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Trafficking of Women in India: Status and
Challenges with special reference to Madhya Pradesh
by Asha Shukla and Jaya Phookan
Introduction
The phenomenon of human trafficking has increased significantly over the past
two decades both globally and in South Asian countries. India is a source,
destination, and transit country for men, women, and children trafficked for
the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation. Those from
India’s most disadvantaged social economic strata are particularly vulnerable
to forced or bonded labour and sex trafficking. Women and girls are trafficked
within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and
forced marriage. Children are also subjected to forced labour as factory
workers, domestic servants, beggars, and agricultural workers. Human
trafficking is a multi-dimensional issue. Due to persistent inequalities
worldwide, women are more vulnerable to this practice which is a consequence
of structured gender inequality in the form of violence. Trading in human
beings and exploitation in varied forms by traffickers in human beings is one
of the most serious forms of violation of human rights. It is a crime that
deprives people of their human rights and freedom, increases global health
risks, fuels growing networks of organized crime, and can sustain levels of
poverty and impede development in certain areas. Trafficking clearly violates
the fundamental rights to life with dignity. Victims may suffer physical and
emotional abuse, rape, threats against self and family and even death. The
common denominator of trafficking scenarios is the use of force, fraud, or
coercion to exploit a person for profit. Traffickers can subject victims to
labour exploitation, sexual exploitation, or both. Trafficking for labour
exploitation, the form of trafficking claiming the greatest number of victims
includes traditional chattel slavery, forced labour, and debt bondage.
Trafficking for sexual exploitation typically includes abuse within the
commercial sex industry (US Trafficking in Persons Report, 2009).
Illegal and clandestine nature of trafficking makes it exceedingly difficult
to establish accurate figures of the numbers of people trafficked. Although no
comprehensive study of forced and bonded labor has been carried out, some NGOs
estimate this problem affects tens of millions of Indians. The impacts of
human trafficking are devastating. A wide range of estimates exists on the
scope and magnitude of modern-day slavery. The International Labour
Organization (ILO)—the United Nations agency charged with addressing labour
standards, employment and social protection issues-estimates that there are at
least 12.3 million adults and children in forced labour, bonded labour, and
commercial sexual servitude at any given time. Of these victims, the ILO
estimates that at least 1.39 million are victims of commercial sexual
servitude, both transnational and within countries. According to the ILO, 56
percent of all forced labour victims are women and girls (ibid).
Asha Shukla, Director,Women’s Studies centre, Barkatullah University, Bhopal.
Jaya Phookan, Research Officer, Women’s studies centre, BU, Bhopal
Trafficking in India occurs both across the borders as well with in borders
among the states and districts. Men and women from Bangladesh and Nepal are
trafficked through India for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation
in the Middle East. In India 72 percent trafficking for commercial Sexual
exploitation in Intra-state and 28.26% interstate (Situational Analysis of
HIV/AIDS & Trafficking, Shaktivahini). India is a destination for women and
girls from Nepal and Bangladesh trafficked for the purpose of commercial
sexual exploitation. There are also victims of labor trafficking among the
thousands of Indians who migrate willingly every year to the Middle East,
Europe, and the United States for work as domestic servants and low-skilled
laborers. In some cases, such workers are the victims of fraudulent
recruitment practices committed in India that lead them directly into
situations of forced labor, including debt bondage; in other cases, high debts
incurred to pay recruitment fees leave them vulnerable to exploitation by
unscrupulous employers in the destination countries, where some are subjected
to conditions of involuntary servitude, including non-payment of wages,
restrictions on movement, unlawful withholding of passports, and physical or
sexual abuse. Over 500 Nepalese girls were jailed in the state of Bihar on
charges of using false documents to transit India in the pursuit of employment
in Gulf countries. Indian nationals travel to Nepal and within the country for
child sex tourism. West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Uttranchal and Bihar are the
main transit states in India through which trafficked women and children pass.
