New Delhi based Godman, air hostesses held for running sex racket
A self-styled godman who preached spirituality while running a prostitution racket and two air hostesses were among eight people arrested for flesh trade here, police said Friday.
The eight, including two men and six women in the age group of 19 to 30 years, were taken into custody near the PVR cinema at Saket in south Delhi Thursday while travelling in two cars.
They included an air hostess who worked for an Indian carrier and another who was employed by a European airline.
The mastermind was identified as Shiv Murat Dwivedi, 39, alias Ichchadhari Sant Swami Bhimanand Ji Maharaj Chitrakoot Wale.
Deputy Commissioner of Police HGS Dhaliwal said that Dwivedi belonged to Chitrakoot in Uttar Pradesh. He came to New Delhi in 1988 and worked as a security guard at a five-star hotel in Nehru Place.
He later worked for a massage parlour at Lajpat Nagar. He was arrested for carrying out prostitution 1997 and 1998, Dhaliwal said.
“Dwivedi then changed his appearance and started calling himself Ichchadhari Sant Swami Bhimanand Ji Maharaj Chitrakoot Wale. He was based at a Sai Baba temple in Badarpur and gradually started a flourishing flesh trade racket in the guise of leading a spiritual life,” he said.
Dwivedi started holding religious discourses and congregations and even got a video CD titled “Shri Sai Amrit Varsha” released. He even wrote for a magazine.
He constructed a 200-bed hospital and a huge temple in Chitrakoot.
Dhaliwal said the two air hostesses lived in posh areas of South Delhi. “One is pursuing MBA. The other is an aspiring model who wants to debut in Bollywood.”
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Inter-state trafficking gang held, 10 women rescued
Inter-state trafficking gang held, 10 women rescued
Fri, Feb 26 09:20 PM
Hyderabad, Feb 26 (PTI) Police today claimed to have busted an inter-state trafficking racket with the arrest of 12 persons and rescued 10 women, including three minors, who were forced into prostitution in Andhra Pradesh''s West Godavari district. Acting on a tip-off, a police team conducted a raid on the house of S Rajeswari, a resident of Tadepalligudem town in the district yesterday and rescued the girls, Eluru Range DIG Mahesh M Bhagwat said.
When the raid was made, the woman along with 11 other persons were negotiating a deal for buying and recruiting the girls for flesh trade, he said. "While the negotiations were coming to an end, the police party surrounded the house and caught the traffickers'' gang red-handed," Bhagwat said.
During interrogation the accused revealed that they used to trap poor girls by promising them jobs in Chennai, he said, adding that the gang used to sell the victims at the rate of Rs 30,000 each. The girls were sent to medical examination and the accused were being sent to judicial remand after being booked under various sections of IPC, the DIG said.
Fri, Feb 26 09:20 PM
Hyderabad, Feb 26 (PTI) Police today claimed to have busted an inter-state trafficking racket with the arrest of 12 persons and rescued 10 women, including three minors, who were forced into prostitution in Andhra Pradesh''s West Godavari district. Acting on a tip-off, a police team conducted a raid on the house of S Rajeswari, a resident of Tadepalligudem town in the district yesterday and rescued the girls, Eluru Range DIG Mahesh M Bhagwat said.
When the raid was made, the woman along with 11 other persons were negotiating a deal for buying and recruiting the girls for flesh trade, he said. "While the negotiations were coming to an end, the police party surrounded the house and caught the traffickers'' gang red-handed," Bhagwat said.
During interrogation the accused revealed that they used to trap poor girls by promising them jobs in Chennai, he said, adding that the gang used to sell the victims at the rate of Rs 30,000 each. The girls were sent to medical examination and the accused were being sent to judicial remand after being booked under various sections of IPC, the DIG said.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Sensitization of stake holders on human trafficking at Eluru
Staff Reporter
ELURU: Sunita Krishnan, founder of ‘Prajvala’, a Hyderabad-based non-governmental organisation working for the victims of women trafficking, on Tuesday expressed her concern over the State turning into a hub of sex tourism of late. She was speaking at a sensitisation programme on human trafficking here. In a bid to drive her point home, she said the recent raids by the police in Hyderabad had revealed that the tourists from Azerbaijan, Serbia and Uzbekistan had been descending on the State for their sexual exploits with children aged below 10 years.
A decoy operation conducted by her organisation in Hyderabad had led to the rescue of a 12-year-old high school girl from the sex work. Alarmingly, even the children in 3-4 years age group were being used for shooting of pornographic films to be sold in the European market, Ms. Sunita said.
She regretted that the Internet turned out to be a convenient market channel for sex tourists.
The activist said the increasing consumerism allegedly abetted by the media through advertisements had been forcing the women into the trafficking regardless of their economic and social status.
The societal attitude towards the victims of trafficking made it difficult for their re-integration with the mainstream society after their liberation from the traffickers, she added.
Mahesh M. Bhagavat, DIG of Police, Eluru range, appealed to the district administration to sanction a bridge school for the children of trafficking victims in the district. He regretted over the reported passive role of the Revenue Divisional Magistrates (also RDOs) in exercising their powers under the Section 18(1) of the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1986 in closing brothels and eviction of traffickers. Superintendent of Police B. Balakrishna and Collector A. Vani Prasad spoke
10 years conviction for traffickers in A.P.
In a human trafficking case of procuring minor girl for prostitution with a plan to send her to Malaysia-Singapore reported in 2007 at Eluru 2 Town P.S. of West Godavari District in A.P., on 5/2/2010, 2 traffickers are convicted for 10 years rigorous imprisonment under section 5 of Immoral Traffic Prevention act 1986, 7 years of rigorous imprisonment under 366A IPC. and 6 months of imprisonment under 417 IPC. One of the trafficker had earlier worked in Singapore- Malaysia & her passport was seized. Victim was trapped in the name of giving her admission in Nursing School at Chennai & her Passport was under prepration when raid was conducted.
Investigating officers Sub Inspector Govind Raju & Inspector Vijay Paul underwent training at AP Police academy for human trafficking under UNODC's project. Dedicated efforts of sensitized Police officers, prosecutor & Judicial Magistrate helped in getting this note worthy conviction. Anti Human trafficking Unit for Andhra region is located at Eluru
Investigating officers Sub Inspector Govind Raju & Inspector Vijay Paul underwent training at AP Police academy for human trafficking under UNODC's project. Dedicated efforts of sensitized Police officers, prosecutor & Judicial Magistrate helped in getting this note worthy conviction. Anti Human trafficking Unit for Andhra region is located at Eluru
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Compendium on Best Practices: Anti Human Trafficking by Law Enforcement Agencies
Brothel owner held at Samalkot
Brothel owner held at Samalkot
By By DC Correspondent
Feb 13 2010
Feb. 12: Two minor girls of the city escaped from a brothel at Samalkot on Friday.With the help of an auto-rickshaw driver, the girls reached Samalkot police station. The police took the brothel’s organiser into custody.
According to the girls aged around 14 years, a few days ago, a woman Devi from Kattipudi in East Godavari approached the girls’ parents, residents of Kakinada II Town.
Devi asked the parents to send the girls along with her and promised them that she would show some work to the girls somewhere in the district. The parents agreed and sent the girls with Devi who sold the girls to the brothel organiser, Vemagiri Missamma, who is living in a Rajiv Gruhakalpa house at Samalkot.
For the last six days, Missamma started pestering the girls to join her work with a person in Hyderabad. The girls refused to do so.
On Friday morning, the girls escaped from the house and met an auto-rickshaw driver, G Veeranna. With his help, the girls met the district Congress secretary, Mr U. John Moses, who took them to the police station.
Police immediately raided the house and took two women, P. Lakshmi and Devi into custody initially and launched an investigation.
Speaking to reporters, the girls said that Missamma was planning to send them to Chennai and Hyderabad for sex work.
By By DC Correspondent
Feb 13 2010
Feb. 12: Two minor girls of the city escaped from a brothel at Samalkot on Friday.With the help of an auto-rickshaw driver, the girls reached Samalkot police station. The police took the brothel’s organiser into custody.
According to the girls aged around 14 years, a few days ago, a woman Devi from Kattipudi in East Godavari approached the girls’ parents, residents of Kakinada II Town.
Devi asked the parents to send the girls along with her and promised them that she would show some work to the girls somewhere in the district. The parents agreed and sent the girls with Devi who sold the girls to the brothel organiser, Vemagiri Missamma, who is living in a Rajiv Gruhakalpa house at Samalkot.
For the last six days, Missamma started pestering the girls to join her work with a person in Hyderabad. The girls refused to do so.
On Friday morning, the girls escaped from the house and met an auto-rickshaw driver, G Veeranna. With his help, the girls met the district Congress secretary, Mr U. John Moses, who took them to the police station.
Police immediately raided the house and took two women, P. Lakshmi and Devi into custody initially and launched an investigation.
Speaking to reporters, the girls said that Missamma was planning to send them to Chennai and Hyderabad for sex work.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
15 minor girls brought for factory work freed
15 minor girls brought for factory work freed
TNN, 10 February 2010,
BANGALORE: Fifteen minor girls from Andhra Pradesh who were brought to Bangalore to work in a garment factory at Nayandanahalli, were rescued at the City Railway Station on Tuesday.
Railway authorities, who saw the group of anxious girls from Srikakulam district in AP, alerted the police and child helpline. Preliminary inquiry revealed they were bought and then brought for work.
BOSCO child helpline coordinator Gnana Prakash said: “Off the 15 girls, three are above 18 years and were working at a garment factory. They were paid by the employer to get more girls. So they brought the minors from their hometown Srikakulam. Such incidents are regular in garment factories but are left unchecked by the authorities.”
A security personnel from the garment factory was waiting at the railway station with a vehicle to take these girls to the factory. However, timely action from the railway authorities saved them.
The girls are at the government girls home now. The child helpline has registered a case of trafficking with the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights
TNN, 10 February 2010,
BANGALORE: Fifteen minor girls from Andhra Pradesh who were brought to Bangalore to work in a garment factory at Nayandanahalli, were rescued at the City Railway Station on Tuesday.
Railway authorities, who saw the group of anxious girls from Srikakulam district in AP, alerted the police and child helpline. Preliminary inquiry revealed they were bought and then brought for work.
BOSCO child helpline coordinator Gnana Prakash said: “Off the 15 girls, three are above 18 years and were working at a garment factory. They were paid by the employer to get more girls. So they brought the minors from their hometown Srikakulam. Such incidents are regular in garment factories but are left unchecked by the authorities.”
A security personnel from the garment factory was waiting at the railway station with a vehicle to take these girls to the factory. However, timely action from the railway authorities saved them.
The girls are at the government girls home now. The child helpline has registered a case of trafficking with the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Indian gov't plans code of conduct for ‘safe’ tourism
Indian gov't plans code of conduct for ‘safe’ tourism
Ranjeet S. Jamwal
The Statesman
Publication Date: 04-02-2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In view of the increasing incidences of rape, sexual offences, sexual abuse of children, particularly street-children, the Indian tourism ministry has finalised a 'code of conduct' for the industry to prevent any form of exploitation of children.
Apart from preventing sexual exploitation of children and women, the 'code of conduct for safe and honourable tourism' also aims to protect India’s culture, values and heritage.
As 70 per cent of sex workers in the country are children, the code has specific guidelines for hotels, tour operators and airlines for preventing sexual exploitation of children by guests.
It has been finalised after consulting all stakeholders in the tourism sector, including state governments. According to sources in the tourism ministry, the code of conduct will be implemented once it gets the approval of the tourism minister Miss Selja. The most likely date for its implementation is March 8 (International Women’s Day).
When the code of conduct comes into effect, suppliers of tourism services will have to take measures to protect children against sexual exploitation in the business. As per the code of conduct, hotels, tour operators and airlines will have to train their staff to identify and report a possible exploitative activity to authorities. It also forbids tourists from seeking out children for sex via chat rooms and discussion groups. Hotels would also be asked not to ‘help’ tourists get access to children for sex or employ minors in their industry.
Child sex tourism is believed to be prevalent in many states of the country. Studies have shown that in the name of pilgrim, heritage and coastal tourism, sexual exploitation of children is quite widespread in Maharastra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa.
Apart from major cities and places for sightseeing, pilgrim centres like Tirupati, Guruvayoor and Puri are growing hubs for sex tourism. Study reports say foreign tourists engage in paedophilia and sex with minors through short-term marriages.
Last month, the Supreme Court had asked the government to come out with foolproof measures to curb ‘sex tourism’ in the country and register cases of rape against those pushing children into prostitution rackets or having sex with them. It directed that sexual assault on children must be registered as rape.
Ranjeet S. Jamwal
The Statesman
Publication Date: 04-02-2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In view of the increasing incidences of rape, sexual offences, sexual abuse of children, particularly street-children, the Indian tourism ministry has finalised a 'code of conduct' for the industry to prevent any form of exploitation of children.
