A total of 179 girls who were trafficked into Goa for commercial sexual exploitation were rescued in the state over the last three years.

The revelation came from Anyay Rahit Zindagi (ARZ), a nodal NGO working to curb human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in Goa. According to ARZ director Arun Pandey, though Goa is a destination state for trafficked girls, no study has been done on the magnitude of the trafficking.

Pandey said 146 were Indian girls followed by Nepal (27), Bangladesh (4) and Russia (2). From Indian states, 39 girls came from Mumbai. Others were Manipur (31), Goa (16), Andhra Pradesh (14), West Bengal (9), Nagaland (8), Karnataka (7), Maharashtra and Assam (both 5 each), Mizoram (4), Times of India report stated.

In collaboration with Goa Directorate of Women and Child Development, ARZ began a two-day long consultation to formulate strategy to check human trafficking for sexual exploitation in Goa.

The government and NGO representatives from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, West Bengal, Assam, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, which are considered as a source states for trafficking, are participating in consultation programme

Biz events veil prostitution rackets in Goa, alleges NGO
PTI Adds: Business conferences and commercial events are serving as a new front for flesh trade with girls from various states being trafficked for these events in Goa, a city-based NGO has alleged.

Of late, the trend of trafficking girls in the name of business conferences in Goa has been an area of grave concern, ARZ, working towards rescue and rehabilitation of victims of flesh trade and commercial sexual exploitation, said.

“There is a new phenomenon in which girls are recruited through event management agency by the companies holding their conferences in Goa.

They are also indulged in prostitution during the conferences,” Arun Pandey alleged while talking to mediapersons. Several girls from a film city in Andhra Pradesh were rescued by police from Anjuna when they were brought by Andhra Pradesh-based fertilizer firm for their conference in Goa. The conference was to entertain the distributors, Pandey further alleged.

Police officials, who raided few conferences, said they were surprised during their investigations that a new front has been emerging in the state.

“The girls were found to have been brought with the proper knowledge of what they have to do during the conference in the guise of event management,” police inspector Gurudas Kadam, who cracked down the racket run by an Andhra Pradesh based company, told a gathering in Panaji.

Women and Child Development department Director Sanjiv Gadkar said the state government will network with the source states to verify whether the event management companies organizing conferences in Goa have valid registrations. Consultations with the source states will help the state government in their efforts to ascertain the background of the girls who are usually employed in the event management during the conferences, Gadkar said.

Sazo cautions parents
Earlier, on Tuesday while criticizing “bogus societies and their agents” in Nagaland for duping hundreds of gullible Nagas particularly students and educated youth with various false promises of providing central schemes and jobs, state parliamentary secretary for social welfare, child and women development, Chotisuh Sazo reminded parents that in most of the cases, their children landed in “brothels and many of them were also used in factories, restaurants, etc. in a very inhuman manner”.

Sazo also informed the general public that in cases of any society taking their children and women outside the state for educational purposes, a proper verification and approval should be obtained from the department so as to save their children from landing in “unwanted situations”.