West Bengal shares the border with Bangladesh, and Uttarpradesh and Bihar and
Uttranchal share the border with Nepal
The Definitional Debate
The complexity of trafficking, the links with visceral issues such as
commercial sex work and exploitation of children, and the politics of
migration management have meant that there is much contention over the
definition of trafficking and the types of policies and programming that would
effectively combat this serious crime and effort to basic human rights ( Asian
Development bank,2003).There was no internationally accepted definition until
the signing of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in
Persons, especially Women and Children, 2000. The UN Protocol defines
trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or
receipt of persons, by means of a threat or use of force or other forms of
coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception of the abuse of power or a
position of vulnerability, or giving or receiving of payments or benefits to
achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the
purpose of exploitation” .Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy, the special rapporteur on
Violence against Women defined trafficking in persons as: (i) the recruitment,
transportation, purchase, sale, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons: by
threat or use of violence, abduction, force, fraud, deception or coercion (
including abuse of the authority), or debt bondage,
for the purpose of : (ii) Placing or holding such persons(s), whether for pay
or not, in forced labour or slavery-like practices, in a community other than
the one in which such person lived at the time of the original act described
in 1.
The United States’ Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) defines
“severe forms of trafficking” as:
a. sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud,
or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such an act has not
attained 18 years of age; or
b. the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a
person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud, or coercion for
the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or
slavery.
A victim need not be physically transported from one location to another in
order for the crime to fall within these definitions .
Major forms of Human Trafficking are:
Labour: bonded labour, domestic work agricultural labour construction work, in
industries, work in the formal and informal economy
Sexual exploitation: brothels and non brothel commercial sexual exploitation
sex tourism, socially and religiously sanctioned forms of sexual exploitation
pornography, call girls racket, through escort services, through massage
parlours, through friendship clubs etc.
Illegal activities: begging, organ trade, drug padding and smuggling
Entertainment and sports: circus dance troupes, camel jockey, fil and video
industries, dance bars modeling etc.
Marriages: for and through marriages
Adoption: for and through adoptions
Recruitment in armed outfits
Trafficking in Persons Report (2009) categorized trafficking as: Forced
labour,Bonded labor, Debt bondage among migrant laborers, Involuntary Domestic
servitude, Forced child labour, Child soldiers, Sex trafficking, Child sex
trafficking and related abusers, Commercial sexual exploitation of children(
CSEC) Child sex tourism(CST)
Process and Pattern of Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is increasingly recognized as complex process and the
factors that make an individual vulnerable to being trafficked are
multifaceted. It involves a series of episodes for the trafficked person which
might start with the desire or need to leave their home/ community or migrate,
followed by an encounter with a trafficker leading to coercion or deception
and to highly harmful and exploitative working situations. For others it might
start with family members handling over responsibility for their safety and
well being to others known to them and then end up trafficked by a third set
of actors. Desperate circumstances often lead migrants to take difficult
decisions and lead them into situations of great risk and vulnerability.
Traffickers throughout South Asia lure their victims by means of attractive
promises such as high paying jobs, glamorous employment options, prosperity
and fraudulent marriages. It is estimated that 35% of the total number of
girls and women trafficked to India have been abducted under the pretext of
false marriage or good jobs. (Report of South Asia Workshop on Trafficking in
Women and Children, 1996-Formulating Strategies of Resistance October 1996.)
Poor households in debt or struggling with insecure livelihoods may be
compelled to hand over a person or may agree to migrate legally or illegally
or take a job willingly. But once that work or service is no longer voluntary,
that person becomes a victim of forced labor or forced prostitution and should
accordingly receive the protections contemplated by the 2000 UN TIP Protocol.
Once a person’s work is recruited or compelled by the use or threat of
physical violence or the abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process, the
person’s previous consent or effort to obtain employment with the trafficker
becomes irrelevant. A person may agree to work for an employer initially but
later decide to stop working because the conditions are not what they agreed
to. If an employer then uses force, fraud, or coercion to retain the person’s
labor or services, the employer becomes a trafficking offender and the
employee becomes a victim.
The nationalities of trafficked people are as diverse as the world’s cultures.
Some leave developing countries, seeking to improve their lives through
low-skilled jobs in more prosperous countries. Some families give children to
adults, often relatives, who promise education and opportunity but instead
sell the children into exploitative situations for money. But poverty alone
does not explain this tragedy, which is driven by fraudulent recruiters,
employers, and corrupt officials who seek to reap profits from others’
desperation. Parents and family members are also deceived by false promises
and deception. However studies confirm where victim’s family members and
relative collude with traffickers in order to receive payments (US TIP Report,
2009).
