Rare first-hand testimony of Andaman tribe reveals shocking exploitation

SURVIVAL

An extremely rare first-hand account of the shocking extent of sexual exploitation of young women of the Jarawa tribe on India’s Andaman Islands has emerged.

In an audio recording obtained by Survival International and reported by the British newspaper The Observer, a young Jarawa man reports that poachers regularly enter his tribe’s protected reserve and lure young Jarawa women with alcohol or drugs to sexually exploit them.

Today, hundreds of tourists travel through their land in the hope of spotting a member of the tribe, in what has become known as ‘human safaris’.

Sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS are a grave threat for recently contacted tribes such as the Jarawa, and women are commonly exploited by more powerful outsiders. The Jarawa’s neighbors, the Great Andamenese, were nearly wiped out by diseases brought in by the British colonizers in the 19th Century, including syphilis.

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