9/11/22, 9:17 PM Human Trafficking in India

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ANGELS IN THE FIELD, INDIA

Human Trafficking in India

13/10/2019

Women's rights

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Although illegal under Indian law, human trafficking

remains a significant problem in this country – and
women and girls pay the highest price

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Even though India is the world’s largest democratic republic, the country is plagued with human rights violations, especially against women and girls –
photo of illustration, licence: CC

According to estimates, human trafficking in India may affect

between 20 and 65 million people. Women and girls are trafficked
within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual
exploitation and forced marriage, especially in those areas where
the sex ratio is highly skewed in favour of men. A significant number
of children are subjected to forced labour as factory workers,
domestic servants, beggars, and agriculture workers, while others
have been used as child soldiers by insurgent or terrorist groups.

India is also a destination for women and girls from neighbouring

countries, smuggled for sexual exploitation. Indian women are also
trafficked to the Middle East for the same purpose. Indian migrants
who travel willingly to the Middle East and Europe for work as
domestic servants and low-skilled labourers may also end up in the
country’s human trafficking industry and into situations of forced
labour or debt bondage.

Even though India is the world’s largest democratic republic, the

country is plagued with widespread poverty and lack of proper
education, resulting in a myriad of human rights violations,
especially against women and girls. Privacy - Terms

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This culturally sanctioned degradation of women is

largely due to the prevalence of superstition, the
patriarchal society and the predominance of Hindu
myths.

The World’s Most Dangerous Country for Women?

Last year, India has been coined ‘the world’s most dangerous
country for women’, ahead of Afghanistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia,
according to a poll by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, which
surveyed 548 experts on six different indices, including healthcare,
discrimination, cultural traditions, sexual and non-sexual violence,
and human trafficking. This survey has been widely criticized in
India, with many questioning how countries such as Afghanistan and
Saudi Arabia, which grant far fewer rights to women, managed to
perform better. The country’s National Commission for Women
rejected it outright, pointing out that rape, harassment, human
trafficking and other forms of violence against women appear to
have risen in India because more cases are being reported, driven
by public outrage.

Students protest the rising violence against women in Delhi – photo: Nilroy (Nilanjana Roy), licence: CC

All the same, it is true that discrimination and violence against

women are ingrained in the Indian society. Discrimination starts at
birth, where many people think giving birth to a girl child is a curse. Privacy - Terms

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As a result female infanticides and sex-selective abortions are

widespread – activists have estimated that eight million female
foetuses might have been aborted in the past decade.
Discrimination continues in childhood, where Indian girls, rural girls
especially, are denied their rights to education – although literacy
rates are increasing, the female literacy rate still lags behind (65%
compared to 82%). Discrimination is still rampant in adulthood,
contributing to gender wage differentials, with Indian female
workers earning on average 64% of what their male counterparts
earn for the same occupation and qualification level.

Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, the father of the Indian Constitution, voiced

against the denial of education to women. However, despite their
constitutional rights to education, people continue to treat women
as sub-humans. Way back in the history of India, denial of education
to women, the practice of forced prostitution, child marriage, sati
(the practice of burning the widow along with her deceased
husband) and selling away the daughters in the markets were
widespread customary actions, all of them resulting in today’s
human rights violations.

Infants are being stolen for beggary and women enrolled in forced
prostitution; about 70,000 children are working as bounded labourer
in private mines while others are being used as domestic servants
after inheriting their parents’ debt; some of them are even being
sold to organ traffickers.

Until recent years, the problem of human trafficking had remained

unnoticed due to the high prevalence of rural poverty. Children from
tribal areas are at greater risk of human trafficking, including the
Kuki people from Manipur as well as the Nagas from the Northeast,
while the Jharkhand state and the Anantapur and Prakasam regions
of the Andhra Pradesh State are some areas prone to human
trafficking.

A Culture of Violence against Women

Women in India are also traumatized in less obvious ways. Their
oppression starts almost invisibly. It takes place in their homes,
within families, with girls being locked up in their own houses,
women being beaten by their husbands, by their fathers, by their
brothers.  This violence is the product of a culture that bestows all
power on men and denies women’s most essential rights. Among
men, many are those who look down on women and girls; girls are
trained in silence; they are told to have no opinions, no arguments, Privacy - Terms

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no conflicts. Their only choice is to live a life of silence that slowly

erodes their sense of self.

The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act that prevent commercial

sexual exploitation, the Bonded Labour Abolition Act, the Child
Labour Act and the Juvenile Justice Acts are in force in India but to
no avail. Because tt takes more than laws to change a culture which
serves as a breeding ground for violence against women, poverty,
and human trafficking. What we need is to reclaim our humanity
and open a national debate about this toxic patriarchal culture and
its repercussions.

 “For to be free is not to cast off one’s chains but to live

in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of
others” – Nelson Mandela.

Founded in 2014, Angels in the Field is a not-for-profit, grassroots

Indian humanitarian organization dedicated to promote well-being
and a lasting transformation of the vulnerable stratum of the
community. The organization serves children, families and
communities living in poverty and injustice regardless of religion,
caste, race, ethnicity or gender. Angels in the Field is a member of
the Dianova Network

Web site: https://angelsinthefield.org/

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