In several areas this is seen as a viable strategy for poor families, and
therefore they do not support prosecution nor acknowledge the level of harm
caused to victims or the community.
Push factors
The most commonly identified push factor driving the trafficking process is
poverty, lack of human and social capital, gender discrimination, social
exclusion, lack of governance, deprivation marginalization and vulnerability
may also cause trafficking. Macro factors such as impact of globalization,
employment trade, migration policies conflicts, and environmental disasters
can set into circumstances that increase vulnerabilities.
Global financial crisis has raised the specter of increased human trafficking
around the world. As a result of the crisis, two concurrent trends—a shrinking
global demand for labor and a growing supply of workers willing to take ever
greater risks for economic opportunities—seem a recipe for increased forced
labor cases of migrant workers and women in prostitution. Numerous
international organizations have warned of the trafficking consequences of the
ongoing global financial crisis. In its January 2009 global employment report,
the ILO said the economic crisis is causing dramatic increases in the numbers
of unemployed, working poor, and those in vulnerable employment. If the crisis
continues, more than 200 million workers, mostly in developing economies,
could be pushed into extreme poverty, according to the report. In Asia alone,
the ILO predicted a worst-case scenario of 113 million unemployed in 2009. The
forced labor implications of the financial crisis are particularly stark for
Asia, a region identified with an existing high level of job insecurity.
Seventy percent of unemployment in South and Southeast Asia is in the informal
sector, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD). The region also has a high prevalence of existing forced labor; it is
home to 77 percent of the world’s forced labor victims, according to the ILO.
Traffickers and exploitative employers prey on an expanding pool of more
vulnerable and unprotected workers in this region. Warning of the dangers of
the ongoing economic crisis, the head of the ILO’s program against forced
labor in May 2009 noted that “vulnerable workers—particularly migrants,
including young women and even children—are more exposed to forced labour,
because under conditions of hardship they will be taking more risks than
before.”
Gender Dimensions of the Problem
“Women still comprise the majority of the world’s poor, unfed, and unschooled.
They are still subjected to rape as a tactic of war and exploited by
traffickers globally in a billion dollar criminal business.” -- Secretary
Hillary Rodham Clinton, March 7, 2009 (Trafficking in Persons Report, 2009)
Increased trafficking in women and girls are taking place in a context of
rapid economic transition, globalisation, modernisation, employment trade etc.
Changes such as widening social and economic inequality, rural unemployment
and increased poverty, new forms of mobility, breakup of communities, and
erosion of traditional values are increasing the vulnerability of large
segment of population to trafficking particularly women and girls to sexual
exploitation and trafficking. Vulnerability of women to trafficking is rooted
in the limitations imposed by socio-economic and cultural conditions on the
control which women have in their life circumstances and choices, including
sexual circumstances. These underlying factors increases the vulnerability of
women and girls to be caught in the growing web of trafficking in the region,
taking them into situations which remove the last vestiges of choice, violate
their human dignity and security, and further increase the risk of exposure to
HIV/AIDS.
Women constitute the poorest of the poor as a result of gender insensitivity,
discrimination, lack of social status and basic rights, together with arduous
domestic responsibilities, which reduce their access to resources, education
training and labor markets. Within families women and particularly girl
children, generally have less access to food and health care as well as to
educational opportunities.Anti female biases are reflected in the fact that
South Asia is one of the few regions in the world where men outnumber women
(ibid).
Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking
Trafficking occurs in South Asia in a climate of denial and silence at all
levels. There is prevailing silence about violence against women and girls,
particularly domestic violence, and silence about their circumstances,
including the abuse and exploitation they often face in their living and
working environments in the process of earning a living. This silence
manifests itself in a denial in families and communities and in society at
large that trafficking of girls is taking place.
