The Indian Foreign Ministry has instructed its embassies in four ex-Soviet states to carefully examine visa applications from local women in a bid to curb the inflow of sex workers from those countries, The Times of India said on Thursday.
The move concerns embassy staff in Russia and Ukraine, as well as the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
“They have been asked to thoroughly screen applications of women who are 15-40 years of age,” the newspaper quoted an unnamed source close to diplomatic circles as saying.
Female visa applicants are to be interviewed if there are suspicions about the true purpose of their visit to India.
"All care will be taken to ensure that no genuine tourist is denied visa," the source said.
Citing police sources, the paper said that there are up to 3,500 sex workers from former Soviet states in New Delhi alone.
A source in the Russian embassy in India said that the detentions of sex workers with Russian citizenship are quite rare. However, he noted that all women from ex-Soviet states are traditionally referred to as “Russians" in India.
About 40,000 tourists from Central Asia and over 70,000 tourists from Russia visit India annually.
