Number of women being trafficked from Bangladesh into Mumbai brothels is rising, says NGO
MUMBAI (Thomson
Reuters Foundation) - The number of women being trafficked from Bangladesh into
Mumbai brothels is rising as part of greater migration from India's eastern
neighbour, and police and social groups need to do more to rescue and
repatriate them, a charity said on Thursday.
The number of
Bengali-speaking commercial sex workers in the city's main red-light district
of Kamathipura is at a record high, according to data compiled by Prerana, a
non-profit focused on trafficking and sex workers. The total includes some
women from the eastern state of West Bengal.
"The increased
numbers dovetail with increased migration from Bangladesh, and migrants are
particularly vulnerable to traffickers," said Priti Patkar, co-founder of
Prerana. "They're so desperate, they are easily lured by the promise of a
job or a better life," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Of the 213 children of
sex workers enrolled at Prerana's night care centre in Kamathipura from
2010-15, 128 had a Bengali-speaking mother, the data showed. Similar increases
have been seen in other parts of the city, Patkar said. There were about a
dozen each from the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra
Pradesh.
There are more than 3
million people of Bangladeshi origin in India, according to official data.
Hundreds arrive undocumented every day, often crossing the 4,000 km (2,500 mile)border
with a trafficker or "agent" who preys on poor, rural communities
with promises of good jobs and a better life.
Rising migration
within Asia is putting growing numbers of migrants at risk of being trafficked
and abused by human smuggling networks, the United Nations Office for Drugs and
Crime (UNODC) said in a report last year on the criminal trade, which is worth
$2 billion a year in Asia. South Asia is the fastest-growing region for human
trafficking in the world, and the second-largest after Southeast Asia,
according to the UNODC.
More than 150,000
people are known to be trafficked within South Asia every year, but the trade
is underground and the real number is likely to be much higher. The numbers are
expected to rise as migration within Asia grows. Trafficked Bangladeshi women in Mumbai are
often too afraid and ignorant of their rights to seek help, Patkar said. They
are also reluctant to bring charges against their traffickers after being
rescued from the brothels.
India signed an
agreement with Bangladesh last year to strengthen cooperation and information
sharing and ensure speedier investigations and prosecutions of traffickers. The
agreement has made it easier to rescue and repatriate victims of trafficking,
some of whom were previously treated as illegal immigrants. "Now, there is
a clear process: we take their deposition, then hand them over to an NGO there,
which takes responsibility for their rehabilitation," a Mumbai police
spokesman said. "This is a better outcome for the women."
This week, for the
first time, a Bangladeshi trafficker was convicted on the strength of the
victim's testimony given over a video link from Dhaka, where she had been
repatriated after her rescue from a brothel in Mumbai. Activists and lawyers
say such depositions could help curb trafficking.