There is a continuum of violence against women which ranges from deprivation
of resources and lack of access to property, education and health care, to
institutional discrimination imposed by religious and cultural sanctions,
dowry harassment and domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape. In India ,
for example, it is estimated that every 26 minutes a woman is molested, every
34 minutes there is a rape, every 43 minutes a woman is kidnapped and every 93
minutes a women is killed ( UN India: 2001)
Research has shown a clear link between sex trafficking and both
pre-trafficking domestic violence and trafficking-related gender based
violence. In this context of discrimination, lack of choice and vulnerability,
increasing numbers of young women and girls, many between the ages of 10 and
20, are being trafficked in the region, mainly for the sex industry. The Un
Special Rapporteur on Violence Against women observed that while the failure
of states to protect and promote women’s Human, economic and social rights has
created a situation in which trafficking flourishes, trafficking further
subjects women to numerous additional human rights violations (Position paper
on the draft SAARC Convention on preventing and combating trafficking in women
and children for prostitution: UN special rapporteur on Violence against
women). Girls and women who are trafficked are deprived of their personal
freedom and security and of their dignity as human beings. Moreover their
lives are endangered by violence and illness, and they are at the risk of
contracting HIV from sexual exploitation and abuse. In addition, a distinctive
element of trafficking is the transportation of the victim to an unfamiliar
milieu, where she is culturally isolated and marginalized and may be denied a
legal identity and access to justice, there by pacing her at greater risk of
abuse, violence and exploitation.
The low status of women, insufficient access to education, limitations on
legal rights, and other forms of discrimination are recognized as “push
factors” that combine with other situational problems such as conflict, civil
instability, or an economic crisis to prompt young women to leave their
communities. Violence against women is all too common, and laws intended to
protect women are inadequate or not enforced. In addition to physical attacks
and injuries, women who are victims of spouse or intimate partner abuse are
often subjected by the abuser to constant berating, severe psychological
abuse, and excessive levels of control over nearly every aspect of daily life.
A history of domestic violence (spouse or intimate partner abuse) represents
an added risk factor that may cause a victim to feel an urgent need to escape
and leave her home and community to survive – and thus her vulnerability to
exploitation is heightened. Not all women are trafficked for prostitution.
Many are trafficked into domestic labour, agricultural and factory work,
begging and other circumstances where they are vulnerable to sexual and
physical exploitation and abuse.
Research links the disproportionate demand for female trafficking victims to
the growth of certain “feminized” economic sectors (commercial sex, the “bride
trade,” domestic service) and other sectors characterized by low wages,
hazardous conditions, and an absence of collective bargaining mechanisms.
Exploitative employers prefer to use trafficked women—traditionally seen as
submissive, cheap, and pliable—for simple and repetitive tasks in agriculture,
food processing, labor-intensive manufacturing, and domestic servitude. In
countries where women’s economic status has improved, significantly fewer
local women participate in commercial sex. Traffickers bring in more female
victims to address the demand and also take advantage of women who migrate
voluntarily to work in any industry. As commercial sex is illegal in most
countries, traffickers use the resulting illegal status of migrant women that
have been trafficked into commercial sex to threaten or coerce them against
leaving. Gendered vulnerabilities fostered by social and institutional
weaknesses in some societies—discriminatory laws and practices that tie a
woman’s legal recognition, property rights, and economic opportunities to
someone else—make women more likely than men to become trafficking victims. A
woman who exists only through a male guardian who controls her income,
identification, citizenship, and physical well-being is more susceptible to
becoming a trafficking victim (Trafficking in Persons Report, 2009).
Reasons for leaving home
“The root causes of migration and trafficking greatly overlap. The lack of
rights afforded to women serves as the primary causative factor at the root of
both women’s migrations and trafficking in women...By failure to protect and
promote women’s civil, political, economic and social rights, governments
create situations in which trafficking flourishes.” -- Radhika Coomaraswamy,
former UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women
Trafficking in women results both form social inequality and susceptibility to
exploitation.The feminisation of poverty leads women to look for any work and
ways to improve their material well being without regard for possible negative
consequences
According to the ILO, the majority of people trafficked for sexual
exploitation or subjected to forced labor are female. According to
researchers, both the supply and demand sides of the trade in human beings are
fed by “gendered” vulnerabilities to trafficking. These vulnerabilities are
the result of political, economic, and development processes that may leave
some women socially and economically dependent on men. If that support from
men becomes limited or withdrawn, women become dangerously susceptible to
abuse. They often have no individual protection or recognition under the law,
inadequate access to healthcare and education, poor employment prospects,
little opportunity to own property, or high levels of social isolation. All
this makes some women easy targets for harassment, violence, and human
trafficking.
