Child Trafficking - Wisdom Crux

[Volume 2; Issue 10]

Author- Kumari Megha, BA.LLB, Chanakya National Law University .

Human trafficking is the third largest commercial industry in the whole world. Child trafficking is not like any other issues which are found in both developed and developing nations. Children trafficked are used for prostitution, forceful marriage, illegally adoption, cheap or unpaid labour, also for sport and organ harvesting. Some of them are recruited into armed groups. Trafficking not only exposes children to violence but also to abuse, neglect and exploitation. According to UNICEF, a child victim of human trafficking is “any person who is under 18 years and who is recruited, transported, transferred, harboured or received for the purpose of exploitation, within or outside a country”. Trafficking is one of the cruel and hard crimes to track and investigate hence, data is hard to gather. The latest figures estimate that child prostitution has the highest supply of trafficked children.

India is a basic source and destination, for trafficking for many such purposes like commercial sexual exploitation. Most of the trafficking takes place inside the country but there are also a very large number trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh according to the research. Child trafficking is defined as “any person under 18 who is recruited, transported, transferred, and received for the purposes of exploitation, misuse, abuse, mistreatment, manipulation, etc either within or outside a country”[ref] “Vulnerable Children – Child Trafficking India”. www.childlineindia.org.in. [/ref]. In many cases, children just disappear overnight, in like every eight minutes, as according to the data of National Crime Records Bureau[ref] Shah, Shreya (16 October 2012). “India’s Missing Children, By the Numbers” [/ref]. In a number of cases, children have been taken from their homes to be bought and sold in the market. Whereas In other cases, children are tricked by the hands of traffickers by giving an opportunity for a job, but in reality, as soon as they leave their homes they become enslaved. In India, child trafficking has been happening for various reasons such as labour, begging, and sexual mistreatment. Because of the temperament of this crime; it is tough to track; and due to the lack of enforcement of laws, it is difficult to put off[ref] Harlan, Emily K. “It Happens in the Dark: Examining Current Obstacles to Identifying and Rehabilitating Child Sex-Trafficking Victims in India and the United States.” University of Colorado Law Review, vol. 83, 01 July 2012, p. 1113. [/ref]. And Because of this situation, it is difficult to have exact figures concerning this issue. India is a peak area for child trafficking to take place, as many of those who are trafficked are from, travel, through or destined to go to India. Although a majority of the child trafficking occurs inside the country, there is as well a considerable number of children trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh[ref] “Vulnerable Children – Child Trafficking India”. www.childlineindia.org.in. [/ref]. There are numerous causes that show the way to child trafficking, with the crucial reason being poverty and fragile law enforcement. The traffickers that gain benefit of children can be from different area in India, or also could even know the child personally. Children who come back home after being trafficked frequently face dishonor from their communities, rather than being welcomed at home. As the origin of profitable sexual exploitation and child trafficking in India is because of poverty, need of education, and the need to carry their family[ref] Sarkar, Siddhartha (3 September 2014). “Rethinking Human Trafficking in India: Nature, Extent and Identification of Survivors”. The Round Table. 103 (5): 483–495. doi:10.1080/00358533.2014.966499 – via Taylor and Francis+NEJM. [/ref]. The unemployment rate in India is far above the ground and there are also not so many financial opportunities. When children are presented work they are prone to be taken advantage of, or children in poverty have to traffic sex for a place to live or food. So as to get out of hardships, some parents have even sold their children to traffickers. Children are frequently trafficked by gangs and power to beg on the streets[ref] Sarkar, Siddhartha (3 September 2014). “Rethinking Human Trafficking in India: Nature, Extent and Identification of Survivors”. The Round Table. 103 (5): 483–495. doi:10.1080/00358533.2014.966499 – via Taylor and Francis+NEJM. [/ref]. One of the other reasons is that India has an open, tolerate and unregulated border with the country, Nepal. The highest rates of human trafficking takes place in Nepal[ref] Child Trafficking in South Asia [/ref]. In a number of parts of India, young girls are forced into the requirement system on Devadasi where they are “forced into a lifetime of ritual sex slavery” and inclined to an elder of the village to be their concubine[ref] Sarkar, Siddhartha (3 September 2014). “Rethinking Human Trafficking in India: Nature, Extent and Identification of Survivors”. The Round Table. 103 (5): 483–495. doi:10.1080/00358533.2014.966499 – via Taylor and Francis+NEJM. [/ref]. Children have also been trafficked because of the demand by tourists. So many people travel from countries where there are basically strict enforcements on Child Trafficking, as well as it is heavily frowned upon and socially not accepted, to India in search of child prostitutes[ref] “Major Forms of Trafficking in Persons”. [/ref].

Involuntary Domestic Servitude

Children are very exposed when it comes to Domestic servitude. Often children are told that they will be offered tremendous wages to work as a maid in middle-class houses, but they generally end up being harshly underpaid, abused, and every now and then sexually assaulted[ref] “Major Forms of Trafficking in Persons”. [/ref]. This specific type of trafficking is difficult to discover because it takes in the places like inside private homes where there is no public enforcement. Every year more than thousands of girls are trafficked from rural India to labor as maids in the urban areas[ref] Denyer, Simon (19 January 2013). “India turns blind eye to trafficking, rape of child maids” – via www.washingtonpost.com. [/ref].

