Vijayawada: The begging mafia is penetrating itself into every nook and corner of AP and most of those trafficked are being used for begging. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, trafficking for begging is has intense as kidnapping women and pushing them into the sex trade.
NCRB-2017 records, which were released recently, show that 398 women victims were rescued by the AP police. Of these, 327 were trafficked for begging, 15 for sexual exploitation and 56 for other reasons in AP.
Telangana police rescued 384 victims from traffickers. Of them, 17 were into forced labour, 241 from sexual exploitation and 126 for other reasons. A woman from Bangla-desh, who was put into flesh trade, was among those rescued.
Nationwide, the number stood at 5,898 in 2016, acording to NCRB-2017, including 3,538 women.
Disposal of trafficking cases is very low. Only 187 cases were charge-sheeted. Final reports were submitted in three cases. Overall, 10 cases were convicted by the courts in AP while 134 resulted in acquittal. The number of cases do not add up as some are from the previous year.
In Telangana state, 120 cases ended in charge-sheet and the final reports submitted to the courts were only 27. Seventeen cases ended in conviction and 104 in acquittal in 2017.