Girls are lured with promises of jobs in the city, or by pledges of marriage,
while many are sent by their families to earn extra income for the household,
other are escaping from domestic abuse and violence and still others are
tempted to look for a better life and wider opportunities away form the rural
drudgery and the narrow limitations imposed on women and girls in the
villages. Lack of education, knowledge of the world and the life skills can
make these girls vulnerable. They trust people who dupe them and subsequently
sell them, generally into sex work. In many cases the trafficker is a person
they know or a person known to others in the source areas.
Many of the immediate causes for leaving home identified by women and girls in
the STOP study are related to underlying discrimination against women. These
include polygamy, abuse of girl children and child marriage, and dowry. Forty
per cent of the trafficked girls in the study had experienced family
breakdown, mostly due to the prevalence of polygamy and some times because
women were abandoned when they failed to bear children or to bear sons in
particular.
At the same time the socio-cultural climate of the region fosters a high sense
of duty in women towards their children, younger siblings and older parents.
It is not unusual to find women who resort to lower end jobs and sexual labour
in order to support their families and to pay for the education of male family
members. If they are trafficked and end up in the worst forms of commercial
sexual exploitation, the majority continue to bear it and do not protest or
break way. They feel that it is there ‘sacrifice’ and duty to provide better
opportunities for others within their family.
Commodification of Women
Violations of Universal human rights of women resulting from their use as
commodities of trafficking take place in countries from which they are exorted
as well as countries into which they are imported. They have little control
over their circumstances, bodies and daily lives. When women and young girls
have little control over their daily lives and occupy a subordinate status, it
is extremely difficult for them to negotiate for safe sex, even if they know
about the need for it. Women and girls who are biologically more susceptible
to HIV Infection if exposed to the virus are placed at risk of exposure
because of the attitudes and sexual behaviour of men within societal
structures that directly and indirectly indiscriminate against women and in
favor of men.
As expressed by Bhaiya and Dhar, “Passivity begins to define the Women’s role
in ‘sex’
and as a result, it becomes a tool for all the ways in which women are
suppressed and subordinated, restricted, intruded upon, violated and
objectified” ( cited in UNIFEM, 2001)
Discrimination against women is also associated with psychological violence
and emotional deprivation. Existing male bias in this region (South Asia),
including preference for a male child, means that young women and girls may
from the birth be deprived of the love and affection of family members. They
are often abused, sexually and otherwise, and made to bear the brunt of
household work. A show of affection and understanding even from a stranger
therefore elicits an eager response and easily leads to bonding and immediate
trust building. This is easily exploited both by local and by professional
traffickers, who pose as lovers and thus lure young women and girl children
into the trafficking net (STOP 2001).
Each year tens of thousands of women worldwide become objects of trafficking.
They are deceived, compelled, sold and in most cases forced into slave labor
and life as prostitutes and workers of sweat-inducing industries, housemaids
or wives. The Un Commission for Human rights has defined trafficking in women
as a modern form of slavery. Irrespective of the aims of trafficking in women
the later become targets of rape, physical abuse and psychological torture.
When examining the causes of women’s migration abroad, one has to take into
account one more gender aspect of the problem-the traditional approach of
women as sex objects-this stereotype leads to violence against girls and
women. Trafficking in women is a form of violence aimed against women,
nurtured by poverty and sexism (i.e. infringement of rights based on sex).
Trafficking in women has long been a worldwide phenomenon and an indispensable
part of International phenomenon criminal business. Exploitation of women’s
labor and body has resulted in trafficking in turning into an international
industry which poses a real threat to international security.
Cultural Traditions: Implications on Trafficking of Women( with special
reference to MP)
Another form of social exclusion is inequity rooted in the belief and
enforcement of caste differentiation and tribal systems. The systems can be
seen as cultural and structural social inequities perpetuated by tradition
leaving female member of the caste or tribal group particularly vulnerable to
increasing poverty as well as trafficking.
