Hyderabad: Telangana has the fourth highest number of human trafficking cases in the country, after Tamil Nadu, Assam and West Bengal - 8.2 per cent - according to the National Crime Records Bureau. A large number of the girls and women trafficked to Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana, are from West Bengal and Assam.
Anti-trafficking activists say that trafficking of young women is no longer confined to tribals or the marginalised rural population. A majority of the victims are girls from middle class families, who dream of employment in the glamorous film and modelling industries, or overseas, and are lured by criminal gangs with promises of such employment.
Police say most trafficking cases come to light because of the frequent raids in Hyderabad by special parties of police. Special Operation teams are conducting raids in areas on the outskirts of the city where most of the sex rackets were busted this year.
According to Dr Sunita Krishnan, chief of Prajwala, an NGO that rescues, rehabilitates, and reintegrates trafficked victims, around 20,000 girls from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are being pushed into the commercial sex trade every year.
Human trafficking is also on the rise in tribal areas such as Adilabad district where gangs lure women with jobs and marriage offers from grooms from Northern India. Families that are poor and illiterate are being targeted. Drought-led migration in both AP and Telangana is another cause of girls falling prey to traffickers.
