Tribal girls duped by agents working as prostitutes abroad

Tribal women from India's north-east are being duped by job agents and brought to southeast Asia to work as bar girls and prostitutes.

Lured by promises of lucrative jobs, tribal women from India’s north-east are being duped by job agents and brought to southeast Asia to work as bar girls and prostitutes, an Indian High Commission official in Kuala Lumpur said on Saturday.

His remarks came after five girls from Assam and Manipur escaped from the clutches of traffickers in Malaysia. “Job recruitment agents flew the five young women to Singapore on pretext of finding them work as house maids but dumped them in the city state and another agent brought them into Malaysia,” said the official.

He said the case came to light when one of them escaped from the clutches of the traffickers and approached a church official who contacted an NGO which then intimated the Indian High Commission. Three women were brought to the High Commission on September 17 and the other two five days later.

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The five, who belong to the Zeliangrong tribe, were promised high paying jobs but were duped to work as bar girls and prostitutes in nightclubs in Singapore and Malaysia.

According to available information, at least 150 women from Manipur, Assam and Nagaland had been duped by recruitment agents to work in the region, the High Commission official said.

He blamed recruitment agents in India, Singapore and Malaysia for the plight of these women. The official said the five women were currently in a shelter home and the process was on to fly them back to India.