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Tue, 12th May 2009  The shutting down of dance bars goes a long way towards closing an important avenue of trafficking of children and women, according to CBI director Ashwani Kumar. "Many of the intellectuals have questioned whether it (shutting down of dance bars) is justified. We in the CBI think it is," he said.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a two-day seminar on "organised crime and human trafficking" at Vigyan Bhawan on Monday, Kumar raised concern over increasing sex tourism, saying even religious places were not spared by the menace.
"Most serious part is that some of the religious places in India and tourist destinations are getting affected by this crime (sex tourism and prostitution) which is a very serious thing," he said. "The alarming trend is that in the last few years, sex tourism, especially child sex tourism, and paedophilia have emerged as the new areas of crime."
Terming human trafficking the world's third largest organised crime after narcotics trade and illicit arms trafficking, Kumar said India occupied a unique position in this illicit trade as it was a "source, transit and destination" of human trafficking groups. "It (India) is, therefore, both a supplier and a consumer of this trade and this differentiates human trafficking in India from other countries. As much as 85 per cent of the people trafficked in India are trafficked for domestic market itself," he said.
Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta, who inaugurated the seminar, said human trafficking was one of the gravest problems facing the country and it had to be dealt with extreme seriousness. "The root cause of the problem is poverty, underdevelopment and unemployment. Therefore, we have to address the problem both socially and by enforcing law," he said, asking the government agencies concerned, NGOs and corporate houses to extend their helping hand in eradicating the menace of human trafficking.  |
