Human trafficking is widespread and deeply ingrained in the fabric of society, especially in India. The path to eradication is complex and riddled with challenges. But the fight must continue
16-year-old Sikha (name changed to protect identity) comes from a remote village on the fringes of the Sundarbans, West Bengal. Two years ago, her aunt (father’s sister) “married” off the girl, a minor, to a boy in a neighbouring village.
Over the next few months, the ‘husband’ and the in-laws took turns in physically assaulting her every single day, and night. She was kept unfed, forced to do chores and not allowed to go out.
About a year-and-half after her so-called marriage, Sikha escaped in the dark of the night and came back to her family, with a battered and bruised soul and stories of unimaginable abuse and assault.
Even as Sikha struggles to move on and build a new life today, questions abound: was her aunt an agent? Can we say that Sikha had been trafficked? For the record, no ‘missing’ complaint was filed in the case. The nightmare that Sikha and her family lived through for two long years now exists in their minds only, not on paper.
20-year-old Mithu Kumar (name changed to protect identity), from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, has taken a very long time to understand why his father suddenly took him off school three years ago and sent him to work in a bangle factory in faraway Rajasthan.
A friendly neighbour had promised Mithu’s father that the boy would be able to earn around Rs 15,000-20,000 a month. The money never came. The ‘job’ experience for the then 17-year-old turned out to be days and months of less to eat, 20 hours of work and beatings and abuse if anyone dared to protest.
Mithu was rescued by the police and brought back home, along with several other boys from neighbouring districts of Bihar. Questions crop up again: What is it that help these so-called agents to function with impunity, under the eyes of the law?
While there are no direct answers forthcoming, socio-economic background often dictates the circumstances that breed what is referred to as trafficking. And it is this socio-economic background of vulnerable families that gives agents a sense of false power.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) defines human trafficking as the act of gathering, moving, receiving, or keeping human beings by threat, force, coercion, or deception, for exploitative purposes.
For as long as humans have existed, human trafficking has thrived. It happens in every corner of the world, and the advent of the internet has ensured that it is no longer contained by physical boundaries.
Delving into human history, across cultures and continents, slavery was legal, regulated, and common. It was often perpetrated by one people group onto another. However, in the 19th and 20th centuries, an international movement began to abolish slavery in all its forms.
Our understanding of and fight against human trafficking have grown out of these movements. Slavery is no longer legal anywhere in the world, but human trafficking still occurs in every country.
And, worst of all, according to the UN, children account for 27 per cent of all the human trafficking victims worldwide, and two out of every three child victims are girls.
Sometimes sold by a family member or an acquaintance, sometimes lured by false promises of education and a “better” life — the stark reality is children are held in slave-like conditions without enough food, shelter or clothing, and are often severely abused and cut off from all contact with their families. Mirrors what Sikha endured, or Mithu had to go through, right?
As an advocate of child rights and issues that thwart their safety and security, it is unfortunate to observe the plethora of misinformation among the communities about what trafficking is, and what it means for a child to be trafficked. Our experience on the ground tells us that it is this scant awareness that creates safe grounds for the “agents”.
The biggest myth: Traffickers target children they don’t know. In our intervention areas, among the communities that we work with, a majority of the time, children fall into the trap set by someone they know, such as a friend, family member or even their partners.
Sikha and her family were convinced that her aunt would only think of her well-being and not do her any harm. And even after the ordeal ended and the girl returned home, the family was not aware of what they needed to do to bring the culprits to book. They chose to forget, if not forgive. No action was taken against the “offenders” and the aunt was nowhere to be seen in the community.
Another prominent misconception is that only girls and women are sufferers. In reality, boys and men are just as likely to be at the receiving end. However, in many places, especially in a country like India, they are less likely to be identified and reported.
Girls and boys are often subject to different types of exploitation and servitude. For instance, girls may be taken away for forced marriage and sexual exploitation, while boys are more likely to be pushed into forced labour or even recruited into armed groups.
It is often assumed that trafficking involves travelling, transporting or moving a person across borders. Human/child trafficking is not the same thing as smuggling, which are two terms that are commonly confused.
Trafficking does not require movement across borders. In fact, in some cases, a child could be confined and exploited in his/her own home or that of a relative. We come back to Sikha and her two years in hell, all happening barely two kilometres from her home.
Child trafficking is abuse, exploitation and gross rights violation, in its worst form. It deprives children of what is rightfully theirs — a happy, healthy and safe childhood.
Worse still, the impact on individual lives and communities can linger for long. CRY (Child Rights and You) has addressed child trafficking with a two-pronged approach — preventive and responsive.
As preventive measures, we identify “vulnerable” families and children, link them to various social protection schemes and try to make them capable to deal with adverse situations, if any.
It is ensured that all children in intervention areas get enrolled in formal schools and attend classes regularly. Child protection committees in villages keep a watch on “vulnerable” families and children and also on “agents”. Children’s groups or collectives spread awareness on the issue.
The groups also serve as a platform for open discourse on trafficking, child labour, child marriage and more. Emphasis is on boosting coordination between village and district level officials, teachers, police, community leaders and the children’s collectives and creating a safety net to protect vulnerable targets.
In its response approach, we focus on advocacy for effective implementation of laws, programmes and policies, and coordination between functionaries of the juvenile justice system to ensure that have access to justice. The aim is to strengthen systems and processes in place for rescue, repatriation, rehabilitation and re-integration with mainstream.
The malaise is widespread and deeply ingrained in the fabric of society, especially in our country. The path to eradication is complex and riddled with challenges.
Accurate statistics are difficult to ascertain, and official figures may be misrepresentative of the numbers, diversity and lived experiences. But the fight needs to continue, in earnest. And, it’s time that government and non-government organisations join hands in the mission to wipe off the blot, once and for all.
Trina Chakrabarti is Regional Director, CRY – Child Rights and You (East)
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth
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