Aizawl: At least 22 human trafficking cases have been registered and 47 people arrested under the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act in Mizoram in the last 18 years.

The record of CID (crime) branch of Mizoram police says at least 35 people were victims of human trafficking from 2000 to 2017 and 47 were arrested in connection with human trade.

Forced prostitution accounted for the highest number of human trafficking cases in the state, the record says.

In a recent incident, police said three girls from Mizoram, who were trafficked allegedly for flesh trade, were rescued from Goa by Mizoram police and Goa police in 2010. Three accused, including two women, from Mizoram, were arrested.

In 2011, a Mizoram police team rescued four girls from the state who were forced into prostitution in Mumbai and arrested two accused. The police said one girl hailed from the border town of Vairengte and the other three from Mizoram's Lunglei district.

They were lured into going to Mumbai by a Mizo girl who called herself Zodingliani, 27, and her non-indigenous accomplice Shodit Hasta Thapa, 28. The duo promised the girls jobs in massage and beauty parlours. The police said once the girls had reached there, they realised that they were duped. Instead of getting them jobs at parlours, Zodingliani sold them as commercial sex workers.

In the same year, a teenager was rescued from Haryana by Mizoram police and their Haryana counterpart. Initially she was lured into going to Haryana as a housewife, but was later sold into forced prostitution. Six people, all from non-indigenous community, were arrested for their alleged involvement in the crime.

Police records say two youths from Mizoram, hired for bonded labour, were rescued from a remote Tamil Nadu village in 2015.

In 2016, one trafficker was arrested along with his accomplice by Mizoram police in Aizawl for allegedly selling call girls on social networking sites.Muslim from neighbouring Myanmar Champhai district innocent police also said.

A study conducted by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in recent years revealed that human trafficking is very much active in Mizoram despite several steps taken by the state government.

The report said that traffickers employ agents and have accomplices in rural areas and lured in innocent girls from rural villages and from Myanmar by promising them lucrative jobs outside the state.