HUMAN TRAFFICKING

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Human Trafficking is the trade of people, whether men or women for the purpose of earning money through engaging those people into various works like sexual slavery, labor etc. People from all over the world; whether men or women; kid or an adult are involved in Human Trafficking. The two categories of people involved are the Victims and the Traffickers.

THE VICTIMS

Victims of human trafficking are frequently lured by false promises of a lucrative job, stability, education, or a loving relationship. Victims can be men or women, adults or children, foreign nationals or normal citizens. While they share the trait of vulnerability, victims have diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, varied levels of education, and may be documented or undocumented.

Victims face many challenges in accessing help. Their traffickers may confiscate their identification documents and money. They may not speak English. They may not know where they are, because they have been moved frequently. They are often not allowed to communicate with family or friends. And they may have trouble trusting others, due to their traffickers’ manipulation and control tactics.

THE TRAFFICKERS

Traffickers lure and ensnare people into forced labor and sex trafficking by manipulating and exploiting their vulnerabilities. Human traffickers recruit, transport, harbor, obtain, and exploit victims – often using force, threats, lies, or other psychological coercion. Traffickers promise a high-paying job, a loving relationship, or new and exciting opportunities. In other cases, they may kidnap victims or use physical violence or substance abuse to control them.

Traffickers employ a variety of control tactics, including physical and emotional abuse, sexual assault, confiscation of identification and money, isolation from friends and family, and even renaming victims. Often, traffickers identify and leverage their victims’ vulnerabilities in order to create dependency. They make promises aimed at addressing the needs of their target in order to impose control. As a result, victims become trapped and fear leaving for myriad reasons, including psychological trauma, shame, emotional attachment, or physical threats to themselves or their children’s safety.

 

Criminalization of Human Trafficking

The definition contained in article 3 of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol is meant to provide consistency and consensus around the world on the phenomenon of trafficking in persons. Article 5 therefore requires that the conduct set out in article 3 be criminalized in domestic legislation. Domestic legislation does not need to follow the language of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol precisely, but should be adapted in accordance with domestic legal systems to give effect to the concepts contained in the Protocol.

In addition to the criminalization of trafficking, the Trafficking in Persons Protocol requires criminalization also of:

  • Attempts to commit a trafficking offence
  • Participation as an accomplice in such an offence
  • Organizing or directing others to commit trafficking.

National legislation should adopt the broad definition of trafficking prescribed in the Protocol. The legislative definition should be dynamic and flexible so as to empower the legislative framework to respond effectively to trafficking which:

  • Occurs both across borders and within a country (not just cross-border)
  • Is for a range of exploitative purposes (not just sexual exploitation)
  • Victimizes children, women and men (Not just women, or adults, but also men and children)
  • Takes place with or without the involvement of organized crime groups.

TYPES

Trafficking of children

Trafficking of children involves the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation. commercial sexual exploitation of children can take many forms, including forcing a child into prostitution or other forms of sexual activity or child pornography. Child exploitation may also involve forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, the removal of organs, illicit international adoption, trafficking for early marriage, recruitment as child soldiers, for use in begging or as athletes (such as child camel jockeys or football players).

International Organization for Migration statistics indicate that a significant minority (35%) of trafficked persons it assisted in 2011 were less than 18 years of age, which is roughly consistent with estimates from previous years. It was reported in 2010 that Thailand and Brazil were considered to have the worst child sex trafficking records.

Traffickers in children may take advantage of the parents’ extreme poverty. Parents may sell children to traffickers in order to pay off debts or gain income, or they may be deceived concerning the prospects of training and a better life for their children. They may sell their children into labor, sex trafficking, or illegal adoptions.

Sex trafficking

Sex trafficking affects 4.5 million people worldwide. Most victims find themselves in coercive or abusive situations from which escape is both difficult and dangerous.

Trafficking for sexual exploitation was formerly thought of as the organized movement of people, usually women, between countries and within countries for sex work with the use of physical coercion, deception and bondage through forced debt. However, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (US) does not require movement for the offence. The issue becomes contentious when the element of coercion is removed from the definition to incorporate facilitation of consensual involvement in prostitution. For example, in the United Kingdom, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 incorporated trafficking for sexual exploitation but did not require those committing the offence to use coercion, deception or force, so that it also includes any person who enters the UK to carry out sex work with consent as having been “trafficked.”] In addition, any minor involved in a commercial sex act in the US while under the age of 18 qualifies as a trafficking victim, even if no force, fraud or coercion is involved, under the definition of “Severe Forms of Trafficking in Persons” in the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.

Forced marriage

A forced marriage is a marriage where one or both participants are married without their freely given consent. Servile marriage is defined as a marriage involving a person being sold, transferred or inherited into that marriage .According to End Child Prostitution in Asian Tourism (ECPAT), “Child trafficking for forced marriage is simply another manifestation of trafficking and is not restricted to particular nationalities or countries”.

A forced marriage qualifies as a form of human trafficking in certain situations. If a woman is sent abroad, forced into the marriage and then repeatedly compelled to engage in sexual conduct with her new husband, then her experience is that of sex trafficking. If the bride is treated as a domestic servant by her new husband and/or his family, then this is a form of labor trafficking.

Labor trafficking

Labor trafficking is the movement of persons for the purpose of forced labor and services. It may involve bonded laborinvoluntary servitudedomestic servitude, and child labor. Labor trafficking happens most often within the domain of domesticworkagricultureconstructionmanufacturing and entertainment; and migrant workers and indigenous people are especially at risk of becoming victims. People smuggling operations are also known to traffic people for the exploitation of their labor, for example, as transporters.

