NEW DELHI, June 6: India on Tuesday rejected a US report on global human trafficking in which New Delhi has been placed on a damning watch list. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice released the report in Washington on Monday. Its very first lines narrate the harrowing tale of a Nepali girl who escaped from a brothel in India to become an anti-trafficking activist.
“Such reports are, by their very nature based on US viewpoints and preconceptions. On the subject of trafficking in persons, as with other areas, we reject judgemental and prescriptive approach by a foreign Government,” an Indian foreign ministry spokesman said.
The report begins with the story of a young girl smuggled out of Nepal. “Reena was brought to India from Nepal by her maternal aunt, who forced the 12-year-old girl into a New Delhi brothel shortly after arrival. The brothel owner made her have sex with many clients each day,” the US report says.
The report also slams bonded labour, mainly involving lower caste Hindus and child labour among other malpractices it says occur in India. Women are smuggled from neighbouring countries and poorer Indian regions to be married in relatively better off states as not enough marriageable women are left there because of rampant female foeticide, the US report says.
