Woman traffickers are apparently on the prowl in State. The trafficking of women in Odisha is seemingly going rampant with over 11,000 missing women from the State still lie untraced till November 2015.
And, most of them have been missing since 2010. Further, the rate of missing women in Odisha looks more alarming as the State police here record two cases of missing women every five hours.
This year alone up to November a high of over 3,200 women have gone missing from the State, reveals the data available with the State police.
Even the State police are overawed at the swiftness of traffickers as when the police here on an average rescue around seven missing women every day, the State records on an average around 12 missing women cases every day.
The yawning gap in between indicates that traffickers’ modules in Odisha are more deep-rooted and well orchestrated than the local Intelligence Units (lIUs) of the State police present in every district.
However, a very senior police officer on the condition of anonymity attributes the rise to a lethal combination of voluntary and involuntary trafficking on roll in State and also late reporting by parents to police.
He, however, hastened to add that if lIUs are fortified in a professional way then busting off of trafficking modules rooted right up to at the village-level could rein in even the voluntary trafficking (means where the parents or relatives are involved). Moreover, he observed that police are not the only stakeholder in combating women trafficking; the State Women Commission’s active participation could bring the results on the ground.
An analysis by the State Crime Branch reveals the menace rampant in as many as 14-15 districts in State like Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj, Bhadrak, Jharsuguda, Sundargarh, Angul, Ganjam, Kendrapara, Nayagarh, Rayagada, Gajapati, Kandhamal and Jajpur. Moreover, a State Women Commission (SWC) internal study also hints at voluntary trafficking being rampant in districts like Nayagarh, Gajapati and some districts bordering West Bengal, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh.
While SWC’s internal study also stumbled on to the fact of voluntary trafficking in some districts like Nayagrah for purpose of commercial sex, UN office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) 2013 report sheds light on trafficking from Odisha for the purpose of labour. Most missing women from State belong to the age-group of 18-25 years followed by women in mid-thirties.
What makes the evolving scenario look more diabolic for Odisha is in 2014 the State was figured ninth State nationally with around 4,439 cases of missing women as was revealed by the National Crime Record Bureau’s (NCRB) 2014 crime in India report.
It reveals, except West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh, Odisha is far ahead in missing women cases from its neighbours including Andhra Pradesh. However, with a high of over 8,463 untraced women till the end of 2014, Odisha figured high at number two in the country after West Bengal – far ahead of even Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.