India is emerging as a leading destination for human trafficking in South Asia, with over 35,000 young girls and women from Bangladesh and Nepal being brought into the country every year, the United Nations said here on Wednesday. “Human trafficking is world’s third largest profit-making illicit industry and in South Asia, India is among the favoured destinations. Here people are mostly trafficked from Bangladesh and Nepal,” said Gary Lewis, chief of the UN office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) here.“In India, 20,000-25,000 women and children are trafficked from Bangladesh annually, while 5,000-15,000 are brought from Nepal for the primary purpose of prostitution and slavery,” Lewis said, ahead of the global conference UN.

“Now Nepali girls below 10 years are being forced into the trade. In the 1980s (trafficked) girls were mostly in the age group of 14-16 and in 1994 the age further reduced to 10-14,” he said.