http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jun52005/foreign134857200564.asp
US tracking human trafficking in India
From L K Sharma DH News Service Washington:
The US state department asserted that India was on its ‘watch list’ as it had not made significant efforts to address the issue of human trafficking.
The jobless women of Mumbai’s dance bars may turn their ire towards the US consulate since Washington supports the closure of the infamous ‘dance bars’.
An official report released by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice applauds the Maharashtra Home Minister’s order to close down dance bars. “Many of these served as prostitution and trafficking outlets,” the state department report said.
The US hopes that the closure of dance bars may check a new trend of traffickers favouring this “more sophisticated and concealed format for selling victims trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation over more blatant brothel-based trafficking”.
The annual exercise of tracking human trafficking throughout the world does not go into social and economic reasons for this global malady, but US researchers are well informed about the red light districts in far away Mumbai.
No explanation
The report does not explain the reasons for the shift away from brothel-based trafficking to high-class prostitution. Reports from India often suggest that economic liberalisation and increased business travel are partly responsible for expensive five-star prostitution.
The state department has noted some improvements in the Indian situation but it has still kept India on its “Watch List”. India has not shown “evidence of increased efforts to address trafficking in persons."
Incidentally, Pakistan has been removed from the watch list, a fact instantly publicised by a Pakistani minister in Islamabad. Conditions are “also bad” in other countries of South Asia, including Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka but the report rates governmental efforts to curb the evil somewhat better than in India.
“India is a source, transit, and destination country for women, men, and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual and labour exploitation. Indian men and women are trafficked into situations of involuntary servitude in countries in the Middle East and children may be forced to work as beggars or camel jockeys.”
The reports says that Bangladeshi women and children are trafficked to India or trafficked through India en route to Pakistan and the Middle East for purposes of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and forced labour.
Nepalese women and girls are trafficked to India for sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and forced labour. Internal trafficking of women, men, and children for these purposes are also widespread. India is also a growing destination for sex tourists from Europe, the United States, and other Western countries, the report noted.
Numerous studies show that a vast majority of females in the Indian commercial sex industry are currently victims of sexual servitude or were originally trafficked into the sex trade. India is also home to millions of victims of forced or bonded labour, the report said.