Traffickers turn to northeast India for sex trade

Human traffickers are increasingly turning to India's poor and insurgency-wracked northeastern states in their search for young girls to work in big city brothels, police and activists say.

Over the past five years there has been a rise in reports of missing girls from the remote region of eight states, an increase which authorities believe is due to trafficking.

Police say at least 700 girls from the region have been reported missing over the last five years, 300 of whom disappeared in 2005 alone.

But activists estimate thousands of northeastern girls disappear every year - most of whom are not reported by families due to the stigma associated with being part of the sex trade.