• 3 Feb 2016
• Hindustan Times (Mumbai)
• Saurav Roy letters@hindustantimes.com
RANCHI: Tribal girls trafficked from Jharkhand could be forced into pornography to cater to a global demand for their dark complexion, police and activists have said, highlighting the ordeal of thousands of women preyed upon by organised cartels in the state.
Both police and activists also cited revelations by rescued victims and growing evidence to claim that there was a strong possibility of traffickers being involved in the business of making pornographic films which are then sold to adult websites.
Thousands of tribal girls, most of them minors, are trafficked from Jharkhand’s villages to bigger cities across the country every year to work as domestic help and sex slaves. These children are often subjected to physical and sexual torture, leading to serious ailments and even death.
A tribal girl, who was trafficked from Jharkhand’s Khunti in 2013, had alleged that she was gang-raped in New Delhi and that the offenders had video-graphed the act. In July 2015, three minor Jharkhand girls who were held captive in Ghaziabad were shown pornography and put on sale as sex workers over WhatsApp.