VISAKHAPATNAM: Prostitution is on the rise in the Port city with the demand being the most for teenaged girls. Not only the youth, but middle aged males too seek young girls, claim touts. A new trend, according to the cops, is that the trade is being carried out through new online methods including WhatsApp.

In order to avoid being detected by cops, the touts are said to seek references from old customers before a transaction is made. According to sources, keeping the demand for teenaged girls, touts are hiring them from rural areas by paying their families a lump sum in advance. While the advance for a period of six months given to the family could amount to about Rs 50,000, the tout makes as much as Rs 5 lakh on each girl a month, said the sources.

Many guest houses and government tourist hotels in the city had become the venues for the trade. According to police sources, majority of the teenaged girls involved in the trade are from poor families and end up as the bread winners for the families after entering into the trade. "Vizag is witnessing sexual exploitation in the name of beauty parlours, cross-gender massaging and other methods," a senior police officer in the city told TOI.

As per the analysis of Task Force ACP I Chitti Babu, around 80% of the girls are poor and forced into the trade. Many girls rescued by the cops are from the two Godavari districts, Krishna, Guntur and from the Telangana region. Girls from Odisha, West Bengal and Maharashtra too figure among the victims, the sources said.

This year alone, city task force personnel arrested 65 persons and rescued 41 women and girls. They seized 1.26 lakh cash in 22 cases. Most cases were registered in the month of May this year during which 23 persons were arrested and 11 females rescued.

In comparison, the Task Force cops last year raided 20 premises and arrested 50 persons. In 2013, the number of cases was only seven. Keeping in mid the rise in the flesh trade, the cops are now sealing the premises where the racket is found to take place. This follows a recent order of the sub-divisional executive magistrate-cum-revenue divisional officer (RDO) of Visakha district to this effect. Till date, six properties were seized in the city and seizure orders for a dozen more are pending, the sources added.

It is all about the money

-- A new trend is that the trade is being carried out through new online methods including WhatsApp

-- Keeping the demand for teenaged girls, touts are hiring them from rural areas by paying their families a lump sum in advance

-- The advance for a period of six months given to the family could amount to about Rs 50,000, while the tout makes as much as Rs 5 lakh on each girl a month

-- Many girls rescued by the cops are from the two Godavari districts, Krishna, Guntur and from the Telangana region. Girls from Orissa, West Bengal and Maharashtra too figure among the victims

