscat. But on arrival in Muscat she was shocked to learn that she was brought to work as sex worker.

She had agreed to go there to make a living after the family had spent all the money on her sister’s marriage and their house was destroyed in fire. “I found that many girls from the State suffering in hellholes there,” she said. On hearing the harrowing tales of the girls there, I decided to go back to India, she said. She was also offered a lucrative job in Malaysia but she refused to take it because the agent admitted that he wanted to recruit her for the same job.

She also said later that she was offered a job in Malaysia by another agent and after questioning, he admitted that job was only front and actual work would be different. A school dropout recently told a police officer, after she was rescued from a hellhole, that an agent had approached her and shot her photograph on his mobile phone.

He send the photograph to someone in Dubai. She was immediately offered a job. On landing in Dubai, she was pushed into flesh trade. “It was really a hell on earth. Girls in the trade suffered burns in the hands of men,” she told the police with tears rolling down her cheeks.

Last year eight minor girls were rescued from brothels in the city. Two years ago as many as 22 women and minor girls facing sexual harassment were rescued from a brick kiln in Andhra- Odisha border. But none of these cases either found their way to the police records or none of the culprits were booked under the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA).

In 2002, the Visakhapatnam rural police rescued some girls, who hailed from Anakapalle, from clutches of pimps in Goa and sent a report to the higher-ups that more than 3,000 women from rural Visakhapatnam were languishing in Vasco Da Gama in Goa.

The police records in north coastal Andhra showed that over 200 women still remain untraced. But the family members of the girls, who went untraced, refused to lodge a complaint with the police for the reasons known to themselves. According to sources, some traffickers are luring the girls by promising lucrative jobs abroad and selling them to pimps for a price ranging between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 2 lakh each. The pimps, who are procuring the girls, are selling them in Dubai and other places at higher prices. The girls are allegedly being tortured and forced into flesh trade.

By:KMP Patnaik