By Thomas Kent
KOHIMA: Church leaders in Nagaland fear an organized racket is operating in northeastern India to lure young women into prostitution in other parts of the country.
Police in Goa, western India, recently rescued six Nagaland women and four from Mizoram from a local beauty parlor. They also arrested three persons for their alleged involvement in human trafficking.
The Church people in Nagaland are “ashamed, shocked and concerned” because the rescued women were all Christians, Reverend Khari Longchar, who coordinates the Nagaland Baptist Church’s Peace Council, told ucanews.com on Oct. 22.
“Whether the allegations are true or not, there cannot be smoke without fire,” he said. The Goa incident is “only the tip of the iceberg as many more girls could be entrapped.”
Reverend Longchar criticized Church people, educators and parents for contributing to the problem. The Church, he said, has failed to reach out to many young people, especially in towns, and educators and parents have not taught children “good” moral values.
“Our moral values are degrading as we tend to consider money as everything,” he said and urged leaders from all Churches in the region to work together to urgently “seek the lost sheep.”
Reverend Pongsing Konyak, former general secretary of the Nagaland Baptist Church Council, says the problem emerged as the girls want to be economically independent.
Most girls seek jobs after school to help their parents, but jobs are hard to find locally, he said. When outsiders come for recruitment they appear for interviews and get selected unaware of the agents’ real motive, he explained.
“Our people should be cautious when people come to recruit especially for beauty and massage parlors as they could be just a front for other nefarious activities,” he added.
Father Abraham Lotha, a Catholic educationist and anthropologist, regrets that some “puritanical minds” consider massage and beauty parlor jobs as bad. They are specialized jobs and there is nothing wrong as long one does not break the rules, he added.
Young women from northeast are in “great demand” outside because they are smart, friendly and fluent in English, he said.