Undercover ops reveal shocking reality
Y Merina Chishi
Dimapur | October 20
Garish makeup and gaudily clad women selling their bodies for survival are no more the way prostitution in Nagaland looks like. Today there is a deluge of stylish, educated and urbane females in the trade. These girls do it without the slightest hesitance or timidity- mostly in return for quick money. And their clients consists officers, businessmen, politicians, young students and even truckers.
A shocking revelation subsequent to an undercover act in Lahorijan has come out with some hair-rising facts about Naga girls. Recently a group of undercover female social workers from Dimapur went to Lahorijan posing as call girls. What they discovered in the hotels along the highway shows just how commercial sex work has become a profitable occupation for many young Naga girls.
According to one of the undercover girls, they visited several restaurants after receiving information about prostitution racket in Lahorijan. On entering one hotel, a waiter approached them directly and without hesitation asked: “How much is you fees?” The waiter told them since they were ‘novice’ and ‘fresh’, they could bargain for around Rs.1, 500 per client. He also promised ‘condoms for protection.’ The girls pretended to negotiate but the waiter wouldn’t budge. Thereafter they moved to another hotel.
In another hotel, the undercover girls spotted one Naga girl negotiating prices with some ‘non-Naga’ clients. On seeing them, the girl pretended to have come up to attend a birthday party. The undercover girls discovered that Naga girls prefer non-Naga clients; presumably for fear of being recognised. Naga men who visit the restaurants also like to avoid Naga girls but prefer those from Manipur. The entire transaction before the meeting is reportedly carried out by the middlemen who work in the hotels. Some girls are also hired for late-night parties which often takes place in these hotels.
The undercover girls said that the hotels have small cottages behind the main restaurant which is used by the customers. “It has become a lucrative business for the hotels,” they said. The call girls reportedly earn at least Rs.500 per client of which 40% is given to the middlemen. They were told that ‘beautiful girls’ earn more. Most girls are school drop-outs, college going and hostlers from Dimapur. The girls, mostly teens or in their twenties, do it “just for fun and to earn quick money,” they were told.
Social workers have expressed concerns about health risks that the Naga girls are being exposed to. They also do not rule out bodily harm on the girls by some clients. It may be noted that of late a multi-media message which shows four men from Assam stripping and molesting two Naga girls has been circulating around. The men appear to be accusing the girls of being prostitutes. “The atmosphere is not good…there are possibilities such things are happening,” a worker said. In the past, there have also been reports of commercial sex workers from Dimapur who were brutally murdered and their body disposed in the tea gardens at Lahorijan.
Nagaland is faced with a deep crisis as more and more people are migrating from the rural into the urban towns. For girls moving to the towns, sex work sometimes becomes the most lucrative business. Western influence and decline in moral values are also seen as the evils. Surprisingly, many Naga girls come clean about the fact that they don’t mind casual sex in return for big money…they don’t think its prostitution, a social worker said.
