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Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at
http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 03 Issue 12
November 2017
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 135
Women and Child Trafficking in India: Causes and
Prevention
Archit Shivam Mishra
LLB Honors, Amity law school
Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi
Abstract
Trafficking in women and girls is one of the most corrosive forms of violation of human
rights. It results in gradual total destruction of a woman‘s personal identity, and her right to
live as a free human being in a civilized society. Trafficking has been rightly referred to as a
modern form of slavery. Unfortunately, trafficking in human beings is also the fastest
growing form of transnational organized crime. It thrives on the fact that many countries do
not have adequate laws against trafficking. The laws also often do not impose an adequate
punishment on the traffickers, pimps, brothel-keepers or clients. This makes it much less
risky for organized crime syndicates to indulge in human trafficking.
Keywords: Trafficking, Violation, Organized crime, Human rights, Right to live.
Extent of Trafficking: An International
perspective
Within Europe trafficked persons have
been found in large numbers in Austria,
Belgium, East Germany, Hungary, Italy,
the Netherlands, Poland, Spain,
Switzerland, Turkey and the United
Kingdom. In South Asia trafficking takes
place from Nepal and Bangladesh as well
as Sri Lanka into India. India is a receiving
country as well as a transit and sending
country. In addition, there is considerable
internal trafficking within Asian and Latin
American countries and elsewhere. The
US State Department estimates that at least
700,000 persons, especially women and
children, are trafficked each year across
international borders. The impact of
migrant trafficking in Canada is estimated
at 8000 to 16000 persons per year arriving
illegally. A survey conducted in India by
the Central Social Welfare Board in 1991
in six metropolitan cities indicated that the
population of women and children in
commercial sex was between 70,000 to
100,000 of which about 30% were below
the age of 18. As the report of the U.N.
Secretary General of 25 January 2002 on
―Integration of the Human Rights of
Women and the Gender Perspective:
Traffic in Women and Girls‖ points out,
―The problem of trafficking and the web of
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human rights violations it embraces
present some of the most difficult and
pressing issues on the international human
rights agenda. Therefore, other forms of
trafficking such as trafficking for domestic
work cum sex slavery, for debt bondage,
for labour, for begging, camel jockeying
and such other forms of slavery-like
practices are not included in the SAARC
convention.
Cross-border trafficking also victimizes
children from Nepal. Girls are sent to India
– generally for prostitution – while boys
are sent to work on construction sites,
brick kilns, tea plantations, and in
manufacturing.
The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights adopted by the UN General
Assembly in 1948 provides in Article 4
that ―no one shall be held in slavery or
servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall
be prohibited in all their forms‖. In order
to evolve effective strategies to combat
trafficking, differences in kinds of
trafficking must be borne in mind since
trafficking networks, routes and end
destinations differ, depending on the
nature of trafficking.
Women who face discrimination within
their family and outside are often ill
treated or subjected to domestic violence.
Such women are easy victims for
traffickers. Women and girls are also sold
to traffickers by the male members of the
family in order to earn some money or
obtain a share of their future income.
Many of these women migrants may be
illegal migrants smuggled into the country
to which they have migrated because strict
immigration policies may not permit
migration. The fact that a large number of
victims of trafficking come from poorer
classes - tribals and similar groups, or
from disturbed areas shows the close link
between poverty, deprivation and
trafficking.
Trafficking is basically done for the
purpose of sexual and other forms of
̳exploitation‘, and the victim never gives
̳consent‘ to such sufferings. The end
purpose of trafficking is totally different
from migration or smuggling. Even if there
is manifest consent as the victim is lured,
cheated, falsified, deceived and often
coerced, it is in fact, a facade of consent
and not ̳informed consent. Trafficking is
modern-day slavery. Men, women, and
children from developing countries are
trafficked to industrialized countries for
forced prostitution, forced labour, and
other forms of exploitation. According to
U.S. government estimates, up to 800,000
people are trafficked across international
borders annually, and up to 17,500 people
are trafficked into the United States each
year.
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Farrell and Fahy (2009) found that the
public framing of the problem in the US
has changed over time, corresponding with
the adoption of policies focused on
national security and the identification,
apprehension, and criminal prosecution of
trafficking perpetrators. Global attention to
the problem of human trafficking began as
a result of increased social awareness of
the sexual exploitation of women and
children. While there exist earlier
declarations against historical slavery
(Androff, 2010), It is estimated that 56
percent of all trafficking victims are from
Asia and the Pacific (Miko, 2003; UN
GIFT, no date). Japan and other Asian
countries including Thailand, the
Philippines, and Burma, are known for
large sex tourism industries (Miko, 2003).
Anti-trafficking law in India
The Suppression of Immoral Traffic Act
1956 (SITA), amended as the Immoral
Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA) in 1978
and later in 1986, was in response to the
ratification of the International Convention
on Suppression of Immoral Traffic and
Exploitation of Prostitution of Others in
1950. The ITPA toughened penalties for
trafficking in children, particularly by
focusing on traffickers, pimps, landlords,
and brothel operators, while protecting
underage girls as victims. The Government
of India has therefore recently attempted to
amend the law and absolve the sex
workers of the offence of soliciting or
seducing by deleting Section 8 of the act
even though it complicated the matter by
suggesting exemplary punishment for the
clients under a new section 5C. These legal
definitions reflect a concerted effort to
move away from traditional perspectives
that narrowly defined trafficking as the
movement or recruitment of women or
girls into the sex sector and toward a
broader understanding of the problem as
also involving the exploitation of women,
men, and children in non-sex sectors.
Apart from the ITPA, trafficking of
women and children for sexual
exploitation is covered under several other
sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC),
namely, 366A (Procuration of Minor Girls
Under 18 Years of Age), 366B
(Importation of Girls Under 21 Years of
Age From a Foreign Country), 367
(Kidnapping and Abduction for Slavery,
Unnatural Lust, etc.), 372 (Selling of
Minor Girls for Prostitutions), 373
(Buying of Minor Girls for Prostitutions).
Anti-trafficking programs can cause
damage by putting restrictions (sometimes
unlawful) on young women‘s decisions to
migrate, to travel or even leave the
parental house (Friesendorf, 2007).
Modern-day anti-prostitution feminists and
their conservative and religious allies have
