LONDON: A boycott “Andaman and Nicobar Islands campaign” being spearheaded from Britain has seen 12,300 people from around the world pledge not to visit India’s pristine island destination over the treatment of its Jarawa tribes.

In an expose, human safaris were found to treat the ancient Indian tribes on the island “like animals in a zoo” five years back.

Even though the government in Andaman pledged in 2013 to the Indian Supreme Court that they would introduce an alternative sea route to the Andaman Trunk Road which runs through the Jarawa reserve by March 2015, so that there is minimal intrusion into their isolated world, the work has not even started on it.

Now, UK based Survival International has put together a major signature boycott campaign that asks people not to visit the Andaman Islands until the human safaris are stopped.

Sophie Grig, senior campaigner told TOI “we will continue to collect signatures to show the level of international concern that such safaris are still happening. We will use the signature campaign to keep up the pressure on the authorities to complete the alternative route as soon as possible”.

“The deadline to put in place an alternative sea route to the Andaman Trunk Road – which has been declared illegal by the Supreme Court – was set by the Andaman authorities in 2013 when they promised that it would be in place by March 2013. But while the tendering process has begun, building work has not yet started, which means it is likely to take a woefully long time for the alternative route to be in place”.

Grig told TOI “This means that hundreds of tourists will continue to travel along the Andaman Trunk Road through the Jarawa reserve. The Jarawa have only had peaceful contact with settled Indian society since 1998, and are still very vulnerable to diseases to which they have little or no immunity. They are also vulnerable to exploitation by tourists and poachers. As we saw in videos, Jarawa girls were encouraged by police officers and tourists to dance for food. Only last year, Survival received extremely worrying reports that poachers were entering the reserve to sexually exploit Jarawa women”.

Travel agencies and tour operators from across the world have started to withdraw from offering tours to the Andamans as a protest against the degrading “human safaris” to see the Jarawa tribe.

Travelpickr, a global company based in Canada and India and Spanish company Orixa Viatges have become the first operators to withdraw from tours to the Andamans, following Survival’s call for a tourism boycott.

The organization is calling on the 200,000 tourists visiting the islands every year to stay away.

Rene Trescases, the head of Travelpickr said “we were appalled to learn about the human safaris and have now withdrawn over 40 tours to the Andaman Islands”.

Viatges added “We have removed the Andaman Islands from our list of tourist destinations. We don’t understand this kind of tourism – we believe that people and cultures should be treated with respect, rather than used by unscrupulous people making a profit”.

Survival has written to over 200 travel companies and websites in 11 countries urging them to stop their tours to the Andaman Islands.

The 400-strong Jarawa tribe are believed to be part of the first human migration out of Africa.

The ‘human safaris’ had been condemned by the United Nations and thousands of letters have been sent to the Indian government asking for the tours to be stopped.