WB running for a dubious top slot

KOLKATA: Bengal may be No. 8 in IT exports, but when it comes to trafficking in women, the state does far better.
A combination of several factors is responsible for a situation that makes Kolkata the converging point of several internal and international trafficking routes.
This piece of statistics, which puts Bengal at the top of the heap in something, should not make for cheerful reading: the latest National Human Rights Commission report on human trafficking — prepared by the Institute of Social Sciences — pegs the state''s contribution to the nationwide trade at 12.5 per cent.Bengal is No. 3 in trafficking.
"You cannot get exact numbers for trafficking in women," Madhulika Mitra, an ISS representative here, says. "But, given the extensive field-work that went into the making of the report from every state, the NHRCcommissioned study gives you the most comprehensive picture of what is happening," she adds.
The state contributes five districts to the list of the 10 most populous districts in the country. Three of them — Murshidabad, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas — are on the border and, together, they make up the largest share of the state''s contribution to the nationwide figures.
But, before you conclude that poverty is the reason why more and more Bengali women are being trafficked, pause to think of Purulia and Bankura. No district is poorer than these two, say sociologists.
"And our field-workers have not found anything alarming in these two districts till date," Mitra says.
Based on the number of women being trafficked and presence of traffickers, the NHRC report mentions as many as 39 Bengal areas as hotbeds of trafficking. Many of these 39 areas are close to the Indo - Bangladeshi border; according to the ISS prepared report, 13.5 per cent (roughly 30,000) of the city''s commercial sex-workers are from Bangladesh. Thakurgaon and Lalmonirhat in north, Rajshahi and Kushthia in the middle and Jessore and Satkhira in the south are the areas in Bangladesh that contribute to the flourishing trade.
Two factors — the veryporous riverine border and the large number of Indian and Bangladeshi enclaves in each other''s territory — contribute to the phenomenon.
But Bengal has not depended on the border with Bangladesh alone to push for a top-three slot in the trafficking trade.
There are several places far from the border, particularly in the industrial belt of North 24-Parganas, that are running the border close. And the imports arrive from other places as well.
"Kolkata has become the focus of a trade that includes Orissa, Bihar and Chhattisgarh (and Nepal)," says Supriyo Chaudhuri, who has done extensive work on the problem.
Most of the imports into the city stay back in Kolkata''s brothels. But, then again, many (like the women from the state) are trafficked outside. If those in the trade are to be believed, Bihar, the Delhi-Allahabad-Punjab belt and the Mumbai-Dubai-Africa sector are the largest importers of Bengal''s largesse with its and (others'') girls.