Apart from preventing sexual exploitation of children and women, the 'code of conduct for safe and honourable tourism' also aims to protect India’s culture, values and heritage.
As 70 per cent of sex workers in the country are children, the code has specific guidelines for hotels, tour operators and airlines for preventing sexual exploitation of children by guests.
It has been finalised after consulting all stakeholders in the tourism sector, including state governments. According to sources in the tourism ministry, the code of conduct will be implemented once it gets the approval of the tourism minister Miss Selja. The most likely date for its implementation is March 8 (International Women’s Day).
When the code of conduct comes into effect, suppliers of tourism services will have to take measures to protect children against sexual exploitation in the business. As per the code of conduct, hotels, tour operators and airlines will have to train their staff to identify and report a possible exploitative activity to authorities. It also forbids tourists from seeking out children for sex via chat rooms and discussion groups. Hotels would also be asked not to ‘help’ tourists get access to children for sex or employ minors in their industry.
Child sex tourism is believed to be prevalent in many states of the country. Studies have shown that in the name of pilgrim, heritage and coastal tourism, sexual exploitation of children is quite widespread in Maharastra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Orissa.
Apart from major cities and places for sightseeing, pilgrim centres like Tirupati, Guruvayoor and Puri are growing hubs for sex tourism. Study reports say foreign tourists engage in paedophilia and sex with minors through short-term marriages.
Last month, the Supreme Court had asked the government to come out with foolproof measures to curb ‘sex tourism’ in the country and register cases of rape against those pushing children into prostitution rackets or having sex with them. It directed that sexual assault on children must be registered as rape.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Centre’s code push to wipe off child sex tourism stain
Centre’s code push to wipe off child sex tourism stain
New Delhi, Feb 2, DHNS:
Deeply disturbed and concerned with the widely growing perception that India is emerging as a prime sex tourism destination, the Centre has taken the first big step towards checking an anomaly by putting together a code of conduct for the tourism industry.
What has made the government and the tourism industry sit up and take note of a trend in which foreign tourists visit tourism hubs like Goa, Kerala as well as pilgrimage-rich stateslike Tamil Nadu and Orissa to seek more than the sun and the culture.
The code of conduct is a virtual admission by the government that the problem exists. The code of conduct, which is likely to become effective on March 8 – observed as International Women’s Day – after approval from Tourism Minister Kumari Selja, has come following several recent exposes involving foreigners indulging in child sex, paedophilia and pornography.
The code of conduct for service providers in the tourism sector for “Safe and Honorable Tourism” has been finalised after consulting all stakeholders, including state governments.
“It had become an urgent necessity to come up with such a code as India has been identified as a source, transit and destination point in the international circuit, and a large number of children are also trafficked within the country,” the sources stressed.
Tourism Ministry sources said the government decided to act following warnings from experts that the menace had assumed dangerous proportions not just in tourist havens but also in pligrimage centres in Tamil Nadu and Orissa.
Humane view
The government is also taking a humane view and would not want condemning impoverished children to the explotation of sex tourism. “The code aims to protect children and women, culture, values and the coutnry’s heritage to ensure long-term sustainable and responsible tourism in India,” the sources said.
Among the organisations involved in evolving the code are PATA India, Save the Children India, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Equitable Tourism Option (EQUATIONS), NEST India Foundation and the National Commission for Women was also consulted in this regard.
”Under the code, hotels will have to report any suspicious behaviour by any staff or customer to the local police. If any material pertaining to child pornography is found on the computer of any employee or customer, it will also have to be reported to the local police,” the sources said.
Tour operators will have to train personnel to be alert against any possibility of sexual exploitation of children.
“Airlines operating within and to India will have to commit themselves to pursue, with every possible means, public awareness about the issue through in-flight magazines, ticket jackets, internet links, and videos on long-haul flights,” the sources said.
The code will be applicable to all directors, employees, suppliers, contractors and patrons of hotels, airlines, tour operators and institutions connected with the industry. It will require hotels to even prevent guests from visiting child pornography sites using the Internet, and seeking to contact children for sexual purposes via chat rooms or discussion groups.
The code has been necessitated, the sources said, in the light of growth in high-spending foreign tourists and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)’s projection that India will be among the nations having the fastest-growing tourism industry over the next 10-15 years.
The government move follows the 2008 World Congress against the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents held in Rio, Brazil, in which countries were asked to draft special laws to prevent children from being used in the tourism industry.
New Delhi, Feb 2, DHNS:
Deeply disturbed and concerned with the widely growing perception that India is emerging as a prime sex tourism destination, the Centre has taken the first big step towards checking an anomaly by putting together a code of conduct for the tourism industry.
What has made the government and the tourism industry sit up and take note of a trend in which foreign tourists visit tourism hubs like Goa, Kerala as well as pilgrimage-rich stateslike Tamil Nadu and Orissa to seek more than the sun and the culture.
The code of conduct is a virtual admission by the government that the problem exists. The code of conduct, which is likely to become effective on March 8 – observed as International Women’s Day – after approval from Tourism Minister Kumari Selja, has come following several recent exposes involving foreigners indulging in child sex, paedophilia and pornography.
The code of conduct for service providers in the tourism sector for “Safe and Honorable Tourism” has been finalised after consulting all stakeholders, including state governments.
“It had become an urgent necessity to come up with such a code as India has been identified as a source, transit and destination point in the international circuit, and a large number of children are also trafficked within the country,” the sources stressed.
Tourism Ministry sources said the government decided to act following warnings from experts that the menace had assumed dangerous proportions not just in tourist havens but also in pligrimage centres in Tamil Nadu and Orissa.
Humane view
The government is also taking a humane view and would not want condemning impoverished children to the explotation of sex tourism. “The code aims to protect children and women, culture, values and the coutnry’s heritage to ensure long-term sustainable and responsible tourism in India,” the sources said.
Among the organisations involved in evolving the code are PATA India, Save the Children India, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Equitable Tourism Option (EQUATIONS), NEST India Foundation and the National Commission for Women was also consulted in this regard.
”Under the code, hotels will have to report any suspicious behaviour by any staff or customer to the local police. If any material pertaining to child pornography is found on the computer of any employee or customer, it will also have to be reported to the local police,” the sources said.
Tour operators will have to train personnel to be alert against any possibility of sexual exploitation of children.
“Airlines operating within and to India will have to commit themselves to pursue, with every possible means, public awareness about the issue through in-flight magazines, ticket jackets, internet links, and videos on long-haul flights,” the sources said.
The code will be applicable to all directors, employees, suppliers, contractors and patrons of hotels, airlines, tour operators and institutions connected with the industry. It will require hotels to even prevent guests from visiting child pornography sites using the Internet, and seeking to contact children for sexual purposes via chat rooms or discussion groups.
The code has been necessitated, the sources said, in the light of growth in high-spending foreign tourists and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC)’s projection that India will be among the nations having the fastest-growing tourism industry over the next 10-15 years.
The government move follows the 2008 World Congress against the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents held in Rio, Brazil, in which countries were asked to draft special laws to prevent children from being used in the tourism industry.
Police bust gang trafficking in girls
THE HINDU
Date:03/02/2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andhra Pradesh - Rajahmundry
Police bust gang trafficking in girls
Staff Reporter
Minor shifted to hospital for tests
Rajahmundry: Police cracked two important cases on Tuesday at a time. In once case, they arrested members of a gang involved in trafficking of girls. In another case they arrested two persons who were allegedly taking 75 packets of ganja along with them in a car. The two cases were dealt with by D. Janaki, Sub-Divisional Police Officer and her team.
In a media conference, the DSP said that Boddeti Seetha Mahalakshmi and her brother Boddeti Ganesh were engaged in tailoring in Narayanapuram area from 2007. They kidnapped a minor girl and Ganesh allegedly molested her and then sold the girl with the help of his sister to Nani-Raju brother gang in Hyderabad. In 2008, Malakpeta police raided the brothel and sent back the minor girl to Swadhara Home in Rajahmundry. Recently, the girl went back to her grandmother’s house and Seetha Mahalakshmi and Ganesh chased her and tried to engage her in prostitution. However, she escaped from their clutches and reached One-Town police station.
Sub-Inspector M.G. Ramakrishna took her to DSP and the DSP and SI raided the house of Seetha Mahalakshmi and Ganesh on Tuesday morning and arrested them. The minor girl was shifted to Government Hospital for medical tests. The police booked cases under different sections under IPC and POA Acts.
Date:03/02/2010
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andhra Pradesh - Rajahmundry
Police bust gang trafficking in girls
Staff Reporter
Minor shifted to hospital for tests
Rajahmundry: Police cracked two important cases on Tuesday at a time. In once case, they arrested members of a gang involved in trafficking of girls. In another case they arrested two persons who were allegedly taking 75 packets of ganja along with them in a car. The two cases were dealt with by D. Janaki, Sub-Divisional Police Officer and her team.
In a media conference, the DSP said that Boddeti Seetha Mahalakshmi and her brother Boddeti Ganesh were engaged in tailoring in Narayanapuram area from 2007. They kidnapped a minor girl and Ganesh allegedly molested her and then sold the girl with the help of his sister to Nani-Raju brother gang in Hyderabad. In 2008, Malakpeta police raided the brothel and sent back the minor girl to Swadhara Home in Rajahmundry. Recently, the girl went back to her grandmother’s house and Seetha Mahalakshmi and Ganesh chased her and tried to engage her in prostitution. However, she escaped from their clutches and reached One-Town police station.
Sub-Inspector M.G. Ramakrishna took her to DSP and the DSP and SI raided the house of Seetha Mahalakshmi and Ganesh on Tuesday morning and arrested them. The minor girl was shifted to Government Hospital for medical tests. The police booked cases under different sections under IPC and POA Acts.
Monday, February 01, 2010
International trafficking India as destination
The new white flesh trade
Mihir Srivastava
January 21, 2010
Lola, 22, is a tall girl with high, thin eyebrows on a slender face. Her features are sharp but her eyes are uninterested, fixed at a painting on the wall of the coffee shop, as she tries hard to explain, in broken English, why she is in India. Clad in a too-tight pink sweatshirt, faded cream shorts and shiny red boots, her right hand bearing a cocktail ring which she keeps twisting nervously, her blue nail varnish chipped, she seems a far cry from her alluring nocturnal avatar as one of the Capital's high-priced prostitutes. She speaks of how she came to work here two-and-a-half months ago. Her boyfriend TC, not Tom Cruise, she clarifies, momentarily showing signs of life, joined her last month. Both are clear about what they want from their lives--enough money to buy a house in Tashkent, their hometown in Uzbekistan.
The cost of fantasy
CIS girls now dominate the high-end sex market offering sexual pleasure as leisure
SERVICES TIME IN HOURS RATE IN RUPEES/per head
One trip (sexual intercourse) Two 8,000
Two trips Two 10,000
Two trips Four 15,000
Unlimited trips Eight or overnight 25,000
Orgy (at least one girl per person) Eight or overnight 25,000
Escort service (travel outstation with the client, all expenses are met) Per day 25,000
Play hostess at a stag party Four hours 15,000
Posing as nude model for photography and sketching One hour 5,000
Payment is in advance/all credit cards accepted, cash is preferred. The websites guarantee confidentiality.
One of five siblings who grew up in poverty, Lola's mother is dead and her father was abusive. For her it's just another job. There are no regrets. "It was TC who did all the running around for me, got my papers done and put me on a flight to Delhi," she says.
Lola is not alone. She is part of a growing army of fair-skinned prostitutes, about 3,000 of them in the Capital and about the same number in the other parts of the country. They are from Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Kyrgyzstan, all of which are part of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Replacing the earlier favourites, imports from Nepal, and charging 40 per cent more than Indian prostitutes, they are changing the rules of the game, feeding on the Indian fascination for white skin and the greater openness with which they can promote their sexual favours, through classified advertisements in newspapers and professionally-designed websites.
That the fascination for white skin is transnational is evident from the string of recent arrests. Last year, on December 10, a Delhi-based hotel manager, Shanker Mishra, was arrested in Rajkot along with an Uzbek prostitute in her late 20s, Ragini, a native of Tashkent. Initial investigations revealed that Mishra would provide women to cash-rich traders and garment exporters in Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Indore.
A little earlier, on October 30, another sex racket was busted in Mahipalpur, Delhi, where three women of CIS origin, Aslefya, 23, Sonya, 25, and Roma, 27, were arrested following a scuffle between a few pimps and locals in front of a guesthouse, 365 Inn.
In July, the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police arrested two CIS prostitutes when a decoy customer was sent to strike a deal with them. The pimp, Goldy, came with the two foreign women in a car. They were here on a six-month tourist visa and had been in the Gulf before coming to India; with their stay here governed by a Rs 1.5 lakh contract for each girl for one month. The women will be deported soon.