ST/SC Women and girls bear the triple burden of exploitation-they are poor,
they are from groups which are traditionally marginalized and they are
female-are among the most vulnerable to being trafficked. The devdasi practice
in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra, the jogin in Andhra Pradesh and
the bedias in M.P, are the communities illustrate this nexus between gender
and ethnicity. These practices also encourage trafficking of women. The
economic reasons among tribes and communities like Bedias, Jahats, kanjars,
banchra, mahar, matang and sansi also promote sex trade. These communities
have socially sanctioned system of prostitution. These practices have been
illegal since 1988. Within Karnataka there has been increased action to
prevent the trafficking of devdasi women. Bedia community resides mainly in
Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. Among bedias, daughters are
pushed in to flesh trade immediately after puberty. Rituals known as nathi
Utherna (taking off the nose ring) or Sar Dhakwana (covering of head) are
performed. This makes the beginning of their existence as commodities. Women
from communities of bedias, bachchara, sansui, deredar, nat and kanjars in MP
are still being forced into prostitution and sold or trafficked to other
states like UP and in red light areas of cities like Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur,
Surat, Delhi, Agra,Meerut, Allahabad, Aligarh etc. A large trafficking network
is active in the districts of Shajapur, Rajgarh, Guna, Sagar , Sheopur, Morena,
Shivpuri and Vidisha (cited in Report on Trafficking in India, 2004,
Shaktivahini).The bedias do not operate from their homes and instead prefer to
sell the girls in far off places. According to the MPHRC, the sex trade
amongst the bedias of Morena, Gwalior and Sheopuri districts has become
organised and controlled by the under world( no choice about prostitution for
young women in Madhya Pradesh by Shuriah Niazi, 2001in Report on Trafficking
in India, 2004, Shaktivahini) .High court( 1991) directives are there to check
the traditional form of prostitution .Bonded labour ( e.g Panna district) and
child marriages are also prevelent in the State.
The perpetuation of trafficking and the special vulnerability of women to
HIV/AIDS, particularly in some population groups are embedded in power
relationships within society including those of caste, class and gender.
RajBhandari (2001), in describing the socio-economic complexity of trafficking
says: trafficking is the result of a socio political and cultural imbalance in
society. The Socio-economic structures in society are set up in such a way
that one group of people will always be able to exert their power on the
other, lower in the hierarchy. In such situations, where the space to
negotiate is particularly non-existent, it is some times even difficult for
victimized women and families to pin-point and say “ He is the trafficker”.
12.36 percent of trafficking at all India level is due to family tradition.
Though family based and social customs based sexual exploitation is more or
less present in all the TAHA states, it is more prominent in Madhya Pradesh.
This mode of sexual exploitation is also prevalent in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
(Nat, Kanjars ,Bedias). More than 95% women who are in commercial sex from
Madhya Pradesh are due to family traditions or social customs. Maximum 51.79
percent of women are forced into flesh trade in Bihar due to family tradition
or acceptance and more than 36 percent of women continue to be exploited in
state due to family acceptance. 7.33 percent of women are forced into flesh
trade due to family traditions and another 2.93 percent due to social customs.
Further in India family acceptance accounts for around 8 percent women
continuing sex work (Situational Analysis of HIV/AIDS & Trafficking,
Shaktivahini).
Law Enforcement and Prevention
International cooperation in the legal field has grown markedly against the
trafficking in persons, especially children. There are age old treaties on the
issue of trafficking. These include the International Agreement for the
suppression of White Slave Traffic (1904), the International convention for
the suppression of White Slave Traffic (1910), the International convention
for the suppression of traffic in women and children (1921), the International
convention for the suppression of Traffic in women in full age (1933) and the
convention on the suppression of trafficking and exploitation of the
prostitution of others (1949). All of them, to a lesser or greater extent,
were aimed at crime prevention and suppression. However, early treaties were
not gender sensitive enough and were not broad enough to cover the range of
the trafficking situations. A variety of treaties tackle the issue of
trafficking with increasing emphasis on a human rights perspective from the
angle of protection of the victims.
These include:
1. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (1979).
2. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).
3. The International Convention on the Protection of Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Their Families (1990).
4. The Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Cooperation in
Respect of Inter Country Adoptions (1993).
5. The Inter-nation Labour Organization’s Convention No 182 Concerning the
Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of
Child Labour (1999).
6. The Optional Protocol to the CRC on the Sale of Children, Child
Prostitution and Child Pornography (2000).
In addition, a range of international declarations and plans of Actions call
for action against trafficking. These include plan of Action of the
International Conference on Population and Development (1994), the Beijing
Platform of the World Conference on Women (1995), the Declaration and Agenda
for Action against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Adopted by the
Stockholm World Congress (1996). An array of regional initiatives have arises
in resent years against trafficking in South Asia. The convention on
Preventing and combating trafficking in women and children for prostitution
has been adopted by South Asian countries in 2002. The Constitution of India,
under Article 23(1), prohibits trafficking in Human beings and forced labour.
