[Assam] Kill the youths with bullets, beatings and drugs& alcohol and turn the girls into whores and eventual STD/HIV related death of them. Bravo India. That’s the way to finish off the Assamese race; isn’t it?

[Bartta Bistar]

Assam's missing women and the sex trade

By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Calcutta

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6430811.stm

  [image: Assam girls in police station]

Many of the missing women end up like these alleged arrested call girls

*The biggest problem in India's north-eastern state of Assam is separatist
militancy. But it faces another, less well known issue. Thousands of its
women, old and young, have gone missing over the past 10 years. *

A recent police report says 3,184 women and 3,840 female children have gone
missing in the state since 1996.

That's around two females a day on average.

The report was compiled by Assam police and their research branch, the
Bureau of Police Research and Development.

The local police are far too busy, according to Assam police intelligence
chief Khagen Sarmah, fighting insurgents.

"Our counter-insurgency commitments affects our normal policing duties like
checking trafficking."

"Too many policemen are involved fighting the insurgents rather than
following up on other crimes," Mr Sarmah said.

*'Good looking women'*

The Assam police recently rescued some girls working as call-girls around
Delhi or used as "sex slaves" by wealthy landlords in states like Punjab and
Haryana.

Most of them are from camps of internally displaced people dotting Assam,
particularly the Kokrajhar district.

[image: Hindi speaking migrants leaving Assam]

Many people in Assam have fled the area due to the fighting

That area is home to nearly a quarter of a million people who were displaced
in the late 1990s.

Nearly 800 people died in ethnic fighting in Kokrajhar and adjoining
districts between Bodo tribes people and non-Bodo communities over a decade
long period from 1994.

The police survey revealed an organised racket of "recruiters" who lured
good-looking women with job offers outside the state.

"We arrested some recruiters but could never put an end to the rackets
fully," said police official Anil Phukan.

The modus operandi is simple: good looking women in the displaced peoples
camps are offered jobs.

The parents are paid a few thousand rupees in advance, and told the
daughters will send back money once they start working.

Once they go away, that rarely happens.

*Money matters*

Jam Singh Lakra of the Jaipur relief camp near Kokrajhar town says: "At
least 20 girls have gone away with the jobs from our camp, not to return
again."

"We did identify a few recruiters and one got beaten up. But somehow the
girls kept going away."

Most families are cagey about the missing girls but some do speak up.

Tuilal Mardi of Tablegaon village says "My parents accepted the offer and
sent my sister away."

"They got a few thousand rupees but she never came back or sent any money."

Women's rights activist Paula Banerjee, who works on problems of displaced
women says: "Ethnic conflicts all over the world results in massive
displacement of women and that gives rise to heavy trafficking - the
situation in Assam is no different."

*Local pornography*

But not all the missing women of Assam have been taken out of the state.

Some show up in local pornographic films.

[image: Assam girls going to van]

Some of the girls in the trade are from better financial backgrounds

Mala Newar in Kokrajhar was known to her teachers as a "decent, well behaved
girl" in school.

That was until one of them spied on her husband's mobile phone last month
and found a video clip featuring Mala in the nude having sex with a
stranger.

Enquiries in Kokrajhar revealed that Mala and some other local girls were
used in a pornographic films racket run by a local leader.

A hotel in the town was used for the filming.

The girls were first lured into the hotel with job offers, then offered soft
drinks laced with sedatives.

They were then filmed in the nude and blackmailed into doing sex scenes for
the camera.

Not all missing girls in Assam are from displaced peoples camps, though.

Indrani Bora and Ritu Borgohain are smart, educated English-speaking girls
from the Assamese capital, Guwahati, who got jobs in a holiday complex in
Gurgaon near Delhi seven months ago.

But both say they got slowly got drawn into a call girl racket run by the
complex owner.

An officer who led an Assam police team to rescue Indrani and Ritu explains.


"All across hotels and resorts in places like Delhi and Bombay, you will
find hundreds of girls from Assam and other north-eastern states working as
waitresses or customer executives.

"Some do get drawn into the call-girl trade."

*Hunger driven*

The Calcutta Research Group, in its recent study on conflict-induced
displacement says that the displaced people in Assam live in acute poverty.

[image: Assam girls outside police station]

Poverty is the driving force behind women opting for the trade

The situation has led the women in particular to desperately seek work
elsewhere; even if the offers come from dubious people.

"This is because the government officials running the camps never created
viable livelihood options," says Uddipana Goswami of the Calcutta-based
Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSS).

Ms Goswami has worked on the displaced camps in Assam.

"Many displaced women have such exquisite craftsmanship but nobody ever
tried to convert that into income alternatives," she says.

Paula Banerjee says trafficking ignores borders therefore solutions cannot
be left to local agencies alone.

"This is not a local or even a national problem."

"This reflects the global reality, so intervention by international
organisations may help check trafficking."

*(Names of the girls have been changed to protect their identity.)*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://assamnet.org/pipermail/assam_assamnet.org/attachments/20070410/2e8c027a/attachment.html