But it's quite likely they will be back, admits Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Mumbai, Rakesh Maria. "The prostitution racket involving CIS women is very well organised. The Indian pimps are in close touch with their counterparts in Dubai and CIS countries," he says. It's the culmination of events that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and gained momentum with the entry of young CIS women into Dubai, transforming it into a major centre of prostitution.
According to an article in The New Yorker in 2008, an "almost perfect recipe: mass immigration, mass transience, a tremendous concentration of money and anonymity, and a robust demand for labour". But a crackdown in Dubai in December 2007 when 240 people were arrested and in May last year when 2,713 prostitutes were detained as well as the deportation of 228 Uzbek women from Thailand recently, ensured that many women moved south, a process hastened by the meltdown.
Inside the new trade
Getting a light-skinned prostitute is rather easy. All one has to do is call one of the numbers flashed in the two dozen-odd difficult-to-ignore massage advertisements in the classified pages of leading dailies. The sales pitch starts as soon as the ad is mentioned. Then there's the Net, where a search for 'escort service' with the city name yields pages of results.
Most of the women come as tourists from the impoverished republics of the former Soviet Union, particularly Uzbekistan. Some are coerced while others get into this business voluntarily.
The so-called 'aunties', CIS women who have been illegally living in India for several years, act as the interface between the women and local pimps. The aunties are local agents of a mafia back home and share up to 50 per cent of the profits.
Most prostitutes are not paid; they serve 'aunties' under informal contracts that pay off loans taken back home by their families in return for services provided here. The contracts run for three to six months, during which up to a third of a prostitute's earnings go repay family loans.
Lured by big money, some women come back as 'freelancers'. They then stay with an Indian pimp, who sometimes helps them get a visa. They also pay these women a daily fee which is usually between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000. Most women reinvest their earnings to make a profit; exporting leather garments is a favoured avenue.
The pimps also make money by organising rooms for clients. Five-star hotels, farmhouses and guesthouses are hotspots, with smaller establishments bending rules to ensure anonymity. Official addresses are avoided.
Some women aren't prostitutes and others aren't just that. As part of dancing troupes, they are called 'belly dancers' or 'item girls' and serve as hostesses and showgirls at parties.
Lax visa rules make for a thriving sex trade. Joint Commissioner of Police,Crime,Mumbai, Rakesh Maria says, "The pimps in India, Dubai and CIS countries work in close coordination." A secret report of the NSA had expressed concern over foreigners buying land illegally. Others have established guesthouses and restaurants.
Only half a dozen arrests were made last year; there were no convictions. According to the law, soliciting or encouraging the exchange of sexual services for money is a sex crime and not prostitution. Sometimes these women are deported, but most of them come back.
The Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls (Amendment) Act, 1978, is toothless. Most arrested women get bail as soliciting is difficult to prove. This prompted the Supreme Court last month to ask the government to legalise prostitution, on a PIL filed by an NGO called the Bachpan Bachao Andolan.
"The odds were against staying in Dubai," says Nagina, a 27-year-old Muslim from Samarkand who was in Dubai till a month ago. She escaped the police but many of her friends are in jail for illegally entering the country on false passports. She doesn't like to go to a bar to meet a client as "it is against my religion". But prostitution? "They need our services and we provide it," she says. Or take Roma, a 25-year-old from Karshi, Uzbekistan, who ran away from a violent father when she was 17. She was sucked into prostitution and sent to Dubai where her travel documents were confiscated. She is now a veteran with seven years of experience and this is her third stay in India. She lives in a three-storey flat in Delhi, atop a spiral staircase. It's a big living room with bare orange walls, a dressing table with lights and a smorgasbord of cosmetics. As she settles down in a couch to talk, the only sign of her profession is a roommate who lies huddled in the bedroom next door, sleeping in mid-afternoon, working off the effects of a late night. As she flicks the ash from her cigarette, Roma says, "Only the best survive. The pressure to do well is so high. I learned English and have been to the US and Europe. I am okay with this life."
Two of the three prostitutes arrested in the Capital in October last year.As the hunting ground shifts from Dubai, the CIS women, often referred to as "night butterflies", find India easier to work in. The classified advertisements in newspapers are easy to spot, printed by the dozens every day, five lines each costing Rs 1,800, giving mobile numbers, the option of paying by credit card and dropping cryptic hints of "body massage" assuring "full satisfaction". Translate what that means: accompanying clients on long drives, having sex with them during the lunch hour in pimp hideouts around commercial hubs or in designated safehouses, and playing host at 'stag' parties where they serve alcohol and food skimpily dressed. All this for prices ranging from Rs 8,000 to Rs 30,000 depending on the duration.
It's difficult to miss them, whether it is five-star hotel lobbies, elite clubs or farmhouses. They come here on tourist visas for three to six months and stay with 'aunties', women from CIS countries, who act as mediators between agents in home countries and pimps in India. The women are paid on a daily basis.
In Delhi, for example, over 150 Indian pimps host them and some of them have four to five CIS women on their payroll. The pimps pocket the money from clients, as payment for their upkeep as well as promotion. Call at any of the numbers advertised in the newspapers and they are quite blunt. "She will do all you want," says the male voice at the other end. "Trained handling" means the client will relive his "wildest fantasies". And when they say "full satisfaction guaranteed", they mean "the girl will do whatever the clients wants, in the way they want, with great ability". Some even promise to refresh clients with world class 'blwoiob' (blowjob) 'ser'(vice), the misspelling deliberate to avoid trouble.
Some get poetic, luring clients with phrases such as "indulge yourself in the most electrifying experience of your lifetime with our bewitching masseuses" or proclaiming that carnal pleasures can be sublime, "where mind and soul entwine together in heights of pleasure". So says a classified ad aimed at older customers. The idea is all are welcome, from the cash-rich entrepreneur to the high performing salesman, who gets sex as a bonus.
There is an even easier option, the Internet. Google 'escort service' and the name of the city where you intend to access the services, and voila, the choices pop up faster than Roger Federer's serves. Professionally designed websites offer a host of services and a detailed rate list. Again, all it requires is a call to the given number, the time of requirement, and the specific service.
"Whether for pleasure trips, business occasions, corporate events, functions or dinner dates", "especially handpicked to provide the highest level of service possible with professionalism, integrity and discretion assured at all times for the discerning gentlemen," declares one website. Clients can book their services from anywhere in the world, can even outsource the planning of a fun-filled holiday to them. Payment is to be made in advance and clients are given the convenient option of paying by credit card.
A pimp strikes a deal in a shady corner.Declares one website, "For gentlemen who would want to move beyond the confines of the hourly session, I offer these exclusive getaway packages," to the scenic towns of Nainital and Shimla in summers and to regal Jaipur and Agra in winters. Yet another tells its prospective customers, "My favourite pastime in the field of the adult industry, always has been related to couples, including lesbian or bisexual female couples and groups of people."
Their skin colour is their biggest selling point. "Sex with light-skinned women is aspirational," says Pramada Menon, a Delhi-based gender activist. The CIS women agree. "Indians are so conscious of their colour and ours," says Sarah, 27, from Tashkent, who has been here now for five months on a tourist visa. So much so that Indian women find it difficult to counter the 'white cult' that is taking over the premium flesh trade. Indian women have to be hard-sold. So if it's an Indian woman, the advertisement reads: she is a 'Punjabi' (read intense and fair), 'model' (slim and beautiful), 'airhostess' (suave and smart), 'hygienic' (clean), 'broadminded' and 'sober'. Broadminded assures clients that the women will play out their fantasies, while 'sober' indicates that they will be professional about it.
"East European girls have a different look and they are exotic for Indians as much as Delhi girls are unusual for Americans," that's a recorded voice playing on Vivek's phone--he operates in an upmartket neighbourhood of the Capital and has four CIS women on his roster. "Most of our clients have gained money recently and want new girls every time," he adds.
CIS women also offer anonymity. "For our older, wealthier and regular customers, it is not about sex but courtship," says Feruza, 32, an Uzbek woman. "They want somebody to give them an honest hearing and like the way we pamper them. Language is an issue but we can talk them into relaxation. They like that they are in command and that actually helps them surrender to us," she says. Ask Nitin, who runs a computer hardware business at a commercial complex in Delhi. He is in his mid-30s and is married with children. For him, the once-a-week sexcapade is an addiction he cannot do without.
"These women have an element of professional detachment. They are here for a few months and you don't know whether you will ever see them again. They are not interested in you beyond the task well done," he says, comparing them with their Indian counterparts. "But the Indians want your number. They give theirs, want to know what I do and how much I earn. Then they go on about how they belong to a good family too but have been forced into prostitution by some compelling circumstances. That is so irritating."
Shrugs Shruti, a 19-year-old college girl who doubles as a call girl and is on the roster of two pimps in Delhi, "If Indian men are looking for white women for their novelty, white men are interested in us. They give us generous tips." But why do white women attract so many repeat customers? "We cannot do things that white women do with Indian men," says Shruti huffily.
CIS women dress well, wear immaculate make-up and carry the best accessories. They also play nice enough to have some men in their thrall. Roma gives the example of a 35-year-old married businessman, who offered to marry her. When she refused, he would insist only on her, paying extra for her services. "Aunty wanted me to meet him more often as money was coming thick and fast, but I stopped because he was getting emotional about the whole affair," she says, adding on second thoughts, "but it is not a bad idea to get married after all."
The 'aunties' are the key to the business. Usually heavily-built, manicured, made-up, chain-smokers, they pronounce their verdict with the authority borne of years of handling pimps, visa agents and police officials. "I tell my girls to come back if the clients get rough. They can call me any time even when they are with the clients. If they don't like something, they can stop right there," says one aunty. Four of them have formidable reputations. They have their areas of domination but their areas of operation overlap.
White women with their partners enjoying a meal after a hard day's work in Delhi.With names like Svetlana, Diana, Nafisa and Sweta, these aunties have never been prostitutes themselves but are cashing in on their strong Indian connections. The fathers of two aunties were diplomats stationed in India 20 years ago; another has a KGB background. For them, it's not a racket but a business. Says an aunty, dressed in a long black skirt, a thick bead necklace nestling in the V of a cleavage-popping white T-shirt, "More then 20,000 girls have come and gone from India in several lots over the past two years. Most were from CIS countries and have done well for themselves." The numbers are lower than in the UAE and Dubai, she adds.
These aunties are careful and so are the women. Unlike their Indian counterparts, they always carry a pack of flavoured condoms. Cleanliness is an issue and they insist that clients take a shower before going to bed with them. They have a dress code for bed too: red and black lingerie from the best brands. Sometimes the aunties insist on sending Indian prostitutes first. Only when she gives an all-clear signal is the client allowed to sleep with a white woman.
In order not to attract undue attention, only two girls are lodged in one flat each in areas close to busy neighbourhoods. They wear Fabindia clothes by day, have a fetish for leather garments at night and sport dark eyeliner at all times. "That's our fashion statement," says Bessica, 27. The mother of two has been in India for four months after her jobless husband persuaded her to come here. "I was in the UAE and Dubai before I came to India. The girls of my generation do feel the pangs. We are spiritually dead," she says.
Most of the women come directly to aunties to pay off loans their family took back home. "It is according to an informal contract between the family and the agent back home where the girls are required to stay overseas for three to six months to pay off their debt by making themselves available for prostitution," says Mashhura, 28, who belongs to Buxoro in Uzbekistan. Some come back to make money for themselves and get in touch with Indian pimps like Vivek who maintains four such 'freelancers' and pays each Rs 10,000 per day for their period of stay. They sometimes end up working 12 hours a day, meeting six different clients, as pimps make Rs 35,000 a day, which includes the police cut, their stay and other expenses.
Rajiv, 30, a pimp in Delhi, has six such women in his list. He calls prospective clients to his home and gives them one of his rooms. His wife, a tall woman in a salwar-kameez, who listens to him negotiating from behind the curtain of the living room and often walks out to tell the client sternly, "the price is fixed."
The number of CIS-origin prostitutes in India is growing. Four hundred prostitutes are expected to arrive in the Capital during the Commonwealth Games to be held later in the year. "We know there will be great demand for women then and special arrangements are being made, like renting safehouses. Some Indian pimps are even buying flats," says Avita, 30, who came here with her cousin from Tashkent.
Insiders also say that some girls are brought to India as part of dance troupes. These women perform group dances in revealing clothes, mostly at private parties. According to Rishikant, a 32-year-old activist who works for the NGO, Shakti Vahini, and has rescued more than 1,000 girls in the last decade from prostitution, "Their number has increased significantly in the last one-and-a-half years." He explains that the police are aware of the problem but can do little as senior officers are involved.
India's anti-trafficking law, the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls (Amendment) Act (SITA), 1978, aims at combating the commercialisation of the flesh trade (brothels, prostitution rings and pimping). Prostitution is not illegal. But in practice, SITA is not commonly used; instead the Indian Penal Code is deployed to charge sex workers with crimes such as public indecency or public nuisance, punishable with imprisonment up to six months or fine or both. If the sex worker is a minor, the client may get a sentence of seven to 10 years. But, given the overt manner in which the flesh trade operates, it cannot happen without the support of the police. Former police officer Kiran Bedi calls it the "collective failure of the whole criminal judicial system."
