NEW DELHI, June 15 � Placing India in Tier 2 Watch List for the seventh consecutive year, the US State Department citing reports by NGOs said that an increasing number of girls from the North-east are duped with promises of employment and then forced into prostitution and marriages in Haryana and Punjab.
The annual Trafficking in Persons Report-2010, released by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington, said that girls from the north-eastern region of India � including those with education � are duped with promises of well-paid employment in large cities and then forced into prostitution, or forced into marriage in Haryana and Punjab.
India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation. Ninety percent of trafficking in India is internal, and those from India�s most disadvantaged social-economic strata are particularly vulnerable to forced or bonded labour and sex trafficking
Besides, women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh are also subjected to forced prostitution in India. Men and women from Bangladesh and Nepal are trafficked through India for forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation in the Middle East, the report said.
The reports named Assam, Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu as having Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs). The police in these five States have established AHTUs, but their effectiveness is not yet clear. A few NGOs claim that some AHTUs lack support personnel and funding, the report said.
The Government of India established 38 AHTUs in police departments, compared with nine existing at the start of the reporting period, and made an initial investment of approximately $19 million for the purpose of expanding the number of these units. AHTUs are task forces created within local law-enforcement agencies. They are responsible for investigating human trafficking cases, and are meant to comprise specially-trained police officers.
The Government of India does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so, particularly with regard to the lawenforcement response to sex trafficking. Despite these efforts, the Indian Government has not demonstrated sufficient progress in its law enforcement, protection, or prevention efforts to address labour trafficking, particularly bonded labour; therefore India is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for the seventh consecutive year..
The involvement of some public officials in human trafficking remained a significant problem, which went largely unaddressed by Central and State governments during the reporting period. Corrupt law-enforcement officers reportedly continued to facilitate the movement of sex trafficking victims, protect brothels that exploit victims, and protect traffickers and brothel keepers from arrest and other threats of enforcement, the report said.