WHAT IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING: Human trafficking is the illegal use of force, deception, or compulsion to gain labor or a commercial sex act. Millions of men, women, and children are trafficked every year across the world. Victims might be of any age, ethnicity, gender, or nationality, and it can happen in any society. To attract victims into trafficking situations, traffickers may employ violence, manipulation, or false promises of well-paying jobs or personal relationships.
CAUSES: Poverty, societal or cultural practices, and migration are the primary causes of human trafficking. Other factors include the permeable nature of borders, corrupt government officials, involvement of transnational organized crime groups or networks, and immigration and law enforcement agents’ weak capacity or willingness to police borders.
Girls trained for sexual exploitation; males duped into accepting risky employment offers and locked in forced labor on construction sites, farms, or factories; and women recruited to work in private houses only to be trapped, exploited, and abused behind closed doors with no way out.
Human trafficking does not need those people to be trafficked across boundaries. In truth, trafficking is not defined by transporting or moving the victim; it can happen anywhere, including inside a single country or even a single community.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN NUMBERS:
>Women account for 51% of trafficking victims, followed by children (28%), and males (21%).
>Women account for 72 percent of those exploited in the sex industry.
>Men made up 63% of detected traffickers, while women made up 37%.
>Domestically, 43% of victims are trafficked within national borders.
WHO IS AFFECTED: Human trafficking is estimated to afflict between 20 and 65 million persons in India. Women and girls are transported inside the country for commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage, particularly in locations where the gender ratio is heavily skewed toward men. A large number of youngsters are compelled to work as factory laborers, household servants, beggars, and farm laborers, while some are used as child soldiers by rebel or terrorist groups.
Women and girls from neighboring countries are frequently brought into India for sexual exploitation. For the same reason, Indian women are trafficked to the Middle East. Indian migrants who willingly migrate to the Middle East and Europe in search of employment as domestic servants and low-skilled laborers may become victims of the country’s human trafficking sector, resulting in forced labor or debt bondage.
Despite being the world’s largest democratic republic, India suffers from widespread poverty and a lack of sufficient education, which leads to a slew of human rights violations, particularly against women and girls.
THE MOST DANGEROUS COUNTRY FOR WOMEN IN THE WORLD?: According to a poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, which surveyed 548 experts on six different indices, including healthcare, discrimination, cultural traditions, sexual and non-sexual violence, and human trafficking, India was dubbed “the world’s most dangerous country for women” last year, ahead of Afghanistan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. This survey has been extensively panned in India, with many questioning how countries with significantly fewer rights for women, such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, performed better. The country’s National Commission for Women flatly disputed it, claiming that rape, harassment, human trafficking, and other types of violence against women appear to have increased in India as a result of increased public outcry.
EXAMPLE OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING:Forced Labor: In Nepal, a family cannot afford to care for their child, so they give him up to an adoption agency. He is subsequently sold to a sweatshop owner, who compels the boy to sew clothing for hours each day without remuneration. The child has no access to food and does not attend school.
Sex trafficking: Two Indian women are brought to Iraq under the guise of being hired as waiters or hostesses. They are kidnapped and forced into prostitution when they arrive, and their kidnapper has all control over the money they get.
Debt Bondage: A young Indian woman has racked up a mountain of credit card debt and is desperate to pay it off. A man claiming to be an employment representative offers her a position as a domestic worker in the United States. She arrives in San Francisco with a valid visa, but it is confiscated from her along with her passport. She is taken to a residence where she is restricted in her movements. She is then told that unless she works as a cleaner to pay off her travel expenses, her family will be slaughtered.
Child Sex Trafficking: A 15-year-old boy flees his Punjab family and lives on the streets in Mumbai. He gets persuaded by a pimp, who forces him to join a prostitution ring and then controls all of the proceeds.
AFTER EFFECTS: Mental and physical illnesses such as melancholy, anxiety, PTSD, HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis, and STDS are among the consequences of human trafficking.
RELEVANT LAWS: The Indian government has enacted several pieces of legislation to combat human trafficking. Article 23 of the Constitution outlaws human trafficking and forced labor, and Article 24 prohibits the employment of children in workplaces. Traffickers can face up to ten years in prison and a fine under sections of the IPC such as 366A, 366B, 370, and 374, among others. The Juvenile Justice Act, the Information Technology (IT) Act, the Immoral Traffic Act, the Prevention of Child Labor Act, and the Bonded Labor (Abolition) Act are just a few of the laws aimed at punishing human trafficking.
CONCLUSION: India’s efforts to protect victims of human trafficking differ by state, but many remain ineffective. Because government officials do not actively seek for and rescue such unfortunate people, only a small number of victims receive financial support. There are no shortages of connected laws in the country, but there is a problem with inadequate awareness and law enforcement. India does not regulate social media, which is being utilized as a new channel for human trafficking. Inadequate coverage leads to insufficient data. That is where we have to start.
ENDNOTES: https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-human-trafficking
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