Explained | What has India done to address child trafficking?

The story so far: “There are 160 million children waiting for your action. How long will they have to wait?” asked Kinsu Kumar, a survivor of child labour and rights advocate, while speaking at a panel organised on the occasion of World Day Against Child Labour. Mr. Kumar started working at the age of six, sometimes as a car cleaner, and other times as a domestic help, to contribute to the income of his family, who lived in Uttar Pradesh's Mirzapur.

A similar story plays out for one in 10 children globally. Child labour — a form of modern slavery — includes any work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that harms their physical or mental development, per the International Labour Organisation (ILO) definition. The practice includes, and is not limited to, trafficking, sexual exploitation, debt bondage, and exploitation in armed conflicts. 12% of those in forced labour are possibly children, ILO noted.

Child trafficking manifests in the form of domestic labour, forced child labour across industries, and illegal activities such as begging, organ trade and commercial sex purposes. Several reports since the 2020 lockdown have noted that the pandemic created a second crisis of child trafficking, with children being pushed into a vortex of “despair, disease and death.” Estimates show that children account for one in every three detected victims of trafficking worldwide; this rises to one in two in low-income countries. India, meanwhile, has pledged to eliminate child labour by 2025.

Child trafficking, in numbers

Eight children were trafficked every day in India n 2021 — for labour, begging and sexual exploitation — per data from the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). These numbers stood at 2,834 cases in 2018; 2,914 in 2019; 2,222 in 2020. Out of the total 4,700 people trafficked in 2020, 1,377 were minor boys and 845 were minor girls. 95% of the reported cases in 2019 were of internal trafficking. The sale of children happens across borders too, with key routes being India to Gulf States and South East Asian countries. One such practice happens in the name of ‘khadama', where girls go to Gulf countries to work as housemaids.

This data only includes confirmed cases of trafficking, which does not account for “missing children.” One child goes missing every eight minutes in India — with millions ending up in domestic slavery, sex work and forced labour. These figures are a “gross underestimate” of the true extent since NCRB data only includes cases reported to each State and Union Territory's Anti-Human Trafficking Unit. Cases often go unreported due to a lack of awareness about the modalities of trafficking, reluctance to seek police help and socio-economic deprivation. Moreover, less than 10% of the reported cases end up in convictions.

Minor girls in the age bracket 15-18 years are more vulnerable to trafficking, and believed to be in “greater demand” for the sex trade industry and domestic labour. “Poverty, hunger, and lack of work are the main reasons for this. The caste and community-based discrimination and unfair treatment in rural areas are also at the root of this problem,” Prashant Dubey, from the Awaaz Foundation, said in a report.

Externalities such as the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflict, and climate change catalyse precarity for children. “Children are at heightened risk of exploitation, especially since school closures have not only precluded many from access to education but also from a main source of shelter and nourishment…. Since their schools are closed, many children are increasingly online for learning and socialising. This may make them more vulnerable to online sexual predators,” the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime noted in a report outlining COVID's impact.

What has India done so far?

The 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report released by the U.S. Department of State categorises India as Tier 2 in terms of progress. It implies that India “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so.” Countries in tier 2 are those where a) the estimated number of victims is very significant or is significantly increasing and the country is not taking proportional concrete actions; b) the country has failed to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat rising cases.

India doesn't have a composite anti-trafficking law that addresses prevention, protection, rehabilitation and compensation of survivors. There are, however, separate regulations that address different crimes related to trafficking:

India set up Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) in 2007. AHTUs are tasked with “addressing the existing gaps in the law enforcement response,” “ensuring a victim-centric approach which ensures the ‘best interest of the victim/ survivor' and prevents ‘secondary victimization/ re-victimisation of the victim,” and developing databases on traffickers. For instance, an official at an AHTU would take a survivor to the destination State to identify the place of crime and the traffickers. As of 2022, 768 AHTUs are functional in the country; 20 out of 36 States and Union Territories have met the target of setting units across all districts.

The penalty for trafficking one minor involves imprisonment, from 10 years to life, along with a fine. For trafficking more than one minor, the penalty is life in prison and a fine.

