Gitali Borpatra Gohain
MACJ
Wikipedia says India is a source destination and transit
country for men, women and children trafficked for the purpose of forced labour
and commercial sexual exploitation. In this edition of my writing I take a
closer look at this growing problem of India.
Indian economy has grown tremendously over the past two
decades. The spot remarkable growth in the GDP and literacy rate India
continues to be overburdened for the highest number of child labourers, child
slaves and trafficked victims in the world. Non government estimates say the
problem of trafficking is affecting a huge chunk of India’s population ranging
between 20-60 million Indians. The worst victims of trafficking are children. The
children are used as cheap labour, domestic servants, beggars and many a times
for organ sales.
Children are the most vulnerable. There voices are not heard
because they are not the voters and the politics move around the voters so the
chidren are normally neglected in the overall political debate and discourse. The
second reason is that the whole dignity for children and dignity for childhood
has always been a non issue and always neglected one. No body is talking about
friendship with children or equal treatment to the children or dignity for
children. Some people who are so called nice people they use to do the charity with
the people and others try to exploit those poor children if they come from the
background of poverty and illiteracy. There is nothing in between whether you
do charity to the children or exploit them but how cant we consider them that
they are also equal human being and we have to treat them like equal human
being.
The issue of trafficking is not just confined to India but
children from neighboring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal are also brought
to India and sold to Middle East and European countries.
India is a big country geographically. We have lot of porous
and open borders. From Bangladesh children could be trafficked to India, from
Nepal children could be trafficked to India. The Nepalese could be trafficked
via india or through India to Gulf countries or to other countries. Similarily Bangladeshi
girls and boys are brought to India first and then they are sold off o other
countries in the middle east or other places. So it’s a source it’s a transit and
it’s a destination.
For example if I were to go to any person, I m taking my
daughter where she will be doing some light work in the house and she will be
living like a queen so u don’t have to worry at all and she will be send back
5000 rupees a month, even then I’m committing a crime of trafficking but in
substantive law this would be treated as abduction, moving of a person by
deceit or kidnapping because the consent of the parent has been obtained
fraudulently so or buying or selling of a person as a slave or all unlawful
compulsory labour or procurement of a child and a juvenile for the purpose of
hazardous employment. There are five to six different laws that are all
applicable in this scenario but none of then used over trafficking. So the problem
is we havethe laws but they are not very clear and therefore in the absece of
clarity the enforcement is very little.
Thus huge junk of India’s population is the victim of
trafficking.
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