Failure or not, the women don't mind. "We get to travel, stay in new places and make friends. Yes, the money is good. But I like it here as well," says Kate, 27, who was presented as a model to an exporter in Delhi with whom she would be travelling to Goa. She arrived in India about a month-and-a-half ago and has already been with 50 men. As she leaves, dressed in tight jeans and a brown psychedelic top under a black leather jacket, a white taxi waiting outside to take her to her 51st client, she shrugs her shoulders.
"I was deported from Israel last year. The next few days will be tricky. It's Republic Day and security is tight.'' It's one of the perils of her profession. But one she carries off as easily as the Christian Louboutin high heels she bought online last year. It's price she extracts for the pleasure she provides.
Brothel to boudoir
The changing nature of the premium sex market
The flesh trade in India has become a big money-spinner with about 30 lakh girls (the population of Pune) involved, according to a recent government-commissioned study. Most women forced into prostitution due to abject poverty are from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. They live in sub-human conditions in congested brothels in areas such as G.B. Road in Delhi or Kamatipura in Mumbai. Till 2000, the women for the so-called 'premium category' were trafficked illegally across the border from Nepal and Myanmar for Rs 1,000 a night. Things started to change when the fruits of globalisation reached younger urban Indian men thanks to the robust growth in the outsourcing industry and the advent of multinational companies that paid fat salaries. On the home turf too, voluntarism replaced coercion thanks to the easy, and big, money to be made here. The flesh trade soon became an organised business; pimps became 'agents' who would now move around in flashy cars, unlike in the past where the contact person was a taxi driver or paan shop owner. Pimps no longer meet clients, preferring to send women in chauffeur-driven cars with full payment to be paid in advance before they step out of the car. The services are paid for by the hour, and not night.
"It is not just about quality sex but it is about a quality experience that is more about companionship," says 26-year-old Rishab, single and an executive in a Gurgaon-based multinational company. "They are out not to hide but to flaunt," he says, adding that he considers being in the company of light-skinned women an indicator of his success.
Mihir Srivastava
January 21, 2010
Lola, 22, is a tall girl with high, thin eyebrows on a slender face. Her features are sharp but her eyes are uninterested, fixed at a painting on the wall of the coffee shop, as she tries hard to explain, in broken English, why she is in India. Clad in a too-tight pink sweatshirt, faded cream shorts and shiny red boots, her right hand bearing a cocktail ring which she keeps twisting nervously, her blue nail varnish chipped, she seems a far cry from her alluring nocturnal avatar as one of the Capital's high-priced prostitutes. She speaks of how she came to work here two-and-a-half months ago. Her boyfriend TC, not Tom Cruise, she clarifies, momentarily showing signs of life, joined her last month. Both are clear about what they want from their lives--enough money to buy a house in Tashkent, their hometown in Uzbekistan.
The cost of fantasy
CIS girls now dominate the high-end sex market offering sexual pleasure as leisure
SERVICES TIME IN HOURS RATE IN RUPEES/per head
One trip (sexual intercourse) Two 8,000
Two trips Two 10,000
Two trips Four 15,000
Unlimited trips Eight or overnight 25,000
Orgy (at least one girl per person) Eight or overnight 25,000
Escort service (travel outstation with the client, all expenses are met) Per day 25,000
Play hostess at a stag party Four hours 15,000
Posing as nude model for photography and sketching One hour 5,000
Payment is in advance/all credit cards accepted, cash is preferred. The websites guarantee confidentiality.
One of five siblings who grew up in poverty, Lola's mother is dead and her father was abusive. For her it's just another job. There are no regrets. "It was TC who did all the running around for me, got my papers done and put me on a flight to Delhi," she says.
Lola is not alone. She is part of a growing army of fair-skinned prostitutes, about 3,000 of them in the Capital and about the same number in the other parts of the country. They are from Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Kyrgyzstan, all of which are part of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Replacing the earlier favourites, imports from Nepal, and charging 40 per cent more than Indian prostitutes, they are changing the rules of the game, feeding on the Indian fascination for white skin and the greater openness with which they can promote their sexual favours, through classified advertisements in newspapers and professionally-designed websites.
That the fascination for white skin is transnational is evident from the string of recent arrests. Last year, on December 10, a Delhi-based hotel manager, Shanker Mishra, was arrested in Rajkot along with an Uzbek prostitute in her late 20s, Ragini, a native of Tashkent. Initial investigations revealed that Mishra would provide women to cash-rich traders and garment exporters in Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Indore.
A little earlier, on October 30, another sex racket was busted in Mahipalpur, Delhi, where three women of CIS origin, Aslefya, 23, Sonya, 25, and Roma, 27, were arrested following a scuffle between a few pimps and locals in front of a guesthouse, 365 Inn.
In July, the Crime Branch of the Delhi Police arrested two CIS prostitutes when a decoy customer was sent to strike a deal with them. The pimp, Goldy, came with the two foreign women in a car. They were here on a six-month tourist visa and had been in the Gulf before coming to India; with their stay here governed by a Rs 1.5 lakh contract for each girl for one month. The women will be deported soon.
But it's quite likely they will be back, admits Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Mumbai, Rakesh Maria. "The prostitution racket involving CIS women is very well organised. The Indian pimps are in close touch with their counterparts in Dubai and CIS countries," he says. It's the culmination of events that began with the collapse of the Soviet Union and gained momentum with the entry of young CIS women into Dubai, transforming it into a major centre of prostitution.
According to an article in The New Yorker in 2008, an "almost perfect recipe: mass immigration, mass transience, a tremendous concentration of money and anonymity, and a robust demand for labour". But a crackdown in Dubai in December 2007 when 240 people were arrested and in May last year when 2,713 prostitutes were detained as well as the deportation of 228 Uzbek women from Thailand recently, ensured that many women moved south, a process hastened by the meltdown.
Inside the new trade
Getting a light-skinned prostitute is rather easy. All one has to do is call one of the numbers flashed in the two dozen-odd difficult-to-ignore massage advertisements in the classified pages of leading dailies. The sales pitch starts as soon as the ad is mentioned. Then there's the Net, where a search for 'escort service' with the city name yields pages of results.
Most of the women come as tourists from the impoverished republics of the former Soviet Union, particularly Uzbekistan. Some are coerced while others get into this business voluntarily.
The so-called 'aunties', CIS women who have been illegally living in India for several years, act as the interface between the women and local pimps. The aunties are local agents of a mafia back home and share up to 50 per cent of the profits.
Most prostitutes are not paid; they serve 'aunties' under informal contracts that pay off loans taken back home by their families in return for services provided here. The contracts run for three to six months, during which up to a third of a prostitute's earnings go repay family loans.
Lured by big money, some women come back as 'freelancers'. They then stay with an Indian pimp, who sometimes helps them get a visa. They also pay these women a daily fee which is usually between Rs 10,000 and Rs 15,000. Most women reinvest their earnings to make a profit; exporting leather garments is a favoured avenue.
The pimps also make money by organising rooms for clients. Five-star hotels, farmhouses and guesthouses are hotspots, with smaller establishments bending rules to ensure anonymity. Official addresses are avoided.
Some women aren't prostitutes and others aren't just that. As part of dancing troupes, they are called 'belly dancers' or 'item girls' and serve as hostesses and showgirls at parties.
Lax visa rules make for a thriving sex trade. Joint Commissioner of Police,Crime,Mumbai, Rakesh Maria says, "The pimps in India, Dubai and CIS countries work in close coordination." A secret report of the NSA had expressed concern over foreigners buying land illegally. Others have established guesthouses and restaurants.
Only half a dozen arrests were made last year; there were no convictions. According to the law, soliciting or encouraging the exchange of sexual services for money is a sex crime and not prostitution. Sometimes these women are deported, but most of them come back.
The Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls (Amendment) Act, 1978, is toothless. Most arrested women get bail as soliciting is difficult to prove. This prompted the Supreme Court last month to ask the government to legalise prostitution, on a PIL filed by an NGO called the Bachpan Bachao Andolan.
"The odds were against staying in Dubai," says Nagina, a 27-year-old Muslim from Samarkand who was in Dubai till a month ago. She escaped the police but many of her friends are in jail for illegally entering the country on false passports. She doesn't like to go to a bar to meet a client as "it is against my religion". But prostitution? "They need our services and we provide it," she says. Or take Roma, a 25-year-old from Karshi, Uzbekistan, who ran away from a violent father when she was 17. She was sucked into prostitution and sent to Dubai where her travel documents were confiscated. She is now a veteran with seven years of experience and this is her third stay in India. She lives in a three-storey flat in Delhi, atop a spiral staircase. It's a big living room with bare orange walls, a dressing table with lights and a smorgasbord of cosmetics. As she settles down in a couch to talk, the only sign of her profession is a roommate who lies huddled in the bedroom next door, sleeping in mid-afternoon, working off the effects of a late night. As she flicks the ash from her cigarette, Roma says, "Only the best survive. The pressure to do well is so high. I learned English and have been to the US and Europe. I am okay with this life."
Two of the three prostitutes arrested in the Capital in October last year.As the hunting ground shifts from Dubai, the CIS women, often referred to as "night butterflies", find India easier to work in. The classified advertisements in newspapers are easy to spot, printed by the dozens every day, five lines each costing Rs 1,800, giving mobile numbers, the option of paying by credit card and dropping cryptic hints of "body massage" assuring "full satisfaction". Translate what that means: accompanying clients on long drives, having sex with them during the lunch hour in pimp hideouts around commercial hubs or in designated safehouses, and playing host at 'stag' parties where they serve alcohol and food skimpily dressed. All this for prices ranging from Rs 8,000 to Rs 30,000 depending on the duration.
It's difficult to miss them, whether it is five-star hotel lobbies, elite clubs or farmhouses. They come here on tourist visas for three to six months and stay with 'aunties', women from CIS countries, who act as mediators between agents in home countries and pimps in India. The women are paid on a daily basis.
In Delhi, for example, over 150 Indian pimps host them and some of them have four to five CIS women on their payroll. The pimps pocket the money from clients, as payment for their upkeep as well as promotion. Call at any of the numbers advertised in the newspapers and they are quite blunt. "She will do all you want," says the male voice at the other end. "Trained handling" means the client will relive his "wildest fantasies". And when they say "full satisfaction guaranteed", they mean "the girl will do whatever the clients wants, in the way they want, with great ability". Some even promise to refresh clients with world class 'blwoiob' (blowjob) 'ser'(vice), the misspelling deliberate to avoid trouble.
Some get poetic, luring clients with phrases such as "indulge yourself in the most electrifying experience of your lifetime with our bewitching masseuses" or proclaiming that carnal pleasures can be sublime, "where mind and soul entwine together in heights of pleasure". So says a classified ad aimed at older customers. The idea is all are welcome, from the cash-rich entrepreneur to the high performing salesman, who gets sex as a bonus.
There is an even easier option, the Internet. Google 'escort service' and the name of the city where you intend to access the services, and voila, the choices pop up faster than Roger Federer's serves. Professionally designed websites offer a host of services and a detailed rate list. Again, all it requires is a call to the given number, the time of requirement, and the specific service.
"Whether for pleasure trips, business occasions, corporate events, functions or dinner dates", "especially handpicked to provide the highest level of service possible with professionalism, integrity and discretion assured at all times for the discerning gentlemen," declares one website. Clients can book their services from anywhere in the world, can even outsource the planning of a fun-filled holiday to them. Payment is to be made in advance and clients are given the convenient option of paying by credit card.
A pimp strikes a deal in a shady corner.Declares one website, "For gentlemen who would want to move beyond the confines of the hourly session, I offer these exclusive getaway packages," to the scenic towns of Nainital and Shimla in summers and to regal Jaipur and Agra in winters. Yet another tells its prospective customers, "My favourite pastime in the field of the adult industry, always has been related to couples, including lesbian or bisexual female couples and groups of people."
Their skin colour is their biggest selling point. "Sex with light-skinned women is aspirational," says Pramada Menon, a Delhi-based gender activist. The CIS women agree. "Indians are so conscious of their colour and ours," says Sarah, 27, from Tashkent, who has been here now for five months on a tourist visa. So much so that Indian women find it difficult to counter the 'white cult' that is taking over the premium flesh trade. Indian women have to be hard-sold. So if it's an Indian woman, the advertisement reads: she is a 'Punjabi' (read intense and fair), 'model' (slim and beautiful), 'airhostess' (suave and smart), 'hygienic' (clean), 'broadminded' and 'sober'. Broadminded assures clients that the women will play out their fantasies, while 'sober' indicates that they will be professional about it.
