SOUTH ASIA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

2262forced sexual service. In 1998 one person was arrested in connection with the trade.He was released later on bail.The number of women being trafficked out of the country to other countries iscomparatively low. In July authorities cooperated with U.S. investigators seekingevidence in the prosecution of Lakreddy Bali Reddy, a U.S. citizen of Indian birth,who was indicted for trafficking minor girls for sexual exploitation from a rural areaof Andhra Pradesh to the U.S. Reddy allegedly paid the airfares and expenses of350 to 400 young men and women aged approximately 13 to 18 years, mostly fromlow castes, and obtained their passports and visas—ostensibly to work as specialtycooks or laborers in his restaurants or apartment business. However, upon arrivalin the U.S., the girls reportedly were put to work in a prostitution ring. Some ofthe girls claimed that Reddy had sex with them in India after their parents soldthem; at least one victim was 12 years old.In a study published in 1996, the National Commission for Women reported thatorganized crime plays a significant role in the country’s sex trafficking trade, andthat women and children who are trafficked frequently are subjected to extortion,beatings, and rape. How women are trafficked varies widely: some are abductedforcibly or drugged, while others are made false offers of marriage, employment, orshelter. Poverty, illiteracy, and lack of employment opportunities contribute to thetrafficking problem, although organized crime is a common element in all traffickingincidents, as is police corruption and collusion.Trafficking of persons within and into the country for forced labor also is a significantproblem. In December 1999, the media reported that an organized ring wasselling children from surrounding areas for labor at the annual Sonepur cattle fairin Bihar. There was a report that a 12-year-old child was purchased for $21 (900rupees). In July a Mangalore, Karnatakabased NGO reported that tribal childrenwere being auctioned in the Dakshina-Kanara district of the state primarily for useas domestic servants. The Karnataka Department of Social Welfare initiated an investigation,which it completed during the year (see Sections 5 and 6.c.). It foundthat the children were not being auctioned, but that better-off families in the districtwere employing many of them as domestic servants. The Department of SocialWelfare suggested that more efficient implementation of ongoing development programsfor tribal people in the district offered the best remedy for the child laborproblem.In West Bengal, the organized traffic in illegal Bangladeshi immigrants is asource of bonded labor. In June police in Krishnagar, West Bengal detained 8Bangladeshi women and 14 children transiting the distict by bus. Agents allegedlysmuggled the group from Jessore, Bangladesh across the border at Bongaon by offeringthem employment in Mumbai. Calcutta is a convenient transit point for traffickerswho send Bangladeshis to New Delhi, Mumbai, Uttar Pradesh, and WestAsia. Persons sometimes are sold into virtual slavery.Many boys, some of whom are as young as age 4, are trafficked to West Asia orthe Persian Gulf States (especially the United Arab Emirates), and end up as ridersin camel races. Some such boys end up as beggars in Saudi Arabia during the hajj.It is estimated that there are anywhere from 100 to over 1,000 underage SouthAsian camel jockeys (from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh) currently working inthe United Arab Emirates alone. Criminal gangs procure most of the youths. Themajority of such children work with the knowledge of their parents, who receive asmuch as $200 (9,300 rupees) for their child’s labor, although a significant minoritysimply are kidnaped. The gangs bringing the jockeys earn approximately $150(6,975 rupees) per month from the labor of each child. The usual procedure usedfor bringing the children to the Gulf States is to have their names added to thepassport of a Bangladeshi or Indian woman who already has a visa for the Gulf;the children fraudulently are claimed to be her children. Girls and women traffickedto the Persian Gulf States end up either as domestic workers or sex workers.NGO’s and others allege that when police take action against brothels suspectedof enslaving minors, the resulting police raids often are planned poorly and seldomare coordinated with NGO’s or government social agencies. Therefore, the police actionoften worsens the situation of the girls and women indebted to traffickers andbrothel owners. Girls rescued from brothels are treated as criminals and often areabused sexually by their police rescuers or by the staff of government remand centers,where they are housed temporarily before being brought back to the brothelsas a result of the bribes paid by brothel operators, or legally released into the custodyof traffickers and madams posing as relatives. In these cases, the debt ownedby the girls to the brothel operators and traffickers further increases as the costsof bribing or legally obtaining release of the girls is added to their labor debt. NGO’sinvariably indicate the 1996 police roundup of 476 sex workers in Mumbai as anVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:46 Sep 20, 2001 Jkt 071555 PO 00000 Frm 00106 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 F:\WORK\COUNTRYR\S71555\71555.035 HINTREL1 PsN: HINTREL1