Rural women become prey to human trafficking

Kadapa: Women from Kadapa district have been falling prey to the brokers who engage them for domestic work in Gulf countries. They are  subsequently made as sex workers. There are several instances in which women who were working as domestic help in Gulf countries were sexually assaulted, later forced to enter flesh trade. Some women were found dead under mysterious circumstances.  

Kadapa district stands top in Rayalaseema region for women going to Gulf countries in search of jobs. There were some organised gangs in the mask of agents responsible for such human trafficking .  The gangs who were having close links with the agents in Bombay and other places in abroad engage in campaigning in the villages wooing the women to migrate to Gulf countries for earning good money. 

The activity is seen in mandals like Chakrayapet, Rajampet, Railway Kodur, Vempalli  Porumamilla, Sidhavatam, Badwel and Atluru where people struggle to get their daily bread.  According the sources about 75,000 women and 1 lakh men from district were engaged in different professions in Gulf countries. 

One Dubai based Bank was established in the Rajampet which meant to exchange foreign currency indicating the intensity of migrations from the district. In September last year, Sidhavatam police have rescued a 35 years old K Venkata Lakshmi  of Madhavatam village who was allegedly under illegal confinement in Dubai. She narrated that she was proposed by one agent in Kadapa town for working as maid servant in the house. She offered Rs 80,000 to the agent for the purpose.

After one week she was shifted to Mumbai where another agent sold her to another person in Dubai for Rs 2lakhs. He illegally confined her in a bathroom  and she had to pay Rs 2lakhs if she wanted to be freed from the house, she said. However, with hard efforts she put and with the efforts of social media, Kadapa police finally freed her from the house.   

In another incident Duggirala Ramani of Rayachoti (not real name ) who went to Kuwait for lively hood  long back ,recently returned to India after she was reportedly affected by HIV, AIDS. She had  indulged in flesh trade. A few months ago, she died at her native village. 

By M Srinivasa Rao