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INDIA COUNTRY ASSESSMENT REPORT ON HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Rajasthan
Rajasthan is a source state for trafcking of women and girls for commercial sexual exploitation. Tribes such as
Nat, Kanjar, Bediya, Santiya, Sansi, Banchchada practice traditional forms of prostitution. In western districts of the
state of Rajasthan such as Sikar, Nagpur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Barmer, Churu, Jhunjhunun, Bikaner, Hanumangarh
and Ganganagar, women belonging to various castes such as Nayak, Od, Baori, Damami, Sikhlingar, Mazhabi, are
involved in prostitution individually or in an unorganised manner. In Hanumangarh and Ganganagar, traditional
organised form of prostitution is also prevalent. In southern Rajasthan in the districts of Baran, Dungurpur, Udaipur,
Banswara, and Jhalawar, tribal women belonging to various tribes such as Bhil, Garasiya, Damor, Kulbeliya, Banjara,
Jogi etc. perform commercial sexual activities to earn a living. For out of state movement, most commonly identied
destinations are Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Calcutta, Allahabad, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Aligarh, Kasganj, Indore, Mathura,
Agra, Chennai, Badagaon (M.P.), Meerut, Basti, Neemach, Mandsaur, Ujjain, Hathras, Guna, Narsinghpura, Surat,
few places in Bihar, Haryana, Punjab and Gujarat. Apart from this, cross border trafcking to Bahrain, Dubai, Saudi
Arabia also takes place. In the recent past, trafcking to Mumbai and Pune for dance bars has emerged as a new
phenomenon and maximum number of victims taken from Rajasthan land up in Maharashtra directly or indirectly
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The ‘Nat’ population lived a nomadic life in the past, and the women performed the rope dance and acrobatics for the
entertainment of people. Nat women have replaced these performances with commercial sex and today are migrating
to Mumbai to work as bar dancers and sex workers. Organised brothel based sex work is practised by approximately
half of the female population of castes like Nat, Kanjar, Bediya etc. The Nat, Kanjar, Bediya female sex workers have
their settlement preferably on the highways and major roads in the eastern districts of Rajasthan. Migration to
Mumbai has emerged as a new route among the women of these communities for undertaking sex work.
In 2012, the CNN Freedom Project had highlighted the plight of these women and children in the TV Documentary
“Trapped by Tradition”.
In a tragic case of human trafcking which was widely reported in the media in February 2012, “Baby Falak Case” (A
child trafcking case of organised crime) the mother of the battered baby was found in Rajasthan. The mother was
sold to a person at a cost of Rs 2,50,000 (USD 4660). Investigations found that she had been sold three to four times
to different men by a trafcking gang. Such gangs are active in Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi
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In another case investigated by the Crime Branch of Delhi to search missing girls, the police uncovered the thriving
prostitution racket in Sodavas and Girvas villages of the state's Alwar region. The team found that villagers were
giving the girl victim - some of them as young as 10 years, repeated and unregulated shots of growth hormone
‘Oxytocin’ to speed up their sexual maturation. The kidnapped girls, some of them six-month-old babies, are brought
to Sodavas and Girvas from across North India. They are raised by the villagers "as their own daughters". Gangs from
the Bedia and Nat communities give them hormonal injections to make them reach early puberty. The girls are then
sent to Mumbai and even the Gulf for prostitution. "Oxytocin” causes several hormonal changes. Apart from early
puberty, the girls develop feelings of love, trust and sexual arousal. This is how the hormone is being misused. The
results are shocking: girls as young as 6 or 7 years old suddenly grow up to look like teenagers. Even their age on
documents was found to be forged. Investigators also found a large no of women who had passports and are in the
gulf countries which indicates a well-organised international prostitution racket
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The districts of Alwar, Tonk, Dholpur, Sawaimadhopur, Bharatpur, Jaipur, Pali, Bundi, Chittorgarh, Udaipur, Jalore,
Jodhpur, Hanumangarh, Dausa, Dungarpur, Bhilwara, Barmer, Rajasmand, Ajmer, Jhalawar, Nagaur, Banswara,
Baran, Shriganganagar, Sirohi, Jaisalmer and Sikar are areas where women are traditionally or circumstantially
forced to indulge in commercial sexual activities for the survival of their children and their families.
The Bedia, Nat ,Kanjar and Banchara tribes are involved in kidnapping rackets spread across North India. They raise
kidnapped girls as their own daughters. Once the girls are inducted into prostitution they are sent to Mumbai and
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Traditional Female Sex Workers of Rajasthan, An Ethnographic Study of Nat community, R.C. Swarankar published in Unpacking
Globalization, Market Gender and Work, By Linda E Lucas, Lexington Books
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http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/child-sex-rackets-in-delhi-hotels-exposed/1/179243.html
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http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/Girls+drugged+into+puberty,+sold+as+prostitutes/1/99132.html, accessed on 07.08.2012