TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Juveniles from East Europe too could be part of the burgeoning flesh trade in tourism centric Goa, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2013 report has claimed.
The report says that business conferences and commercial events have emerged as a new front for flesh trade with girls from various states being trafficked to Goa. The UN investigations say that girls are recruited through event management agencies by the companies holding their conferences in Goa.
The report also says that clients’ fetish for white skin women and underage girls have been increasing in the coastal state. But Lamanis too are becoming part of this, it says.
“Young Russian, Yugoslavian and Romanian girls, sometimes minors are being trafficked into Goa for commercial sexual exploitation,” UNODC’s country assessment on ‘current status of victim service providers and criminal justice actors in India on anti-human trafficking’ says. The report further speaks of widespread racket of Russian mafia not only in the real estates and drugs but also flesh trade.
“The Russian mafia in Goa is not only involved in real estate deals and drug trade but has also extended their tentacles into the flourishing flesh trade,” it states.
The state government has been denying time and again that there is a Russian mafia in the state.
Sex work and trafficking has also been reported among the Lamani tribals, a community from Karnataka and Maharashtra who are an integral part of the Goa tourist scene. As per the report, the children of the Lamanis are the high-risk group who fall into the trap set by the tourism trade in Goa.
“These children are sometimes not accompanied by their parents but come to Goa along with relatives or with some close neighbours in search of employment in order to escape poverty and hunger. Here they are exploited and pushed into the sex trade,” the report said.
“Scores of girls are trafficked in the name of business conferences to Goa and they indulge in prostitution at these conferences,” NGO ARZ Director Arun Pandey said.
As per data submitted by ARZ to the UNODC, a total of 179 victims were rescued in the last three years (2009-12) out of which, 146 victims were of Indian origin and 33 were foreigners. Among the foreign victims, 27 were from Nepal, four from Bangladesh and two from Russia.
Among Indian states, the highest number of 39 girls came from Mumbai, 31 from Manipur, 16 from Goa and 14 from Andhra Pradesh were rescued.
