Nearly 150,000 women and girls, mostly from Nepal and Bangladesh, are trafficked every year to India or to a third country through India, as sex slaves, reported the Indo-Asian News Service Wednesday, quoting an international children protection non-government organization.

India is the main destination of "alarming flows" of crossborder trafficking in South Asia, said a study by the global child rights group End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) International, according to the report.

"In India, the majority of trafficking in underage girls for sexual exploitation happens within the country," the report quoted ECPAT as saying.

Children are mainly trafficked to Indian states such as Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal from Nepal and Bangladesh, said the report.

Titled "Their Protection is in Our Hands: The State of Global Child Trafficking for Sexual Purposes", the ECPAT report was published in New Delhi Wednesday, while being published in many other countries haunted with the scourge of human trafficking.

"Between 5,000 and 7,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked into India for sexual exploitation every year," it said. "Children from Bangladesh and Nepal are also trafficked into and through India to Pakistan and the Middle East."

(Xinhua News Agency August 19, 2009)