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, revised Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with buying and selling of any person as a slave, to include the concept of human trafficking. Two sections — 370 and 370A — form the framework “to provide a comprehensive definition of human trafficking and also provide for strict punishment,” the Ministry of Home Affairs noted. However, the intervention has borne limited results: in 2016, India recorded a 25% increase in human trafficking cases in comparison to the previous year. India hasn't yet amended Section 370 of the Penal Code to remove the requirement of “force, fraud, or coercion” to prove a child sex trafficking crime. Moreover, experts caution that IPC's Section 370 is centred around the punishment of offenders and neglects compensation and rehabilitation aspects.

Prevailing challenges include a lack of coordination among AHTUs and disjointed operations by State and Central Governments. There is no comprehensive programme for tackling trafficking, an absent witness protection framework (the victim is also the witness) and challenges in accessing compensation. Section 357-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure mandates that governments have to “provide funds to compensate victims or their dependents who have suffered loss or injury as a result of the [trafficking] crime and who require rehabilitation.”

A 2020 study, however, found that some States had not created the fund; other States had falsified their data and these funds were severely underutilised. Victim compensation currently happens when a court recommends it or a trafficking victim files an application, but a lack of awareness about compensation and opaque documentation requirements bog down survivors.

What is the Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill?

In 2016, a Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill was proposed, and a version of this Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha in July 2018. The Bill lapsed in 2019 before it could be introduced in the Rajya Sabha due to the general elections.

The MWCD later published the Draft Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill in June 2021, with 11 chapters detailing measures to prevent, protect and rehabilitate victims. There are specified penalties for offences divided into “trafficking” and “aggravated trafficking”. The Bill built upon its 2018 iteration: it widened the scope of “victims” to include transgender persons and others, introduced mechanisms for the prevention and rehabilitation of victims (such as providing shelter and food) and extended the framework to include cross-border trafficking cases.

There was a marked focus on making the justice-seeking process easier and more “victim-centric.” The Bill proposes district- and State-level “anti-trafficking units” with designated police officers and a National Anti-Trafficking Bureau which looks after investigations involving two or more States. Investigations are required to be completed within 90 days of the offender's arrest, and there are appointed sessions courts for speedy trials — measures which could potentially address low conviction rates. The Bill, expected to be tabled in the parliament's 2022 monsoon session, was not brought up.

While an improvement, the Bill glosses over pockets where trafficking happens (such as during disasters and conflicts, during which children are particularly vulnerable) and may overlap with pre-existing laws, activists say. They also say the Bill violates the Juvenile Justice Act, for it places the “burden of proof” on the offender (the child, in this case) rather than the prosecuting agency, as is the norm. Moreover, while rehabilitation is included, survivors have urged the government to weave in community-based rehabilitation models allowing greater agency to the individual.

There is also a need to revisit existing laws, such as the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) 1986 Act, to plug legal holes around the minimum working age. Children between the ages of 14 and 18 are also vulnerable to exploitation; in domestic labour, people are “trafficked by placement agencies illegally operating in destination areas…. These children and their family are lured, enticed, induced by agents citing a better future and education for them,” a report noted.

This year's World Day Against Child Labour emphasised social injustices as the root causes of child labour and trafficking. Per ILO estimates, globally only 1.1% of GDP is spent on social protection for children. Civil societies have advocated for the need to cultivate awareness about different trafficking crimes, form targeted child protection schemes, provide survivors with psychological and emotional support systems during rehabilitation, and offer incentives to keep children in school.

Further, as ILO Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo said on June 12, “The antidote to poverty-driven child labour is decent work for adults, so they can support their families and send their children to school, not to work.”

• Child labour — a form of modern slavery — includes any work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that harms their physical or mental development, per the International Labour Organisation (ILO) definition
• Child trafficking manifests in the form of domestic labour, forced child labour across industries, and illegal activities such as begging, organ trade and commercial sex purposes.
• India doesn't have a composite anti-trafficking law that addresses prevention, protection, rehabilitation and compensation of survivors. There are, however, separate regulations that address different crimes related to trafficking