"East European girls have a different look and they are exotic for Indians as much as Delhi girls are unusual for Americans," that's a recorded voice playing on Vivek's phone--he operates in an upmartket neighbourhood of the Capital and has four CIS women on his roster. "Most of our clients have gained money recently and want new girls every time," he adds.
CIS women also offer anonymity. "For our older, wealthier and regular customers, it is not about sex but courtship," says Feruza, 32, an Uzbek woman. "They want somebody to give them an honest hearing and like the way we pamper them. Language is an issue but we can talk them into relaxation. They like that they are in command and that actually helps them surrender to us," she says. Ask Nitin, who runs a computer hardware business at a commercial complex in Delhi. He is in his mid-30s and is married with children. For him, the once-a-week sexcapade is an addiction he cannot do without.
"These women have an element of professional detachment. They are here for a few months and you don't know whether you will ever see them again. They are not interested in you beyond the task well done," he says, comparing them with their Indian counterparts. "But the Indians want your number. They give theirs, want to know what I do and how much I earn. Then they go on about how they belong to a good family too but have been forced into prostitution by some compelling circumstances. That is so irritating."
Shrugs Shruti, a 19-year-old college girl who doubles as a call girl and is on the roster of two pimps in Delhi, "If Indian men are looking for white women for their novelty, white men are interested in us. They give us generous tips." But why do white women attract so many repeat customers? "We cannot do things that white women do with Indian men," says Shruti huffily.
CIS women dress well, wear immaculate make-up and carry the best accessories. They also play nice enough to have some men in their thrall. Roma gives the example of a 35-year-old married businessman, who offered to marry her. When she refused, he would insist only on her, paying extra for her services. "Aunty wanted me to meet him more often as money was coming thick and fast, but I stopped because he was getting emotional about the whole affair," she says, adding on second thoughts, "but it is not a bad idea to get married after all."
The 'aunties' are the key to the business. Usually heavily-built, manicured, made-up, chain-smokers, they pronounce their verdict with the authority borne of years of handling pimps, visa agents and police officials. "I tell my girls to come back if the clients get rough. They can call me any time even when they are with the clients. If they don't like something, they can stop right there," says one aunty. Four of them have formidable reputations. They have their areas of domination but their areas of operation overlap.
White women with their partners enjoying a meal after a hard day's work in Delhi.With names like Svetlana, Diana, Nafisa and Sweta, these aunties have never been prostitutes themselves but are cashing in on their strong Indian connections. The fathers of two aunties were diplomats stationed in India 20 years ago; another has a KGB background. For them, it's not a racket but a business. Says an aunty, dressed in a long black skirt, a thick bead necklace nestling in the V of a cleavage-popping white T-shirt, "More then 20,000 girls have come and gone from India in several lots over the past two years. Most were from CIS countries and have done well for themselves." The numbers are lower than in the UAE and Dubai, she adds.
These aunties are careful and so are the women. Unlike their Indian counterparts, they always carry a pack of flavoured condoms. Cleanliness is an issue and they insist that clients take a shower before going to bed with them. They have a dress code for bed too: red and black lingerie from the best brands. Sometimes the aunties insist on sending Indian prostitutes first. Only when she gives an all-clear signal is the client allowed to sleep with a white woman.
In order not to attract undue attention, only two girls are lodged in one flat each in areas close to busy neighbourhoods. They wear Fabindia clothes by day, have a fetish for leather garments at night and sport dark eyeliner at all times. "That's our fashion statement," says Bessica, 27. The mother of two has been in India for four months after her jobless husband persuaded her to come here. "I was in the UAE and Dubai before I came to India. The girls of my generation do feel the pangs. We are spiritually dead," she says.
Most of the women come directly to aunties to pay off loans their family took back home. "It is according to an informal contract between the family and the agent back home where the girls are required to stay overseas for three to six months to pay off their debt by making themselves available for prostitution," says Mashhura, 28, who belongs to Buxoro in Uzbekistan. Some come back to make money for themselves and get in touch with Indian pimps like Vivek who maintains four such 'freelancers' and pays each Rs 10,000 per day for their period of stay. They sometimes end up working 12 hours a day, meeting six different clients, as pimps make Rs 35,000 a day, which includes the police cut, their stay and other expenses.
Rajiv, 30, a pimp in Delhi, has six such women in his list. He calls prospective clients to his home and gives them one of his rooms. His wife, a tall woman in a salwar-kameez, who listens to him negotiating from behind the curtain of the living room and often walks out to tell the client sternly, "the price is fixed."
The number of CIS-origin prostitutes in India is growing. Four hundred prostitutes are expected to arrive in the Capital during the Commonwealth Games to be held later in the year. "We know there will be great demand for women then and special arrangements are being made, like renting safehouses. Some Indian pimps are even buying flats," says Avita, 30, who came here with her cousin from Tashkent.
Insiders also say that some girls are brought to India as part of dance troupes. These women perform group dances in revealing clothes, mostly at private parties. According to Rishikant, a 32-year-old activist who works for the NGO, Shakti Vahini, and has rescued more than 1,000 girls in the last decade from prostitution, "Their number has increased significantly in the last one-and-a-half years." He explains that the police are aware of the problem but can do little as senior officers are involved.
India's anti-trafficking law, the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls (Amendment) Act (SITA), 1978, aims at combating the commercialisation of the flesh trade (brothels, prostitution rings and pimping). Prostitution is not illegal. But in practice, SITA is not commonly used; instead the Indian Penal Code is deployed to charge sex workers with crimes such as public indecency or public nuisance, punishable with imprisonment up to six months or fine or both. If the sex worker is a minor, the client may get a sentence of seven to 10 years. But, given the overt manner in which the flesh trade operates, it cannot happen without the support of the police. Former police officer Kiran Bedi calls it the "collective failure of the whole criminal judicial system."
Failure or not, the women don't mind. "We get to travel, stay in new places and make friends. Yes, the money is good. But I like it here as well," says Kate, 27, who was presented as a model to an exporter in Delhi with whom she would be travelling to Goa. She arrived in India about a month-and-a-half ago and has already been with 50 men. As she leaves, dressed in tight jeans and a brown psychedelic top under a black leather jacket, a white taxi waiting outside to take her to her 51st client, she shrugs her shoulders.
"I was deported from Israel last year. The next few days will be tricky. It's Republic Day and security is tight.'' It's one of the perils of her profession. But one she carries off as easily as the Christian Louboutin high heels she bought online last year. It's price she extracts for the pleasure she provides.
Brothel to boudoir
The changing nature of the premium sex market
The flesh trade in India has become a big money-spinner with about 30 lakh girls (the population of Pune) involved, according to a recent government-commissioned study. Most women forced into prostitution due to abject poverty are from Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. They live in sub-human conditions in congested brothels in areas such as G.B. Road in Delhi or Kamatipura in Mumbai. Till 2000, the women for the so-called 'premium category' were trafficked illegally across the border from Nepal and Myanmar for Rs 1,000 a night. Things started to change when the fruits of globalisation reached younger urban Indian men thanks to the robust growth in the outsourcing industry and the advent of multinational companies that paid fat salaries. On the home turf too, voluntarism replaced coercion thanks to the easy, and big, money to be made here. The flesh trade soon became an organised business; pimps became 'agents' who would now move around in flashy cars, unlike in the past where the contact person was a taxi driver or paan shop owner. Pimps no longer meet clients, preferring to send women in chauffeur-driven cars with full payment to be paid in advance before they step out of the car. The services are paid for by the hour, and not night.
"It is not just about quality sex but it is about a quality experience that is more about companionship," says 26-year-old Rishab, single and an executive in a Gurgaon-based multinational company. "They are out not to hide but to flaunt," he says, adding that he considers being in the company of light-skinned women an indicator of his success.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
75 Manipur Children rescued from traffickers
Imphal, Jan 19 : At least 75 children including 24 girls were rescued in the year 2009 while being trafficked outside Manipur, according to sources.
The year 2009 witnessed several children and girls being rescued by NGOs or by the police while being transported to cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Delhi.
Jubita Hajarimayum, secretary of Ereima Gender Empowerment Resource Centre asserted that the development in Manipur could be brought only when the issues relating tochildren and women are solved.
According to reports, 25 children hailing from Kaibi village in Senapati district were rescued by Kolkata police from an Andhra Pradesh-bound train in June last year. Six girls from Churanchandpur district were rescued, also in June last year from an inter-State bus and the girls were reportedly being taken to Delhi. About 15 girls were rescued last year by Child Line, Imphal while they were being trafficked to Chennai.
A total of about 110 girls including minor girls were rescued in January 2008, according to available records. The minor girls who were rescued were either found in illegal homes or intercepted while being trafficked to other States of the country or outside the country.
Significantly, the victims belonged to poor families who are ignorant and the traffickers take advantage of their innocence and lure them by promising them free education outside the State.
Besides, Manipur is not lagging behind in the matter of crimes against women as well.
In one such incident, a woman was murdered by her husband in Thoubal district on December 2 last. The murderer identified as H Ibomcha strangulated his wife to death. Several rape cases had also had taken place in the State during 2009, some of which are unregistered with police
The year 2009 witnessed several children and girls being rescued by NGOs or by the police while being transported to cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Delhi.
Jubita Hajarimayum, secretary of Ereima Gender Empowerment Resource Centre asserted that the development in Manipur could be brought only when the issues relating tochildren and women are solved.
According to reports, 25 children hailing from Kaibi village in Senapati district were rescued by Kolkata police from an Andhra Pradesh-bound train in June last year. Six girls from Churanchandpur district were rescued, also in June last year from an inter-State bus and the girls were reportedly being taken to Delhi. About 15 girls were rescued last year by Child Line, Imphal while they were being trafficked to Chennai.
A total of about 110 girls including minor girls were rescued in January 2008, according to available records. The minor girls who were rescued were either found in illegal homes or intercepted while being trafficked to other States of the country or outside the country.
Significantly, the victims belonged to poor families who are ignorant and the traffickers take advantage of their innocence and lure them by promising them free education outside the State.
Besides, Manipur is not lagging behind in the matter of crimes against women as well.
In one such incident, a woman was murdered by her husband in Thoubal district on December 2 last. The murderer identified as H Ibomcha strangulated his wife to death. Several rape cases had also had taken place in the State during 2009, some of which are unregistered with police
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Child trafficking in a civilised country like India unaceptable: SC
TNN, 16 January 2010,
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday firmly told the Centre that the scourge of child trafficking and its extent in a civilised country like India was just not acceptable and the government had to strengthen mechanism to curb it.
Examining the issue in the light of submissions made by Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium, a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Pattnaik said: "In a civilized country you cannot have the problem of this magnitude. We need to identify the places where it happens and strengthen implementation mechanism."
Submitting a report titled `The Indian Child: India's Eternal Hope and Future', Subramanium suggested that the Goa Childrens Act, 2003, could serve as a model legislation.
"Not only does it define child trafficking but also seeks to provide punishment for abuse and assault of children through child trafficking for different purposes such as labour, sale of body parts, organs, adoption, sexual offences of pedophilia, child prostitution, child pornography and child sex tourism," he said. He even set out the need for having a rescue plan for children caught in prostitution and trade.
Though the Bench appreciated the report, it was not oblivious of the problems on the ground. "Our real problem is implementation. We do not lack material. The whole problem emanates from poverty. In a number of cases, you rescue these children and put them in remand homes. When their parents are informed they are not ready to take them back as they cannot afford them two square meals or because of the social stigma." it said.
"You must have adequate remand homes with infrastructure and proper hygiene conditions. There must be a programme for sending these children to school and schools must be told to admit these children. You need to first chalk out this programme on priority basis," it suggested.
Appearing for petitioner NGO `Bachpan Bachao Andolan", senior advocate Colin Gonsalves said the government for years have been sitting on an NHRC report suggesting an alarming figure of 44,000 children reported missing annually of which only 11,000 get traced.
In this regard, the Bench asked Gonsalves along with several other NGOs like Prajwala, Sankalp and National Legal Services Authority to make suggestions within a week and present a comprehensive report. Advocate Aparna Bhatt representing NGO Prajwala informed the court that by involving NGOs in rehabilitation work, the victims of trafficking have benefited. As a model case, she cited Andhra Pradesh where victims of trafficking are given land. The matter was posted for hearing on January 22.
TNN, 16 January 2010,
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday firmly told the Centre that the scourge of child trafficking and its extent in a civilised country like India was just not acceptable and the government had to strengthen mechanism to curb it.
Examining the issue in the light of submissions made by Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium, a Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Pattnaik said: "In a civilized country you cannot have the problem of this magnitude. We need to identify the places where it happens and strengthen implementation mechanism."
Submitting a report titled `The Indian Child: India's Eternal Hope and Future', Subramanium suggested that the Goa Childrens Act, 2003, could serve as a model legislation.
