HUMAN TRAFFICKING

                                            HUMAN TRAFFICKING               

WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING ?           

  • Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving individuals through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. 
  • This exploitation may include forced labor, sexual slavery, or other forms of commercial sexual exploitation. It is considered a serious violation of human rights and a form of modern slavery. 

EFFORTS TO COMBAT HUMAN TRAFFICKING 

  • Human trafficking can occur both within a single country or across national borders. 
  • It is distinct from people smuggling, which involves the consent of the individual being smuggled and typically ends upon arrival at the destination. 
  • In contrast, human trafficking involves exploitation and a lack of consent, often through force, fraud, or coercion. Human trafficking is widely condemned as a 
  • violation of human rights by international agreements such as the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons.
  •  Despite this condemnation, legal protections and enforcement vary significantly across countries. Globally, millions of individuals, including women, men, and children, are estimated 
  • to be victims of human trafficking, enduring forced labor, sexual exploitation, and other forms of abuse.
  • In India, trafficking is primarily an offence under the Indian Penal Code, 1860.  
It defines trafficking as                              
(i) recruitment 
(ii) transportation
 (iii) harbouring
 (iv) transfer  
(v) receipt of a person for exploitation by use of certain forceful means.

In addition, there are also other laws which regulate trafficking for specific purposes. 
 For instance, the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1986 deals with trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. 
 Similarly, the Bonded Labour Regulation Act, 1986 and Child Labour Regulation Act, 1986 deal with exploitation for bonded labour. 
 Each of these laws operate independently, have their own enforcement machinery and prescribe penalties for offences related to trafficking. 

REALITY OF INDIA 

In India, justice remains elusive for trafficking victims.

In 2013, two young women, aged between 18 and 20, whose names were withheld for their protection, were rescued from a brothel in Pune, a major city in Maharashtra, India, famous for being the home of Bollywood, the Hindi film industry. 

In their statements to the police, the girls deposed that they were lured to Pune from their homes in the Indian state of West Bengal with the promise of a better life and handsome earnings, but were in fact forced into sex work. 

SITUATION OF INDIA IN TODAY'S WORLD 

  • West Bengal has long served as a major hub for both domestic and international human trafficking in India, largely due to the state's areas of poverty and its porous 2,216.7-kilometre border with Bangladesh. It also shares borders with Nepal and Bhutan.

  • Finally, after a 10-year-long trial, the court on 26 December, 2023 exonerated the accused men, citing laxities by the police during their investigation.

  • This case, however, represents merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to India's struggle against human trafficking. Every year, hundreds of girls, women and children are trafficked both within and outside of India's borders, primarily for commercial sexual exploitation and bonded labour.

LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF INDIA

  • The Indian Constitution prohibits all kinds and forms of human trafficking, and federal and provincial governments across the  country have enacted numerous laws to deal with the crime. 
  • The Indian Penal Code, India's primary criminal code, mandates penalties ranging from seven years of imprisonment to a life sentence for individuals involved in recruiting, transporting, harbouring, transferring or receiving someone through threats, force, coercion, abduction, fraud, inducement or abuse of power for the purpose of exploitation. 
  • As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), India's federal record keeper of crime data, conviction rate in human trafficking cases stood at 19. 4 per cent in 2022. 
  • Inadequate investigations, meager victim support .

  • India-based anti-trafficking charities and lawyers cite multiple reasons for the low conviction rate in trafficking offences in the country.
  • Kaushik Gupta, an attorney at the Calcutta High Court, the supreme judicial authority in West Bengal, told Fair Planet that inadequate investigations into human trafficking cases are a significant reason for the low rate of convictions in court.
  • According to Gupta, these cases are not being transferred to anti-human trafficking units (AHTUs), the specialized entities set-up by the government to handle such cases.
  • "There is also lack of interest on the part of the survivors in prosecution, because they have to face double victimization in such a situation," he said. "They have to face the police, they have to face the court, they have to face the defense lawyer."
  • Dr .Sunitha Krishnan, founder of Prajwala, an India-based anti-trafficking charity, said the police do not give due priority to investigating human trafficking cases. 
  • "The trafficking offences are treated as petty crimes and don’t get the priority they deserve," she said. "The police don't conduct a deeper investigation in these cases to find out the entire network or money trail in these offences.
  • "The police feels that it is inevitable reality and cannot be done away," she claimed, adding that that police do not consider trafficking a serious offence largely due to 'social attitudes.'  
  • A trafficking victim who is affiliated with Bijoyini, a collective for survivors in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, told FairPlanet that victims rarely receive justice from the courts. 
  • "I have been fighting for the past six years to seek justice, but the court has yet to pronounce its verdict. I now feel unmotivated to pursue my case," she said.
  • Her name has been withheld, as Indian laws prohibit disclosing the identities of sexual exploitation victims.
  • Her name has been withheld, as Indian laws prohibit disclosing the identities of sexual exploitation victims.  

SUGGESTIN FOR THE GOVERNMENT

"[India should] Increase efforts to investigate and prosecute alleged traffickers, including for bonded labour and complicit officials, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, 
which should involve significant prison terms," reads the Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report from 2023.


The report also called for strengthening the existing anti-human trafficking units (AHTUs) through increased funding and staff training, and ensuring that newly-created AHTUs are fully resourced and operational.


 '' SHE IS KIND BUT STRONG,AND THAT IS WHERE SO MANY MISTAKE HER.THEY INTEREPET HER  KINDNESS FOR WEAKNESS AND FORCE HER TO SHOW HER  STRENTH.''                                                                                                                                                                                            



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