Maha tops list of women trafficked into Goa: Study

Over the recent years, Maharashtra has emerged as a major source for trafficking of women to Goa as commercial sex workers (CSWs), a study conducted by the state's leading anti-trafficking NGO has revealed.

Speaking to DH on Tuesday, chief officer of the NGO Anyay Rahit Zindagi, Arun Pandey, also said that over 30% of the women trafficked into Goa to work as CSWs, were from Maharashtra.

"We conducted interviews of 354 women who were rescued by the police over the last five years. Out of those 299 were Indian citizens and 30.7% were from Maharashtra," Pandey said, on the sidelines of an anti-trafficking workshop in the state capital.

The next largest contingent of women rescued from prostitution in Goa, was from West Bengal (22.1%) and Delhi, also at 22.1%.

Pandey also said that that the revelation was a fresh departure from the earlier norm when the highest number of women rescued from prostitution in Goa hailed from the North-Eastern states.

“Five years ago, in most cases, the rescued women were from North East, especially Manipur and Assam, but now it appears from the study that Maharashtra and West Bengal tops the list," Pandey added.

“The girls trafficked to Goa from Maharashtra are from different regions of Maharashtra, but most of them belong to suburbs in Mumbai. Women from red-light areas from Pune are also pushed into Goa," Pandey also said. He also said that among the women, foreign nationals who were rescued from prostitution from 2014-2019, there were several cases from Bangladesh, Nepal and Uzbekistan.