"Not only does it define child trafficking but also seeks to provide punishment for abuse and assault of children through child trafficking for different purposes such as labour, sale of body parts, organs, adoption, sexual offences of pedophilia, child prostitution, child pornography and child sex tourism," he said. He even set out the need for having a rescue plan for children caught in prostitution and trade.
Though the Bench appreciated the report, it was not oblivious of the problems on the ground. "Our real problem is implementation. We do not lack material. The whole problem emanates from poverty. In a number of cases, you rescue these children and put them in remand homes. When their parents are informed they are not ready to take them back as they cannot afford them two square meals or because of the social stigma." it said.
"You must have adequate remand homes with infrastructure and proper hygiene conditions. There must be a programme for sending these children to school and schools must be told to admit these children. You need to first chalk out this programme on priority basis," it suggested.
Appearing for petitioner NGO `Bachpan Bachao Andolan", senior advocate Colin Gonsalves said the government for years have been sitting on an NHRC report suggesting an alarming figure of 44,000 children reported missing annually of which only 11,000 get traced.
In this regard, the Bench asked Gonsalves along with several other NGOs like Prajwala, Sankalp and National Legal Services Authority to make suggestions within a week and present a comprehensive report. Advocate Aparna Bhatt representing NGO Prajwala informed the court that by involving NGOs in rehabilitation work, the victims of trafficking have benefited. As a model case, she cited Andhra Pradesh where victims of trafficking are given land. The matter was posted for hearing on January 22.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Child Rights forum at Vijaywada
THE HINDU
Date:10/01/2010 URL:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada
Cultural show marks Children’s Mela
Staff Reporter
Street children rehabilitated by voluntary bodies celebrate birth anniversary of Manihara
— PHOTO: RAJU. V
VIJAYAWADA: As many as 2,000 children, who were mostly street children rehabilitated by different voluntary organisations, gathered in Fr. Devaiah auditorium of Andhra Loyola College here on Saturday to participate in several events held during the day on the occasion of birth anniversary of N.S. Manihara, the founder of SKCV Children’s Trust.
The Children’s Mela-2010, as it was called, witnessed cultural performances and competitions in games and sports in sub-junior, junior and senior categories. Prizes were presented to the winners in each category.
Dance-drama
The day began with a dance-drama by the children of SKCV Home on the life of the late Manihara. They depicted how Manihara reached India and set up the organisation for the welfare of deprived children.
A few more skits on child labour were performed on the occasion.
Vijayawada Central MLA Malladi Vishnu, speaking as chief guest, underscored the need for more service organisations joining hands for the welfare of street children. He commended the Forum For Child Rights for brining all service organisations working for the children under one umbrella and providing help to the children in need.
Mayor M.V. Ratna Bindu, who presided over the meeting, recalled the services rendered by Manihara for the streetchildren. She said there was a need to eradicate child labour completely from the city and the support of every citizen was needed to achieve this task.
Police Commissioner (in-charge) Mahesh M. Bhagwat highlighted the importance of three ‘P’s – protection, prevention and prosecution – in implementation of child rights. He observed that trafficking in women and children was going on a large scale in Krishna and Godavari districts, as compared to other districts, but steps were being taken to protect every child.
Deputy Commissioner of Labour Yousuf Sheik, Forum treasurer B.S. Koteswara Rao, former treasurer of the TANA foundation K. Sambasiva Rao, Deputy Mayor S.P. Gritton and others were present.
Krishna district Collector Peeyush Kumar, who was the chief guest at the valedictory session, presented prizes to the winners of various competitions. Lauding the services of the non-governmental organisations, he assured support form the district administration for eradication of practice of child labour. General Manager of the Vijayawada Telecom District John Chrisostham, vice-president of the Forum for Child Rights N. Bhakti Manihara and others were present.
Date:10/01/2010 URL:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andhra Pradesh - Vijayawada
Cultural show marks Children’s Mela
Staff Reporter
Street children rehabilitated by voluntary bodies celebrate birth anniversary of Manihara
— PHOTO: RAJU. V
VIJAYAWADA: As many as 2,000 children, who were mostly street children rehabilitated by different voluntary organisations, gathered in Fr. Devaiah auditorium of Andhra Loyola College here on Saturday to participate in several events held during the day on the occasion of birth anniversary of N.S. Manihara, the founder of SKCV Children’s Trust.
The Children’s Mela-2010, as it was called, witnessed cultural performances and competitions in games and sports in sub-junior, junior and senior categories. Prizes were presented to the winners in each category.
Dance-drama
The day began with a dance-drama by the children of SKCV Home on the life of the late Manihara. They depicted how Manihara reached India and set up the organisation for the welfare of deprived children.
A few more skits on child labour were performed on the occasion.
Vijayawada Central MLA Malladi Vishnu, speaking as chief guest, underscored the need for more service organisations joining hands for the welfare of street children. He commended the Forum For Child Rights for brining all service organisations working for the children under one umbrella and providing help to the children in need.
Mayor M.V. Ratna Bindu, who presided over the meeting, recalled the services rendered by Manihara for the streetchildren. She said there was a need to eradicate child labour completely from the city and the support of every citizen was needed to achieve this task.
Police Commissioner (in-charge) Mahesh M. Bhagwat highlighted the importance of three ‘P’s – protection, prevention and prosecution – in implementation of child rights. He observed that trafficking in women and children was going on a large scale in Krishna and Godavari districts, as compared to other districts, but steps were being taken to protect every child.
Deputy Commissioner of Labour Yousuf Sheik, Forum treasurer B.S. Koteswara Rao, former treasurer of the TANA foundation K. Sambasiva Rao, Deputy Mayor S.P. Gritton and others were present.
Krishna district Collector Peeyush Kumar, who was the chief guest at the valedictory session, presented prizes to the winners of various competitions. Lauding the services of the non-governmental organisations, he assured support form the district administration for eradication of practice of child labour. General Manager of the Vijayawada Telecom District John Chrisostham, vice-president of the Forum for Child Rights N. Bhakti Manihara and others were present.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Abducted girl called up parents for help
Abducted girl called up parents for help
By: Prawesh Lama Date: 2009-12-18 Place: Delhi
The police have spoken to the accused over phone, yet both the victim and the culprit remain at large
This is a story about a teenage girl who led her parents as well as the police to the people who trafficked her from Siliguri in West Bengal to Delhi.
Ironically, the police have been able to trace the culprits but the 16-year-old is yet to be reunited with her family. The brave teenager called up her parents from Bihar that her abductors were driving her to Delhi in a car with the registration number DL 4C AG 5809.
Scavengers: Sundar Singh (extreme right) with wife Sandhya and driver.
The West Bengal police registered a case on December 2 on the complaint of the girl's parents. Based on the leads given by the girl, the West Bengal police traced the driver of the black Santro car who confirmed that three girls were brought from Siliguri and delivered to Sundar Singh, a resident of Shakarpur in east Delhi.
During the course of investigation, it was established that Sundar Singh -- who runs an automobile business in Delhi -- traffics girls from Siliguri, Darjeeling and New Jalpaiguri and brings them to New Delhi.
He owns a house in Siliguri too which was damaged by locals after his cover was blown following the police complaint by the abducted girls' parents. Interestingly, several photographs of young girls were recovered from Singh's house.
The victim's relatives also visited Shakarpur police station after which the Station House Officer sent the beat officer to Singh's shop, Sundar Motors, at Car Bazar, Main Road, Shakarpur. Sundar in fact has married twice and his first wife told the beat officer that he rarely visits her and stayed at some unknown place in east Delhi with his second wife Sandhya.
Sandhya too has been arrested in similar cases earlier. Following the police raid at his house, Sundar called up the victim's relatives and threatened them not to approach the police again but during one of his calls the family managed to make the beat officer overhear it. When the policeman talked to him on the mobile phone number 9732915486. Singh pleaded with him that he would hand over the girl at Shakarpur police station, however, a fortnight has passed and Singh is still absconding.
Karma Dorjee Yolmo, officer in charge of Jaldhaka police station in West Bengal, raided Sandhya's house in New Ashok Nagar last week. However, she had already vacated the house.
"We could not arrest her, we have to produce the driver and others before the court. We have told our Delhi counterparts that an east Delhi resident is the prime suspect in the case. It is also suspected that the girls whose photographs were recovered from Singh's Siliguri house might have been trafficked too. We hope to arrest him and rescue the girls as soon as possible," Yolmo told MiD DAY.
A senior police official posted at Shakarpur police station said the mobile phone from which Singh called up is being tracked. "We are on Singh's tail and he will be arrested soon."
Importation of Girls
(Sec. 366-B IPC), (Incidence...61)A decrease of 9% has been observed in such cases as 61 cases were reported during 2007 as compared to 67 cases in the previous year (2006).
Only Bihar (56) and West Bengal (5) have reported such cases accounting for 91.8% and 8.2% respectively of total such cases at the national level.
Procuration of Minor Girls
(Sec. 366A IPC), (Incidence...253)253 cases were reported in 2007 as compared to 231 such cases in 2006, accounting for 9.5% increase over 2006.
West Bengal has reported 54 such cases indicating a share of 21.3% at national level followed by Andhra Pradesh (37) and Bihar (36). An increasing trend was observed in these cases during the last three years.
Figures: National Crime Records Bureau
Selling of Girls for Prostitution
(Sec. 372 IPC), (Incidence...69)69 cases of 'Selling of Girls for Prostitution' were reported in the country during 2007 against 123 such cases in 2006, thereby indicating a decline of 43.9% over 2006. West Bengal has accounted for 79.7% (55 cases out of 69 cases) of the total such cases reported in the country.
Reported Incidents of crime
(Incidence...4,087)A total of 4,087 incidents of crimes under various provisions of laws relating to human trafficking were reported in the country during 2007 as compared to 5,096 during 2006 recording a decrease of 19.8% during 2007. 5,850 cases relating to human trafficking were reported during 2003 as compared to 6,175 and 6,402 cases reported in 2004 and 2005.
By: Prawesh Lama Date: 2009-12-18 Place: Delhi
The police have spoken to the accused over phone, yet both the victim and the culprit remain at large
This is a story about a teenage girl who led her parents as well as the police to the people who trafficked her from Siliguri in West Bengal to Delhi.
Ironically, the police have been able to trace the culprits but the 16-year-old is yet to be reunited with her family. The brave teenager called up her parents from Bihar that her abductors were driving her to Delhi in a car with the registration number DL 4C AG 5809.
Scavengers: Sundar Singh (extreme right) with wife Sandhya and driver.
The West Bengal police registered a case on December 2 on the complaint of the girl's parents. Based on the leads given by the girl, the West Bengal police traced the driver of the black Santro car who confirmed that three girls were brought from Siliguri and delivered to Sundar Singh, a resident of Shakarpur in east Delhi.
During the course of investigation, it was established that Sundar Singh -- who runs an automobile business in Delhi -- traffics girls from Siliguri, Darjeeling and New Jalpaiguri and brings them to New Delhi.
He owns a house in Siliguri too which was damaged by locals after his cover was blown following the police complaint by the abducted girls' parents. Interestingly, several photographs of young girls were recovered from Singh's house.
The victim's relatives also visited Shakarpur police station after which the Station House Officer sent the beat officer to Singh's shop, Sundar Motors, at Car Bazar, Main Road, Shakarpur. Sundar in fact has married twice and his first wife told the beat officer that he rarely visits her and stayed at some unknown place in east Delhi with his second wife Sandhya.
Sandhya too has been arrested in similar cases earlier. Following the police raid at his house, Sundar called up the victim's relatives and threatened them not to approach the police again but during one of his calls the family managed to make the beat officer overhear it. When the policeman talked to him on the mobile phone number 9732915486. Singh pleaded with him that he would hand over the girl at Shakarpur police station, however, a fortnight has passed and Singh is still absconding.
Karma Dorjee Yolmo, officer in charge of Jaldhaka police station in West Bengal, raided Sandhya's house in New Ashok Nagar last week. However, she had already vacated the house.
"We could not arrest her, we have to produce the driver and others before the court. We have told our Delhi counterparts that an east Delhi resident is the prime suspect in the case. It is also suspected that the girls whose photographs were recovered from Singh's Siliguri house might have been trafficked too. We hope to arrest him and rescue the girls as soon as possible," Yolmo told MiD DAY.
A senior police official posted at Shakarpur police station said the mobile phone from which Singh called up is being tracked. "We are on Singh's tail and he will be arrested soon."
Importation of Girls
(Sec. 366-B IPC), (Incidence...61)A decrease of 9% has been observed in such cases as 61 cases were reported during 2007 as compared to 67 cases in the previous year (2006).
Only Bihar (56) and West Bengal (5) have reported such cases accounting for 91.8% and 8.2% respectively of total such cases at the national level.
Procuration of Minor Girls
(Sec. 366A IPC), (Incidence...253)253 cases were reported in 2007 as compared to 231 such cases in 2006, accounting for 9.5% increase over 2006.