Forced Child Labor

Lawfully, children in India are accepted to do light work, but they are time and again trafficked for bonded labor, and domestic work, and far beyond what is allowed in the country. Children are also forced to work as bonded laborers and stone quarries to pay off the money and clear the family debts owed to moneylenders, employers and masters. They are also often forced to work, in the use of contraptions that bound them to be not able to escape and then forced to surrender to control. While the others may be bound to work by physical, emotional, or sexual abuse[ref] “UNGIFT.ORG”. www.ungift.org. [/ref]. Children from rural areas in India transfer or are trafficked for employment or job in industries, such as spinning mills, cottonseed making, labor-intensive work, domestic work in family homes, stone quarrying, brick kilns and tea gardens and many other things, where they are also forced to work in hazardous environments for little or no pay[ref] https://www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/images/ilab/child-labor/India.pdf [/ref]. They are children who lose all freedom, being thrown into the workforce, forcefully becoming slaves, and losing their childhood.

Illegal activities

Mostly the children over adults are frequently preferred to be trafficked for unlawful activities like as begging and organ trade, as they are more vulnerable and defenseless. And not only are these children are being forced to beg for money, but a large number of those on the streets have had limbs forcibly amputated for the benefit of their owners, or even acid poured into their eyes to blind them by gang masters. Those who are injured be inclined to make more money, which is why they are often ill-treated in this way[ref] Child beggars in India Archived June 8, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. [/ref]. Organ trade is also common, when traffickers deceive or force children to give up an organ.

Child Soldiers

UNICEF estimates that more than 3,00,000 children who are under 18 years old are currently being subjugated in over 30 armed conflicts worldwide. As known the majority of child soldiers are between the ages of 15 and 18, but also some are as young as 7 or 8 years of age[ref] https://www.unicef.org/protection/armedconflict.html [/ref]. A great number of children are abducted to make them soldiers. While the others are used to work as porters, cooks, guards, servants, messengers, or spies[ref] “What Is Trafficking in Persons?”. [/ref]. Number of these young soldiers is still being sexually exploited which generally ends with unwanted and sexually transmitted diseases. Some children have also been asked and ordered to commend atrocities against their families and communities. In which many of the child soldiers are killed and injured, while the survivors are suffering from multiple traumas and psychological problem. After this their personal development is generally irreparably damaged. Their families and communities reject returning child soldiers. According to the reports which show that children were forced to join children’s units (“Bal Dasta”), where they were taught and used as couriers and informants, to set improvised explosive devices and in front-line operations against national security forces[ref] “India – United Nations Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict”. [/ref].

Children Exploited for Commercial Sex

Sexual exploitation is a theme that is faced by number of developing countries and is termed as “the sexual abuse of children and youth through the exchange of sex or sexual acts for drugs, food, shelter, protection, other basics of life, and/or money”. Children that are subjugated for profitable sex are subject matter to transactions for child pornography and child prostitution. The Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE) of women and children earns just approx. 400 million US Dollars annually in the city of Mumbai alone. Although it is tough in itself to manage accurate numbers for exactly how many children are trafficked, studies and surveys sponsored by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) estimates that there are about three million prostitutes in the country, of which an estimated 40 per cent are children, as there is a increasing demand for vastly young girls to be inducted in the prostitution on account of customer preferences[ref] “Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Mumbai – International Justice Mission – India”. www.ijmindia.org. [/ref]. There are so many horrifying and disturbing consequences these children experience from being sexually subjugated. Not only limited to, STDs, unwanted pregnancy, abuse, and even death also. Also tourists are going to come to India in developing countries searching and looking to participate in sexual activities with children and for accessible child prostitutes.

Controlling of Trafficking

Preclusion of human trafficking needs many types of interventions. Prevention as a tactic to fight trafficking need to focus on areas of sensitization and awareness amid the public, especially those defenseless pockets of trafficking at basis areas as well as union of a development services to avert conditions responsible for it[ref] Ministry of Women and Child Development, Govt. of India, www.wcd.nic.in [/ref].

Role of State

Government at local rank and basic areas should provide compulsory high quality education, employment break and income generation plan.
Government should also make relevant IEC materials; promote sensible programmes for teachers in all the government schools, parents and community members.
Government need to include gender centered education curriculum in schools and provide information and education on child sexual abuse and child trafficking.
The government of all nations needs to share the information and work with each other to evolve and upgrade the programme that will help all the countries in preventing trafficking.

Role of NGOs

The community and society should be sensible about trafficking. The community members should also motivate each other to keep a watch in the society for unbalance movement of child victims to and from area their possible traffickers and hideouts.
NGOs working in the rural areas need to provide the information to the parents about aware of safe migration practices.

Role of Media

The media should transfer appropriate and necessary message to ensure that the victims get to know that they are not alone.
Knowledge of the availability of various institutions should be made to the victims.
Create awareness about the heinous crime and that human trafficking is illegal and has many negative consequences.
Information regarding the legal provisions, penal provisions against trafficking and the modus operandi of the traffickers[ref] SANLAAP, 1997, A Study on Child Prostitution in West Bengal: The Velvet Blouse, Kolkatta. [/ref].

Awareness and Advocacy

The role of gender equality in day to day life and training activities for gender euality must be conducted by NGOs. The important step to prevent trafficking in children and their exploitation in prostitution is awareness and seriousness among the children, parents and school teachers.
The government should launch campaigns that promote children’s right and abolition of exploitation and all other forms of child labour.
Police advocacy is an important involvement that has to be considered.

Conclusion

Human Trafficking, especially children, is one of the forms of modern day slavery and requires a description, multi-sectoral approach to know the complexity of the problem[ref] HAQ, Centre for Child Rights, 2001, Child Trafficking in India [/ref]. This problem, that violates the rights and dignity of the victims and destroys their lives and therefore needs essentially a child rights view while working on its removal. Law is not the only thing to take care of this problems but government organizations, non-governmental organizations, civil society, pressure groups, international bodies need to perform their duties to eradicate this heinous crime.