Dont let the sex industry turn the Commonwealth Games into a pimping opportunity

Apne Aap Women Worldwide appeals to the President of India, Srimati Pratibha Patil   to ensure that the Government of India puts into place sufficient mechanisms to stop the proliferation of sex trafficking in the run up to the Commonwealth Games.  As brothels and escort services along GB Road fix up their rooms and double their rates in anticipation of a boom in sex tourism, their brokers are hunting rural and tribal areas across the country in order to find new victims to bring into prostitution.

We appeal to the President to order the CWG authorities to:

1.      Establish information and surveillance booths, manned by NGOs, to support girls and women who need protections from traffickers, especially in sex sites like GB Road and pick-up sites like railway stations, bus stands, metro stations and airports;

2.      Set in measures to protect the more marginalized women, who have been brought into Delhi as labour for the construction of roads, stadiums and houses, to go back home safely, provide tickets and bookings as well as protection from property snatching or rape during this period, or provide safe accommodation once their contract is over;

3.      Hold sensitization workshops for police officials, tour operators, transporters, labour contractors, on treatment of women migrant workers as well as new women who are being trafficked to the city;

Organize surveillance of sex sites to check the sex industry from turning the CWG into a pimping opportunity.

We are basing our recommendations on site visits to brothels, reports in the media, and revelations made by NGOs:

%uFFFD         Hundreds of girls are being kidnapped from all over India and are being prepared for the CWG in villages in Alwar, Rajasthan, with oxytocin injections to make them more voluptuous for prostitution. (May 27th, India Today; Girls drugged into puberty, sold as prostitutes)

%uFFFD         According to Mr. Rishikant, Founder of Shakti Vahini, an anti trafficking organisation working in GB Road, the organisation has rescued between 40-45 girls since March of this year indicating an increase in the number of women and girls trafficked to meet the demand during the Commonwealth Games. The rescued girls originating from Orissa, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam and Bihar range in ages from 13yrs to 17yrs. 

%uFFFD         According to Action against Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children (ATSEC), girls are  being trafficked from tribal areas in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, to serve the huge number of foreigners coming during the games (June 7th; The Telegraph;  Giving the game away - Commonwealth Games raises trafficking fears)