Police raid Pune red light area and detain six girls

Police has raided a red light area in Pune, Maharashtra, and detained six girls alleged to be a part of a immoral trafficking operation.

In India, trafficking and profiting by selling a person for sex is illegal, but paying for sex with an adult prostitute is not.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development wants to change the laws to allow police to take stern action against clients, but critics have stalled the plan.

Inspector S.D. Kamble said: "After conducting a raid with other officials, we have arrested Hari Shankar Moolchand Mahto, the person who was running the business, and we have rescued six girls, including two from Delhi, two from Kolkata and one each from Lucknow and Pune."

Prostitutes and groups working with them fear such a move would force the trade deeper into the shadows.

Kamble added: "The girls will be kept in a remand room and an offence has been registered under III, IV and V PETA Act against Hari Shankar Moolchand Mahto and his subordinate."

South Asia is the second largest venue for human trafficking in the world, after East Asia, according to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Over 150,000 people are known to be trafficked within the region every year - mostly for sex work, but also for labour, forced marriages and as part of the organ trade, according to UNODC officials.

Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing transnational organised crimes in South Asia.

Traffickers often take advantage of impoverished communities, luring girls and young women and girls with promises of jobs as maids or nannies in wealthy households in the cities. But, activists say, the reality is very different.