Trafficking for organ trade

Trafficking in organs is a form of human trafficking. It can take different forms. In some cases, the victim is compelled into giving up an organ. In other cases, the victim agrees to sell an organ in exchange of money/goods, but is not paid (or paid less). Finally, the victim may have the organ removed without the victim’s knowledge (usually when the victim is treated for another medical problem/illness – real or orchestrated problem/illness). Migrant workers, homeless persons, and illiterate persons are particularly vulnerable to this form of exploitation. Trafficking of organs is an organized crime, involving several offenders.

Trafficking for organ trade often seeks kidneys. Trafficking in organs is a lucrative trade because in many countries the waiting lists for patients who need transplants are very long.

India

The Government of India penalizes trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation through the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA), with prescribed penalty of seven years’ to life imprisonment. India also prohibits bonded and forced labor through the Bonded Labor Abolition Act, the Child Labor Act, and the Juvenile Justice Act.

Indian authorities also use Sections 366(A) and 372 of the Indian Penal Code, prohibiting kidnapping and selling minors into prostitution respectively, to arrest traffickers. Penalties under these provisions are a maximum of ten years’ imprisonment and a fine.

Bonded labor and the movement of sex trafficking victims may occasionally be facilitated by corrupt officials. They protect brothels that exploit victims and protect traffickers and brothel keepers from arrest and other threats of enforcement.

The bulk of bonded labor heads for Middle East to emerging economies and there are several media reports which report on the illegal and inhumane trafficking of Indian workers.

India’s Central Bureau of Investigation incorporated anti-trafficking training, by Dr. Gilly McKenzie of the Interpol Trafficking and Organized Crime Division, into its standard curriculum.

The government does not break down these statistics by sections of the law, meaning that law enforcement data regarding trafficking offenses may be conflated with data regarding arrests of women in prostitution pursuant to Section 8 of the ITPA.

Protection in India

India’s efforts to protect victims of trafficking vary from state to state, but remain inadequate in many places. Victims of bonded labor are entitled to Rs. 11,842 (US $185) from the central government for rehabilitation, but this programme is unevenly executed across the country. Government authorities do not proactively identify and rescue bonded laborers, so few victims receive this assistance. Although children trafficked for forced labor may be housed in government shelters and are entitled to Rs. 23,684.96 ($370), the quality of many of these homes remains poor and the disbursement of rehabilitation funds is sporadic.

Some states provide services to victims of bonded labor, but non-governmental organizations provide the majority of protection services to these victims. The central government does not provide protection services to Indian victims trafficked abroad for forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Indian diplomatic missions in destination countries may offer temporary shelter to nationals who have been trafficked; but neither the central government nor most state governments offer any medical, psychological, legal or reintegration assistance to these victims.

Section 8 of the ITPA permits the arrest of women in prostitution. Although statistics on arrests under Section 8 are not kept, the government and some NGOs report that, through sensitization and training, police officers no longer use this provision of the law; it is unclear whether arrests of women in prostitution under Section 8 have actually decreased. Because most law enforcement authorities lack formal procedures to identify trafficking victims among women arrested for prostitution; some victims may be arrested and punished for acts committed as a result of being trafficked.

Some foreign victims trafficked to India are not subject to removal. Those who are subject to removal are not offered legal alternatives to removal to countries in which they may face hardship or retribution. NGOs report that some Bengali victims of commercial sexual exploitation are pushed back across the border without protection services. The government also does not repatriate Nepali victims; NGOs primarily perform this function. Many victims decline to testify against their traffickers due to the length of proceedings and fear of retribution by traffickers.

The Ministry of Labor and Employment displays full-page advertisements against child labor in national newspapers at periodic intervals. The government has also instituted pre-departure information sessions for domestic workers migrating abroad on the risks of exploitation. These measures include distinguishing between ‘Emigration Check Required’ (ECR) and ‘Emigration Check Not Required’ (ECNR) passports. ECR passport holders must prove to government authorities that they shall not be exploited when travelling abroad, if they wish to travel. Many Indian workers pay large sums of money to agents who facilitate their emigration outside the official channels and willingly emigrate despite the risks, drawn by the hope of higher salaries abroad. Therefore, a dream of better future often lures the people abroad and hence trafficking cannot entirely be prevented. India ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol 2011.

The Government of India launched an anti human trafficking web portal in February 2014 that they hope will be an effective way for interested parties to share information about this topic.

Human trafficking has truly become a global threat to vulnerable men, women, and children worldwide. It is an injustice that affects millions of people every year on every continent and at all socioeconomic levels. Human trafficking is a highly-organized and lucrative business, generating 150 billion USD per year, 99 billion of which is generated by sex trafficking within the prostitution industry. Human trafficking is not a threat just to the small countries but the big and powerful countries are as much affected by it. It affects and harms the women as well as the men. Many countries around the world have initiated actions, passed several Acts in order to curb this problem. But, the government cannot work alone on a topic like this. This is an internal process. This is something that happens in the small brothel around the corner, or a small kitchen on the street. This is something that affects a 40- yr old man and also affects a 12-year old girl. This is a national concept. It is we, the people of a country, who can stop this. And, we must stop this. Let’s make every “Victim” a “Survivor”.

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