Human Trafficking in India

India is a source, destination and transit country for human trafficking for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation. Despite the efforts put by the Indian government, there is no sufficient progress in its law enforcement

CJ: Abdullah Khan

Mon, Jul 20, 2009 15:14:36 IST

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Human Trafficking in India :

THE 2009 Trafficking in Persons report released by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “India is a source, destination and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation.” The 2009 Trafficking in Persons, report observed that in recent years, there has been an increase of sex trafficking to sub cities and India is a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.

Despite being an affected country, India lacks in efforts to enforce law to tackle human trafficking of men, women and children. As per the Women and Child development estimates, 3 million women in India fall prey to trafficking annually in the country and 40 per cent of these are minors. It is not the case with India only but “Human Trafficking” is a global issue of serious concern, which causes a gross violation of human rights.
Because of the illegal nature of forced labour, there are no reliable national estimates of the scale of the problem but International Labour Organisation's (ILO) estimate is around 12.3 million. Trafficking in the Indian context has largely been studied and reported mainly for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation with the country witnessing cross-border as well as internal trafficking. India's record of prevention of trafficking in persons remains abysmally poor.

Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Orissa and Delhi are said to have been identified as the most affected states. At the cross-border level, the major victims trafficked into India for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation, belong to Nepal and Bangladesh.

Article 23 of the Constitution of India prohibits trafficking in any form. The National Legal Framework also provides provisions that are relevant and applicable to situations of trafficking. Some of these are:

Sec 363 A of IPC: Kidnapping or maiming a minor for the purpose of begging.
Sec 366 A of IPC: Procuring minor girl for sexual exploitation
Sec 366 B of IPC: Importation of girl from foreign country for sexual exploitation.

The Immortal Trafficking Prevention Act 1956: Procuring, inducing or taking person for sake of prostitution.
The Juvenile Justice Act: Procurement of a child under the age of 18 years for the purpose of exploitation.

Despite presence of such a framework, there is a need to enforce such laws to curb trafficking from and into India. Not only enforcing law but there is also a need to develop the areas, which serve as a source for human trafficking. The root cause of the problem is poverty, under development, unemployment among others. Therefore, we have to address the problem both socially and by enforcing law India should also play a role at the International level to stop trafficking from neighbouring countries into India.

India is a signatory to the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime and has also ratified the SAARC Convention on preventing and combating trafficking in women and children for prostitution. In recent years, there has been an increase of sex trafficking to medium-sized cities and satellite towns of large cities. There are also victims of labour trafficking among the thousands of Indians who migrate willingly every year to the Middle-east, Europe and the US for work as domestic servants and low-skilled laborers.

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