The relevant provisions under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) are 293, 294, 317,
339, 341, 342, 354, 359, 361, 362, 363, 365 and 366, 370, 371, 372, 373, 375,
376, 496, 498, 506, 509 and 511. The suppression of human traffic in women and
girls Act 1956 (SITA) was enacted under Article 35 of Indian Constitution with
the object of inhibiting or abolishing
trafficking in women and girls. It was also in pursuance of the UN’s
Trafficking Convention, which India signed on 9 May, 1950. The Act aimed to
rescue exploited women and girls, to prevent the deterioration of public
morals and to stamp out the evil of prostitution that was rampant in various
parts of the country. In 1978, SITA was amended. This was owing to the
realization that this social evil needed to be curbed and that the existing
provisions had failed to do so. In 1986, SITA was drastically amended and
renamed the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956. The Act is a special
legislation that deals exclusively with trafficking. The Act defines the term
brothel, child, corrective institutions, prostitutions, protective home,
public place, special police officer and trafficking officer. The law confers
inside powers on the concerned authorities to matters of the rescue and
rehabilitation of victims and survivors and providers for strong action
against exploiters, including inaction from brothels, surveillance, externment,
as well as aggravated punishment when the offences are committed on children.
(Source: www.pisrd.org/reports).The government prohibits some forms of
trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation through the Immoral Trafficking
Prevention Act (ITPA). Prescribed penalties under the ITPA, ranging from seven
years' to life imprisonment, are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with
those prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. India also prohibits
bonded and forced labor through the Bonded Labor (Abolition) Act of 1976, the
Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act of 1986, and the Juvenile Justice
Act of 1986. According to trafficking in persons report (2009), these laws
were ineffectively enforced, and their prescribed penalties—a maximum of three
years in prison—are not sufficiently stringent. Indian authorities also use
Sections 366(A) and 372 of the Indian Penal Code, prohibiting kidnapping and
selling minors into prostitution, respectively, to arrest traffickers.
Penalties prescribed under these provisions are a maximum of ten years'
imprisonment and a fine. Although Section 8 of the ITPA allows the arrest of
trafficked women for soliciting, the Indian cabinet debated for another year
proposed amendments that would give trafficking victims greater protections.
State governments continued to demonstrate efforts to address forced child
labor, but failed to punish most traffickers.
Although, Indian government authorities have made significant progress in law
enforcement efforts against sex trafficking and forced child labor but lot
more is required to be done to address the issue. According to US Trafficking
in Persons Report 2009( which covers the period of April 2008 to March 2009),
During the year , the New Delhi government rescued more than 100 -children
from forced labor situations, such as the February 2009 rescue of 35 children
found enslaved in four small factories making leather products under hazardous
and forced conditions without pay. In Jharkhand (with a population of 29
million people), the state labor ministry and police, in collaboration with an
NGO, conducted raids on 120 establishments during a planned operation and
rescued 208 children from forced or bonded labor situations.
The central government and state governments continued to demonstrate efforts
to combat sex trafficking of women and children, though convictions and
punishments of sex traffickers were infrequent according to the report. The
central government's National Crime Records Bureau data, compiled from state
and union territory governments, on actions taken against sex trafficking
offenses in 2007. The 2007 data indicated that 4,087 cases were registered
(investigations started) which likely includes sex trafficking cases referred
to courts for prosecution as well as cases investigated and closed without
such referrals. This data did not include reported prosecutions and
convictions. In Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Goa, and West Bengal (with
a combined population of 360 million people), government officials registered
964 sex trafficking cases, conducted 379 rescue operations, helped rescue
1,653 victims, arrested 1,970 traffickers (including 856 customers), convicted
30 sex traffickers, helped rehabilitate 876 sex trafficking victims, and
trained 13,490 police officers and prosecutors. In Mumbai, authorities
prosecuted 10 sex trafficking cases but obtained no convictions in 2008. In
Andhra Pradesh, courts convicted and sentenced eleven traffickers to
imprisonment for 10 to 14 years. Tamil Nadu’s state government reported
arrests of 1,097 sex trafficking offenders in 2008, though the number of
trafficking prosecutions and convictions during the reporting period was not
reported. The city of Pune attained its first sex trafficking conviction in
2008.
