Revealed: How Bengaluru spas traffic, assault NE women

 

‘Beauticians by the day and prostitute by night’, this is being considered as the status of many poor north-east women in Bengaluru. These young women are lured to the city by touts in the name of a good job and end up being human trafficking victims.  The touts fulfil the first part of the promise –job at city beauty parlour -  but once night descends the women are forced into prostitution.

 

Police say that they have been observing a large-scale mushrooming of beauty parlours in the city and many of them employ women from the North-East as beauticians. Soon enough there had also been a steady list of complaints of harassment against these women.

 

More than 70% of beauty parlours and Chinese food joints in Bengaluru employ people from the  north  east. They come to big cities in search of jobs and are absorbed into jobs but are also considered easy targets. These citizens of India, face taunts because of their speech mannerisms, their food and living habits, their mongoloid appearances, and women/girls are even considered promiscuous because of the lifestyle they lead there.

 

"I had rescued a NE woman from one of the beauty parlours near Yeshwantpur, last year. The employer was an Anglo-Indian from Mumbai and he had sexually assaulted her; she was scared to go to the police. Based on the information, I barged into the parlour. She did not want to pursue the case fearing a damage to her reputation," said Dr Rini Ralte, President of North East Solidarity. Dr Ralte remarked that many such women who work in beauty parlours may be the victim of sexual harassment. These women are promised lucrative jobs and are pushed into such trade.

 

Many young boys and girls from North East India, who are semi-skilled and semi-professionals, get jobs in organised and non-organised private sectors like BPO, and hospitality industries, shopping malls etc. Youth with appealing personalities, good English communication skills are absorbed by  private companies.

 

However, insufficient salaries and uninsured jobs in the private sector make them ready to take up any job that pays the bills and that is how they are lured in by touts and end up in the trap of human trafficking agencies. Customers are lured to these parlours with names of exotic massages like ‘sandwich massage’ and ‘tantric massage’ or Thai massage. But under these labels lurks the seedy flesh trade.

 

Recalling another incident, she describes how another NE girl, who was working in Delhi, was promised better pay in Bengaluru by one woman. On reaching here, the girl was kept in confinement for over two months.  "Such innocent girls, especially from the North East are forced into prostitution. Recently 14 women from West Bengal and Bangladesh were rescued by the CCB police. These women were either promised better jobs or had been given lucrative marriage proposals," said a senior officer from CCB.

 

Darshana, an activist and member of the Alternate Law Forum insists that the police who have credible information about such illegal massage parlours where NE women are forced into prostitution should register a case. "Expecting a victim to come and file and take the case further is wrong. The police has to register a FIR in such cases without expecting the victim to come for that purpose," she said. 

 

She also revealed that there are groups that operate in the NE region and they bring the unsuspecting women by promising jobs. "If not for sex, then for bonded labour, this is status of many NE women who work in parlours," added Darshana.

 

There is a problem with the police coming to their rescue as well. Most of these spas or massage parlours are registered. What happens in the confines of it is difficult to detect. And it is difficult to crackdown on them until the victims or their families lodge complaints with an NGO or the police.