A Human Zoo? Tourists Force Native Woman to Dance for Food In India [Video]

There’s plenty to see while on Safari in India but the prized objective is to stumble across a human zoo. Tourists, with the help of local police, seek out members of the Jarawa tribe and make them dance for food.

A video surface recently of a ‘human zoo’ but the Guardian reports that this isn’t an isolated incident. Tourists are taken out on “safari” to find members of the Jarawa tribe. In the video, a police officer yells out “dance” to a young woman who is naked from the waist up. When one girl doesn’t dance the officer says, “I gave you food, dance.”

The Guardian writes:

“The goal of the trip is to seek out the Jarawa, a reclusive tribe only recently contacted, which is taking the first tentative steps towards a relationship with the outside world…The Jarawa tribe is 403-strong. Its members are trusting, innocent and hugely vulnerable to exploitation.”

Here’s the video of the “human zoo” on the Andaman Islands in India. (NSFW – Video features members of the Jarwawa tribe naked from the waist up.)

The video was taken by The Observer during a trip to India. The video was taken on the Andaman Trunk Road which winds through the Indian reserve. There are signs posted at the entrance telling people not to disturb the tribe, but once inside, cameras start flashing and people start heckling the Jarawa people.

The Guardian reports that some tourists even throw bananas and biscuits at the tribe and ask them to dance.

But the abuse doesn’t stop at the humiliation of the human zoo. Local police, who have been charged with the protection of the tribe, are making money off of them as well. They collect money from tourists to bring them closer to the tribe. There have even been reported cases of women giving birth to babies fathered by outsiders. Denis Giles, the campaigning editor of the islands’ Andaman Chronicle newspaper, says that the tribe rejects the mixed babies and kills them after they are born.

The Jarawa tribe is also contracting diseases from outside. Dr. Anstice Justin, who is the head of the region’s Anthropological Survey of India, said that a “forced coexistence would be total genocide for them.”

Gawker reports that the officer in the video had his promotion delayed six-months because of his actions.

What do you think of the “human zoo?”