West Bengal has reported 54 such cases indicating a share of 21.3% at national level followed by Andhra Pradesh (37) and Bihar (36). An increasing trend was observed in these cases during the last three years.
Figures: National Crime Records Bureau
Selling of Girls for Prostitution
(Sec. 372 IPC), (Incidence...69)69 cases of 'Selling of Girls for Prostitution' were reported in the country during 2007 against 123 such cases in 2006, thereby indicating a decline of 43.9% over 2006. West Bengal has accounted for 79.7% (55 cases out of 69 cases) of the total such cases reported in the country.
Reported Incidents of crime
(Incidence...4,087)A total of 4,087 incidents of crimes under various provisions of laws relating to human trafficking were reported in the country during 2007 as compared to 5,096 during 2006 recording a decrease of 19.8% during 2007. 5,850 cases relating to human trafficking were reported during 2003 as compared to 6,175 and 6,402 cases reported in 2004 and 2005.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Set up anti-trafficking cell in every district: Chidambaram
Set up anti-trafficking cell in every district: Chidambaram
December 2nd, 2009 - 11:25 pm ICT by IANS -
New Delhi, Dec 2 (IANS) Home Minister P. Chidambaram Wednesday urged all states in the country to set up anti-human trafficking cells in every district.
“Only nine districts have anti-human trafficking cells. This is out of over 600 districts of the country. So, we have barely scratched the surface of the problem. I would like to urge states to set up anti-human trafficking cells in all districts, network them and coordinate with the home ministry,” said Chidambram.
“This would take time and money, but more than that it requires will,” he added.
He was speaking after releasing a book “Human trafficking - dimensions, challenges and responses” written by a former Central Bureau of Investigation official P.M. Nair.
Nair has handled many cases, including former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, international arms drop in Purulia as well as a number of human right violations and many inter-state and international organised crimes.
“Most countries are slow to wake up to the gravity of the crime….one can’t shift blame from one country to another because women and children are bought and sold within the country.”
“The scale of human trafficking in India is not clear, but it is a fair assumption that it is on a very large scale,” Chidambaram said.
“It is the most grievous and pernicious of crimes. The victims are mostly women and children. There are a variety of reasons for human trafficking but mostly it is sex trade. It is a crime against humanity,” he added.
The home minister said: “He (Nair) has put together a large amount of literature (during his work). This book would prove to be a valuable reference book for people interested in the field of anti-human trafficking, law enforcement officers, NGOs and jurists.”
Priced at Rs.600, the proceeds of the sale of the book will go to the victims of human trafficking.
Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/set-up-anti-trafficking-cell-in-every-district-chidambaram_100283423.html#ixzz0YaHSC7BY
December 2nd, 2009 - 11:25 pm ICT by IANS -
New Delhi, Dec 2 (IANS) Home Minister P. Chidambaram Wednesday urged all states in the country to set up anti-human trafficking cells in every district.
“Only nine districts have anti-human trafficking cells. This is out of over 600 districts of the country. So, we have barely scratched the surface of the problem. I would like to urge states to set up anti-human trafficking cells in all districts, network them and coordinate with the home ministry,” said Chidambram.
“This would take time and money, but more than that it requires will,” he added.
He was speaking after releasing a book “Human trafficking - dimensions, challenges and responses” written by a former Central Bureau of Investigation official P.M. Nair.
Nair has handled many cases, including former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, international arms drop in Purulia as well as a number of human right violations and many inter-state and international organised crimes.
“Most countries are slow to wake up to the gravity of the crime….one can’t shift blame from one country to another because women and children are bought and sold within the country.”
“The scale of human trafficking in India is not clear, but it is a fair assumption that it is on a very large scale,” Chidambaram said.
“It is the most grievous and pernicious of crimes. The victims are mostly women and children. There are a variety of reasons for human trafficking but mostly it is sex trade. It is a crime against humanity,” he added.
The home minister said: “He (Nair) has put together a large amount of literature (during his work). This book would prove to be a valuable reference book for people interested in the field of anti-human trafficking, law enforcement officers, NGOs and jurists.”
Priced at Rs.600, the proceeds of the sale of the book will go to the victims of human trafficking.
Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/set-up-anti-trafficking-cell-in-every-district-chidambaram_100283423.html#ixzz0YaHSC7BY
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Housewife gets 7 yrs in jail for pushing minors into flesh trade
Housewife gets 7 yrs in jail for pushing minors into flesh trade
Nitasha Natu, TNN 2 December 2009,
MUMBAI: A 33-year-old married woman from Kandivli has been sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment for pushing minor girls into prostitution. Bharti alias Itee Bodaee was nabbed along with her accomplice, Firoz Siddiqui (32), in May 2009. The duo was booked under the stringent PITA (Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act).
A native of Kolkata, Bodaee worked as a bar dancer for 5 years. But after the state ban on dance bars, she started bringing minor girls from her hometown to Mumbai on the pretext that they would be employed as domestic helps. Bodaee charged the clients anything between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.
"An NGO called Oasis India tipped off our officers about Bodaee's activities. On May 28, our team raided a footpath near the Kandivli level-crossing and caught Bodaee and Siddiqui," said inspector Subhash Vele. . The officers also rescued four girls, three of them minors. The girls told the investigators that Bodaee had been keeping them captive for the past six months.
On November 30, sessions judge SD Bhate sentenced Bodaee to seven years' rigorous imprisonment and levied a fine of Rs 1,500. If she fails to pay up the fine, she will have to serve another three months' rigorous imprisonment
Nitasha Natu, TNN 2 December 2009,
MUMBAI: A 33-year-old married woman from Kandivli has been sentenced to seven years' rigorous imprisonment for pushing minor girls into prostitution. Bharti alias Itee Bodaee was nabbed along with her accomplice, Firoz Siddiqui (32), in May 2009. The duo was booked under the stringent PITA (Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act).
A native of Kolkata, Bodaee worked as a bar dancer for 5 years. But after the state ban on dance bars, she started bringing minor girls from her hometown to Mumbai on the pretext that they would be employed as domestic helps. Bodaee charged the clients anything between Rs 500 and Rs 1,000.
"An NGO called Oasis India tipped off our officers about Bodaee's activities. On May 28, our team raided a footpath near the Kandivli level-crossing and caught Bodaee and Siddiqui," said inspector Subhash Vele. . The officers also rescued four girls, three of them minors. The girls told the investigators that Bodaee had been keeping them captive for the past six months.
On November 30, sessions judge SD Bhate sentenced Bodaee to seven years' rigorous imprisonment and levied a fine of Rs 1,500. If she fails to pay up the fine, she will have to serve another three months' rigorous imprisonment
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
17 girls rescued from Mumbai
17 girls rescued from Mumbai
TNN 1 December 2009,
HYDERABAD: Fifteen girls from the state, including 12 from East Godavari, two each from Vijayawada, West Godavari and one from Visakhapatnam were rescued from the clutches of human traffickers by West Godavari police and CID with active help from Mumbai Police Enforcement.
The CID also rescued two minor girls hailing from West Bengal during the operation. Deputy inspector general of police, Eluru range, Mahesh M Bhagwat, said eight traffickers were arrested in the raid. The incident came to light when a complainant, Illa Anjiyya of Gavaravaram of Koyyalagudeum (WG district) lodged a complaint with Koyyalagudem police station on Nov 19 stating that his 19-year-old daughter and a 24-year-old housewife were taken away by B Sayamma of the same village on the promise of providing jobs in a hostel for a salary of Rs 2,500 per month along with accommodation.
Based on the complaint, a criminal case was registered at Koyyalagudem PS under various sections of Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act-1956 and an investigation was taken up, the DIG said. A special team visited Mumbai on November 26 and contacted the local officers to conduct searches.
The team visited a prostitution den being run by one Kunkipudi Devi at Dayanand building, Pula Street, in Mumbai and rescued the victims
TNN 1 December 2009,
HYDERABAD: Fifteen girls from the state, including 12 from East Godavari, two each from Vijayawada, West Godavari and one from Visakhapatnam were rescued from the clutches of human traffickers by West Godavari police and CID with active help from Mumbai Police Enforcement.
The CID also rescued two minor girls hailing from West Bengal during the operation. Deputy inspector general of police, Eluru range, Mahesh M Bhagwat, said eight traffickers were arrested in the raid. The incident came to light when a complainant, Illa Anjiyya of Gavaravaram of Koyyalagudeum (WG district) lodged a complaint with Koyyalagudem police station on Nov 19 stating that his 19-year-old daughter and a 24-year-old housewife were taken away by B Sayamma of the same village on the promise of providing jobs in a hostel for a salary of Rs 2,500 per month along with accommodation.
Based on the complaint, a criminal case was registered at Koyyalagudem PS under various sections of Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act-1956 and an investigation was taken up, the DIG said. A special team visited Mumbai on November 26 and contacted the local officers to conduct searches.
The team visited a prostitution den being run by one Kunkipudi Devi at Dayanand building, Pula Street, in Mumbai and rescued the victims
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Half the Districts in India are Affected by Human Trafficking
Half the Districts in India are Affected by Human Trafficking
According to a report of the National Commission for Women, (NCW) at least half of the 612 districts in the country are affected by trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation.
The NCW report says that in 378 districts, there are 1,794 identified places of origin from where females are trafficked and 1,016 areas where commercial sexual activities take place.
The NCW says that the promise of a job is the biggest way of deception and accounts for over 50 per cent of trafficking cases.
The states in southern and eastern India ae the most vulnerable as far as trafficking is concerned, say the report.
The report also found out that almost all the districts in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal are affected by this problem.
Tamil Nadu with 93.33 per cent of its districts are affected, is leading the tally of the states affected by human trafficking followed by Orissa with 86.66 per cent and Bihar 86.48 per cent.
The report further added that 2.4 per cent of the total female population in age group of 15-35 years in the country are affected by commercial sexual exploitation.
According to the report there are over 28 lakh commercial sex workers in the country. And over 43 percent women enter to this flesh trade in their minor ages.
The report expressed concern over the entry of minors in flesh trade from the regions where incidence of poverty and hunger are comparatively high
Reasons like violence against women, high rate of unemployment and lack of options contribute to the vulnerability of trafficking of adults, the report says.
The report says that gender discrimination and gender specific violence and crimes perpetuate the vulnerability of women and children and act as one of the reasons behind trafficking.
The report also says that more than 22 per cent women are trafficked and forced into flesh trade by family members.
Around 8 per cent women are trafficked by husbands or in-laws and friends or neighbours lure 18 per cent. More than 51 per cent women in commercial sex were trafficked either by family members or in-laws, the report says.
The report reveals that about 22 per cent of traffickers are not prosecuted due to their political backing.
According to a report of the National Commission for Women, (NCW) at least half of the 612 districts in the country are affected by trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation.
The NCW report says that in 378 districts, there are 1,794 identified places of origin from where females are trafficked and 1,016 areas where commercial sexual activities take place.
The NCW says that the promise of a job is the biggest way of deception and accounts for over 50 per cent of trafficking cases.
The states in southern and eastern India ae the most vulnerable as far as trafficking is concerned, say the report.
The report also found out that almost all the districts in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal are affected by this problem.
Tamil Nadu with 93.33 per cent of its districts are affected, is leading the tally of the states affected by human trafficking followed by Orissa with 86.66 per cent and Bihar 86.48 per cent.
The report further added that 2.4 per cent of the total female population in age group of 15-35 years in the country are affected by commercial sexual exploitation.
According to the report there are over 28 lakh commercial sex workers in the country. And over 43 percent women enter to this flesh trade in their minor ages.
The report expressed concern over the entry of minors in flesh trade from the regions where incidence of poverty and hunger are comparatively high
Reasons like violence against women, high rate of unemployment and lack of options contribute to the vulnerability of trafficking of adults, the report says.
The report says that gender discrimination and gender specific violence and crimes perpetuate the vulnerability of women and children and act as one of the reasons behind trafficking.
The report also says that more than 22 per cent women are trafficked and forced into flesh trade by family members.
Around 8 per cent women are trafficked by husbands or in-laws and friends or neighbours lure 18 per cent. More than 51 per cent women in commercial sex were trafficked either by family members or in-laws, the report says.
The report reveals that about 22 per cent of traffickers are not prosecuted due to their political backing.
Red light district swaps sin for skyscrapers in Mumbai
Red light district swaps sin for skyscrapers
Clara Lewis, TOI Crest 28 November 2009, 03:47pm IST
Mumbai
Brothel Kamathipura
Many brothels are now video parlours and shops selling CDs
Till about four years ago, garishly painted women in glittering attire were a common sight on Cursetji Shuklaji Street, a busy road in Mumbai's notorious red light district, Kamathipura. Once known as Safed Gully (White Lane) on account of the European prostitutes that it housed during the British Raj, Shuklaji Street was the place where, for years on end, one could find sex workers plying their trade. These days however, they're out there not to solicit but to await the private taxis that ferry them to dance bars in the suburbs.
