Paid sex and the city

Flesh trade in Delhi is a thriving business, with organised rackets guarding their interests fiercely. 

It’s a profitable business that hums smoothly when nobody is noticing. Flesh trade in the capital has taken the form of organised crime with a pool of pimps and girls, some of them forced into the trade, running rackets using all imaginable means.

Two Uzbekistan sisters were recently found trapped in flesh trade for the past five months in the capital. This came to light when they had a fight with their pimp, a compatriot, and they approached police. 

The woman pimp was arrested and during interrogation, police found that she had been running a prostitution racket in Delhi for several years.

In the capital, flesh trade is no longer confined to GB Road — the city’s red light area. It has spread across every nook and corner with a number of escort and massage service outlets running prostitution rackets. Some of them even advertise and circulate phone numbers.

From five star hotels to farmhouses to bungalows, sex workers can be called there over the phone. The sordid business is often promoted on the internet, making it difficult to detect.

“Delhi has become a centre for commercial sexual exploitation. Gangs run flesh trade in a very organised and secretive manner. It is only when information reaches police that some victims are rescued,” says Rishi Kant, member of NGO Shakti Vahini.

Delhi is a destination as well as a transit point for victims brought from the north-east, Nepal, Bangladesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan. It is also a destination for cross-border trafficking rackets from Central Asian countries.

“The situation in Delhi has worsened as the human trafficking rackets have expanded their operations in the guise of beauty parlours, friendship clubs, spas, massage parlours and escort services,” says a report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released on July 4.

The traffickers have become organised, considering the fact that profits are very high. Despite the efforts of law enforcement agencies and other organisations, they have managed to expand the trade by moving the area of operation to satellite towns near Delhi.

Delhi’s GB Road has 92 brothels operating in old buildings, which house at least 4,000 women. There is large-scale trafficking of minor as well as adult women from Nepal and several Indian states.

The traffickers don’t just supply girls to GB Road, but also to the rackets that operate from residential colonies, says the UN report.

From the posh Lajpat Nagar and Saket to unauthorised colonies like Sangam Vihar and Seelampur, they run their business smartly and quietly.

‘Whatever you want’

A south Delhi-based pimp tells Deccan Herald over the phone that one can get a call girl from Rs 2,500 to Rs 10,000, depending on “colour and nationality”.

“Sir, whatever you want, you can come and check,” the pimp says.

The traffickers are so organised that they have divided the city according to their areas of operation so that there are no clashes between them.

Not just Indian women, foreigners are in the sordid business in large numbers.

Another pimp says on the phone that he exclusively provides call girls from Nepal, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Kyrgyzstan.

While most are organised rackets, some women operate on their own. They wait during evening and at night at roadsides, and outside malls and Metro stations, looking for customers. But they are not successful most of the time as police keep a vigil in these areas.

While girls from other countries come to the city, a lot of Indian girls are also sent abroad for flesh trade. There has been an upsurge in cases of recruitment agencies taking women workers to the Gulf as maids and then forcing them into prostitution.

Placement agents from Nepal have also been using the Delhi route to send Nepalese women abroad for ‘work’. Dance bar agents from the Gulf have allegedly formed a nexus with some airport officials, who clear visas without checking their authenticity.

“Approximately 10-12 women get authorisation every day. Mumbai is no longer a popular transit point for trafficking bar girls due to 'harassment' by immigration officials. It is easier to send them via Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad,” says the UN study.

While there is increase in prostitution rackets in the city, Delhi Police too have intensified checking and have been catching traffickers. The city police have been collaborating with other states to pursue cases.

Police action

Many pimps have been arrested and call girls apprehended in police raids. “In 2012, some 118 girls were rescued from commercial sexual exploitation. Around 50 people were nabbed for running such rackets,” says special commissioner of police (law and order) Deepak Mishra. There are 12 anti-trafficking units in Delhi Police. They comprise trained officers working closely with NGOs and child welfare committees.

“In Delhi, the units conduct rescue operations with the assistance of NGOs whenever there is any information about human trafficking cases. The rescue and post-rescue operations are done in a victim-centric approach. Effective patrolling and vigil at locations prone to trafficking are being undertaken by the units,” says Mishra.

“A total of 271 rescue operations were conducted in Delhi in a year in coordination with NGOs. Numerous criminal gangs indulging in prostitution have been busted,” says a senior police officer.

Regular training sessions on anti-human trafficking laws are being organised for officers, with nine rounds of training conducted so far. A total of 500 police officers have been trained. Eighteen officers have been enrolled in IGNOU’s anti-trafficking course.

But prostitution is essentially an activity confined within four walls – and police say this poses the biggest challenge for them.

This story was written by me and published in Deccan Herald