Wednesday, October 5 2005 15:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kathmandu: About 25,000 Nepalese girls are involved in commercial sex in Indian cities, with Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata being the top destinations for traffickers, a new survey has claimed.

The estimate, however, is lesser than that projected earlier by many non-governmental agencies, who had put the number of Nepalese sex workers in India at more than one lakh, Anju Chhetri and Manju Chhetri, who presented the report at an interaction programme held Kathmandu on 'Media Activism for Support to Prevent Trafficking in Women and Girls in Nepal,' said.

Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Kolkata are the major destinations for girls trafficked from Nepal, the report said. The survey conducted by them found only 50,000 sex workers in the four cities and among them only 14,350 or about 29 per cent were Nepalese women.

India's sex market is the main reason behind Nepalese women and girls being trafficked there, Chhetri claimed. The study also revealed that in Pune alone about Nepalese women, in which 500 Nepalese girls are allegedly involved in sex trade, own 50 brothels.

Nepalese women, who run brothels in India, play the main role in the trafficking of women and girls from Nepal, the report claimed.