From 50,000 sex workers in 1992 (a statistic recorded by the BMC as part of its AIDS documentation ) to a mere 1,600 today, Kamathipura and the adjoining Foras Road are a mere shadow of their former selves. The street-facing brothels have given way to little shops vending CDs and mobile phones; there's also a clutch of video parlours where boisterous youngsters throng to catch the latest Telugu blockbuster.
Gentrification is slowly descending on Kamathipura , like it has on many of Mumbai's distinctive boroughs. The one-storey , ground-hugging structures are making way for dizzy skyscrapers - two, of 35 storeys, have come up on Shuklaji Street, while another two, 47 storeys each, are nearing completion. Salim Balwa, director D B Realty, the company that's busy making over the area, is planning several more projects here. "The space crunch in Mumbai has meant that you go looking for land where no development has happened," he says. All the towers overlook Kamathipura.
Balwa, who's developed 10 lakh square feet in the area and is in the process of acquiring another 3.5 lakh, is sure that he's on to a good thing. "All said and done, the place is centrally located, and it is better than living in far-off Mira Road," he says. The present residents, most of whom live in houses that are about 100 sq ft in size, will get 300 sq ft after redevelopment, says Balwa. And, of course, there will be a more-than-neat profit for him.
It was the twin factors of AIDS and the Maharashtra government's redevelopment policy that played a major role in getting sex workers to move out of the oldest profession in the world and subsequently out of Kamathipura. The AIDS scare led to the first serious government intervention in the area's prostitution dens: Dr Jairaj Thanekar, Chief Executive Health Officer, BMC, who worked in Kamathipura for 15 years to implement the AIDS intervention programme, says the corporation played a key role in reducing the number of prostitutes . "From organising raids on the Yellappa markets down south - the main source of girls for Kamathipura - to raiding the brothels, we made it difficult for prostitution to function," he says. "From 1999 onwards, the number of sex workers started dwindling."
When the BMC intervened, the rate of transmission of HIV was a shocking four per cent. By then a large number of sex workers had died. "Brothel owners, faced with sex workers who kept falling ill, moved them out to other brothels in Mulund, Bhandup and Ghatkopar, but procuring new girls was also becoming difficult," says Thanekar. This and other factors - a reluctance among landlords, newly aware of AIDS, to lease out their premises to prostitution, spiralling rents, police raids, and the emergence of a new generation of financiers who got into more lucrative ventures - hastened the downward spiral of prostitution in Kamathipura.
The reconstruction wave of dilapidated buildings completed the process. "Several people were bought out by the builders," says a brothel owner. "Gangubai Chawl on 11th Kamathipura Lane was among the first to be torn down and reconstructed into a six-storey building by a private developer. Normal households moved in." The stigma attached to Kamathipura began to dwindle somewhat , and the newly reconstructed prostitution dens began to be put to other uses - for the last four years, businessmen have been renting out the infamous rooms to small manufacturing units. Mohammed Israr, a 22-year-old native of Bihar, who assembles travel bags for a local manufacturer, has rented 600 sq feet in a one-storey structure in Kamathipura. He pays a stiff monthly rent of Rs 12,000 for the space, but says that it's worth the money, given the central location.
Abdul Sattar, a local pan-beedi stall owner on Lane 13, has been in the business for the last 15 years. "Earlier, sex workers' clients frequented my stall," he says. "There were a lot of goons and hangers-on around. Now, proper businessmen come here. It's a welcome change, as people working in the vicinity are no longer looked down upon. There was a time when we were ashamed to tell our relatives that we lived and worked in Kamathipura . But not any more." Adds Sadiq Ismail, who owns a consumer goods shop on 12th Kamathipura Lane, "I live in a house above my shop with my wife, three sons and a daughter. There is nothing shameful about living here any more."
Street named desire
Kamathipura is Mumbai's oldest and Asia's largest red light district. It got its name from the Kamathis (workers) of Andhra Pradesh. They worked as labourers on construction sites. The neighbourhood also had Chinese residents who worked as dockhands and ran restaurants. Kamathipura was formerly Lal Bazaar, an area set aside by the British for their troops' sexual pleasures. By the end of the 19th century, Lal Bazaar was known as a "tolerated area" as prostitution was illegal. At the time, Bombay and to a lesser extent Calcutta were the most important cities in an expanding prostitution network.
Cursetji Shuklaji Street in Kamathipura was called Safed Gully as it was home to European prostitutes. The brothels here were classified into first, second and third class. In 1916, the British set up the Venereal Disease Clinic, the first of its kind in Bombay. The BMC took over the clinic in 1925.
Pleasure Island
The purest form of Afghan afeem (opium) was available only at Bachchuseth ki Wadi on Foras Road, a place famous for its kothewalis and mujras. Free-flowing liquor, the aroma of kebabs, the scent of mogra gajras and the resonance of ghungroos, musical instruments and melodious voices made it the most famous entertainment zone in Mumbai. In the 1970s and early '80s Bachchu Wadi was the haunt of Mumbai's underworld, with such kingpins as Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, and Dawood Ibrahim frequenting it. The kothewalis, trained in Hindustani music, were much sought after. "The place would come alive after sunset, and there was music and laughter till the wee hours of the morning," reminisces Abdul Rauf Sheikh, a pan-stall owner. But after R R Patil became home minister in 2003, policemen started forcibly shutting down the kothasat 12.30 am. Sheikh says that girls from Bihar, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh now rent out their rooms while they themselves work in beer bars in the city and suburbs. Shah Bano, a one-time singer and dancer at one of the kothasin Bachchu Wadi, now lives in Mira Road, dropping by once a week to meet her children who still live there. The children, however, have shunned the kothatradition and do odd jobs for a living.
Salim Balwa, director, D B Realty, is all set to change the face of Bachchu Wadi and Kamathipura in turn. Bachchu Wadi is to be his first redevelopment project in the area. The wadi has 280 tenants - of these 100 are kothewaliswho regularly hold mujraswhile the other 180 are normal households. For Balwa, the major stumbling block was that the two groups did not want to live in the same building. "So , over the course of several meetings it was decided that the 100 tenants who hold mujras would be given a separate building with a separate entrance and lift. And the rest would be in a different building. Once my door is closed, how does it matter who does what?"
Clara Lewis, TOI Crest 28 November 2009, 03:47pm IST
Mumbai
Brothel Kamathipura
Many brothels are now video parlours and shops selling CDs
Till about four years ago, garishly painted women in glittering attire were a common sight on Cursetji Shuklaji Street, a busy road in Mumbai's notorious red light district, Kamathipura. Once known as Safed Gully (White Lane) on account of the European prostitutes that it housed during the British Raj, Shuklaji Street was the place where, for years on end, one could find sex workers plying their trade. These days however, they're out there not to solicit but to await the private taxis that ferry them to dance bars in the suburbs.
From 50,000 sex workers in 1992 (a statistic recorded by the BMC as part of its AIDS documentation ) to a mere 1,600 today, Kamathipura and the adjoining Foras Road are a mere shadow of their former selves. The street-facing brothels have given way to little shops vending CDs and mobile phones; there's also a clutch of video parlours where boisterous youngsters throng to catch the latest Telugu blockbuster.
Gentrification is slowly descending on Kamathipura , like it has on many of Mumbai's distinctive boroughs. The one-storey , ground-hugging structures are making way for dizzy skyscrapers - two, of 35 storeys, have come up on Shuklaji Street, while another two, 47 storeys each, are nearing completion. Salim Balwa, director D B Realty, the company that's busy making over the area, is planning several more projects here. "The space crunch in Mumbai has meant that you go looking for land where no development has happened," he says. All the towers overlook Kamathipura.
Balwa, who's developed 10 lakh square feet in the area and is in the process of acquiring another 3.5 lakh, is sure that he's on to a good thing. "All said and done, the place is centrally located, and it is better than living in far-off Mira Road," he says. The present residents, most of whom live in houses that are about 100 sq ft in size, will get 300 sq ft after redevelopment, says Balwa. And, of course, there will be a more-than-neat profit for him.
It was the twin factors of AIDS and the Maharashtra government's redevelopment policy that played a major role in getting sex workers to move out of the oldest profession in the world and subsequently out of Kamathipura. The AIDS scare led to the first serious government intervention in the area's prostitution dens: Dr Jairaj Thanekar, Chief Executive Health Officer, BMC, who worked in Kamathipura for 15 years to implement the AIDS intervention programme, says the corporation played a key role in reducing the number of prostitutes . "From organising raids on the Yellappa markets down south - the main source of girls for Kamathipura - to raiding the brothels, we made it difficult for prostitution to function," he says. "From 1999 onwards, the number of sex workers started dwindling."
When the BMC intervened, the rate of transmission of HIV was a shocking four per cent. By then a large number of sex workers had died. "Brothel owners, faced with sex workers who kept falling ill, moved them out to other brothels in Mulund, Bhandup and Ghatkopar, but procuring new girls was also becoming difficult," says Thanekar. This and other factors - a reluctance among landlords, newly aware of AIDS, to lease out their premises to prostitution, spiralling rents, police raids, and the emergence of a new generation of financiers who got into more lucrative ventures - hastened the downward spiral of prostitution in Kamathipura.
The reconstruction wave of dilapidated buildings completed the process. "Several people were bought out by the builders," says a brothel owner. "Gangubai Chawl on 11th Kamathipura Lane was among the first to be torn down and reconstructed into a six-storey building by a private developer. Normal households moved in." The stigma attached to Kamathipura began to dwindle somewhat , and the newly reconstructed prostitution dens began to be put to other uses - for the last four years, businessmen have been renting out the infamous rooms to small manufacturing units. Mohammed Israr, a 22-year-old native of Bihar, who assembles travel bags for a local manufacturer, has rented 600 sq feet in a one-storey structure in Kamathipura. He pays a stiff monthly rent of Rs 12,000 for the space, but says that it's worth the money, given the central location.
Abdul Sattar, a local pan-beedi stall owner on Lane 13, has been in the business for the last 15 years. "Earlier, sex workers' clients frequented my stall," he says. "There were a lot of goons and hangers-on around. Now, proper businessmen come here. It's a welcome change, as people working in the vicinity are no longer looked down upon. There was a time when we were ashamed to tell our relatives that we lived and worked in Kamathipura . But not any more." Adds Sadiq Ismail, who owns a consumer goods shop on 12th Kamathipura Lane, "I live in a house above my shop with my wife, three sons and a daughter. There is nothing shameful about living here any more."
Street named desire
Kamathipura is Mumbai's oldest and Asia's largest red light district. It got its name from the Kamathis (workers) of Andhra Pradesh. They worked as labourers on construction sites. The neighbourhood also had Chinese residents who worked as dockhands and ran restaurants. Kamathipura was formerly Lal Bazaar, an area set aside by the British for their troops' sexual pleasures. By the end of the 19th century, Lal Bazaar was known as a "tolerated area" as prostitution was illegal. At the time, Bombay and to a lesser extent Calcutta were the most important cities in an expanding prostitution network.
Cursetji Shuklaji Street in Kamathipura was called Safed Gully as it was home to European prostitutes. The brothels here were classified into first, second and third class. In 1916, the British set up the Venereal Disease Clinic, the first of its kind in Bombay. The BMC took over the clinic in 1925.
Pleasure Island
The purest form of Afghan afeem (opium) was available only at Bachchuseth ki Wadi on Foras Road, a place famous for its kothewalis and mujras. Free-flowing liquor, the aroma of kebabs, the scent of mogra gajras and the resonance of ghungroos, musical instruments and melodious voices made it the most famous entertainment zone in Mumbai. In the 1970s and early '80s Bachchu Wadi was the haunt of Mumbai's underworld, with such kingpins as Haji Mastan, Karim Lala, and Dawood Ibrahim frequenting it. The kothewalis, trained in Hindustani music, were much sought after. "The place would come alive after sunset, and there was music and laughter till the wee hours of the morning," reminisces Abdul Rauf Sheikh, a pan-stall owner. But after R R Patil became home minister in 2003, policemen started forcibly shutting down the kothasat 12.30 am. Sheikh says that girls from Bihar, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh now rent out their rooms while they themselves work in beer bars in the city and suburbs. Shah Bano, a one-time singer and dancer at one of the kothasin Bachchu Wadi, now lives in Mira Road, dropping by once a week to meet her children who still live there. The children, however, have shunned the kothatradition and do odd jobs for a living.
Salim Balwa, director, D B Realty, is all set to change the face of Bachchu Wadi and Kamathipura in turn. Bachchu Wadi is to be his first redevelopment project in the area. The wadi has 280 tenants - of these 100 are kothewaliswho regularly hold mujraswhile the other 180 are normal households. For Balwa, the major stumbling block was that the two groups did not want to live in the same building. "So , over the course of several meetings it was decided that the 100 tenants who hold mujras would be given a separate building with a separate entrance and lift. And the rest would be in a different building. Once my door is closed, how does it matter who does what?"
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