AIDWA’s fact-finding team report on Ulundurpet sex trafficking released in Dharmapuri

AIDWA fact-finding report exposes sex trafficking in Ulundurpet, calls for legal and societal reforms to combat exploitation.

The All India Democratic Women’s Association released a fact-finding report on the Ulundurpet sex trafficking case, where girls and children were allegedly pushed into commercial sexual exploitation in Kallakurichi district.

The girls were lured on the promise of jobs in beauty parlours and were deceived and trapped into sex-trafficking. The fact-finding team has flagged the layers of failures, both State and societal and has called for both, statutory and remedial measures to deal with sex trafficking. The report was released at Pennagaram at the State conference of the AIDWA on Thursday.

Ulundurpet police had busted the trafficking ring by arresting the main accused Kalpana and 17 others and rescued 16 girls from Ulundurpet and Kallakurichi. The accused had circulated the girls’ photographs through Whatsapp groups and pushed them into prostitution after luring them on the promise of employment.

According to AIDWA’s fact-finding team, the exploitation of the young girls was being carried out in the middle of a housing society..

The report also expressed shock that the traffickers approached the girls through private employment opportunity programmes. It demanded that the District Collector conduct an inquiry and police investigation into such programmes conducted in educational institutions and other places and find out whether the traffickers infiltrated into such programmes.

The team also called for renaming the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act. Advocate Nirmala Rani, who headed the fact-finding team, told The Hindu that the word ‘Immoral’ in ‘Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act’ denotes the character of the women who should be viewed as victims as per the objectives of the Act. This should be viewed as a crime against women punishable under the Act and not something related to the morality of the victims. Hence the name of the Act may be changed as ‘Prohibition of trafficking in women and children (Protection, Prevention and Redressal) Act.

 Similarly the name of the police unit called ‘Anti-Vice Squad’ in each district which dealt with prostitution and gambling should be changed as “Anti-Trafficking Squad” and it should function as an exclusive unit to deal with sex trafficking considering the seriousness of the offence.