The Ministry of Women and Child Development remained the central government’s
coordinator of anti-trafficking policies and programs, though its ability to
enhance interagency coordination and accelerate anti-trafficking efforts
across the bureaucracy remained weak. The Ministry of Women and Child
Development continued to give grants under its Ujjawala program for the
prevention, rescue, rehabilitation, and reintegration of sex trafficking
victims. The ministry approved funding for at least 53 state projects under
this program, benefiting more than 1,700 victims. Since August 2008, the
ministry provided the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Manipur, and Nagaland
almost $243,000 for 18 projects at 12 rehabilitation centers. Andhra Pradesh
established a fund specifically for victim rehabilitation, giving victims
rescued from sexual exploitation $200 in temporary relief.
Conclusion
The persistence and apparent recent increase in human trafficking can perhaps
be understood in part as an inextricable aspect of the ‘modernisation’ or
development process. Poverty or the failure to meet the basic needs, social
exclusion, insecurity or stigmatization is often identified as the initial
motivating factor and these issues are needed to be addressed. .In many cases,
court withdraw cases related to trafficking on the basis of parental consent.
There is need on the part of police authorities to recognize the problem. To
combat these types of child trafficking, law enforcement must send a strong
message that these practices will not be tolerated. The hardships of daily
life, combined with prevalent gender stereotypes the view women as sexual
objects and young girls and widows as a household burden, also contribute to
placing women and girls at the risk of trafficking. Gender discrimination,
violence against women and patriarchal mindset are important constituents and
catalysts of the vulnerability of women and girl children. This manifests
itself in several serious violations of women's rights such as high incidence
of female foeticide and infanticide and the discrimination against women in
healthcare, education and employment. Since these are vulnerability factors
that trigger trafficking prevention strategies need to be oriented
accordingly. The combating strategies should address the issues of livelihood
options and opportunities by focusing on efforts to eradicate poverty,
illiteracy etc. There should be special initiatives and packages for women and
children in communities where entry into CSE may be perceived as the only
available option. Education and other services should be oriented towards
capacity building and empowerment of vulnerable groups. There is a need to
promote programs to stop second generation trafficking by providing
educational options to the children of sex workers and other vulnerable
children and facilitating rehabilitation processes by providing livelihood
options to returnees and women in vulnerable conditions. Police efforts are
hindered by lack of coordination among different state departments and NGOs.
There is a need to have better dissemination and sharing of information." At
the grass root level, the prevention of trafficking in the source areas
requires a working partnership between the police and NGOs. Public awareness
campaigns and community participation are key to prevention programmes.
Prevention is best achieved by community policing. Networking between
immigration officials at the borders, police and NGOs is important to combat
trafficking. State parties are required to establish policies, programmes and
other measures aimed at preventing trafficking and protecting trafficked
persons from re-victimization. The existence of vulnerable situations of
inequality and injustice coupled with the exploitation of the victim's
circumstances by the traffickers and others cause untold harm to the
trafficked victim who faces a multiplicity of rights violations. Therefore
policies, programmes and strategies that address prevention have to be unique
with a focus on and an orientation towards all these issues. Accordingly the
prevention of trafficking needs to be addressed not only in relation to the
source areas but also in the demand areas the transit points and the
trafficking routes.
References
Coomaraswamy, Radhika.2001. Addendum Report to the Human Rights Commission
Regarding Mission to Bangladesh, Nepal, India on the issue of trafficking in
of Women and Children(October –November 2000)
RajBhandari, R, Girl Trafficking: Hidden Grief in the Himalayas, WOREC,
Kathmandu, 1996
Report of South Asia Workshop on “Trafficking in Women and
Children-Formulating Strategy of Resistence”, 1996.
Situational Analysis of HIV/AIDS & Trafficking, Shaktivahini
STOP, “Trafficking and HIV/ AIDS in South Asia: Study of India, Nepal and
Bangladesh”, Draft Paper, 2001
“STOP Update”, The E-Magazine of STOP, 2001.
Trafficking in India Report, 2004, Shaktivahini
UNAIDS India report, “Annual Report”, New Delhi, 2000
UNIFEM, “Women Vulnerability and HIV AIDs”, draft paper, April, 2001
US, “Trafficking in Persons Report”, 2000
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