Imagine yourself in a situation of perpetual poverty, you don’t have money to foster your families, or to educate your children for handling your household finances. Meanwhile, a person comes and promises you to give you a job that will cease all your difficulties and lead you towards a happy life. In the hope of getting a job believing in someone words, you move towards a new city for giving a fresh start to your career. But, then something happened that you never dreamt of, you find yourself in a honey trap, locked in a room for three months and then you are forced to be a part of the sexual market that wakes up in the midnight in the silence of the city. You try to escape somehow, but those inhuman have not left any iota of hope for getting out of this mud. Eventually, you find yourself emotionally and physically slackening everything and then you surrender yourself. This above story is not at all any hypothetical story, it’s a harsh reality to our humanity. We define this act as human trafficking.UN defines human trafficking as ‘‘trafficking is activity leading to recruitment, transportation, harboring or receipt of persons, employing threat or use of force or a position of vulnerability[1]’’ in simple terms selling or trapping any person by use of nefarious or coercive acts and exploiting them sexually, economically and physically. The entire world is witnessing this billion-dollar illicit industry. Edmund burke very well said – ‘‘slavery is a weed that grows on every soil’’ India is acting as a hub for these traffickers in the Asia-pacific region. Human trafficking comes with many forms, few of those are:
●
Bonded
labour
●
Forced
marriages
●
Child
labour
●
Sexual
trafficking
●
Domestic
servitude
●
Illegal
organ trade
Most of
the victims of human trafficking are find amidst us in our day-to-day
surroundings.You must have seen children working in a tea stall, for begging
purposes in traffic areas, in highways many of them are victims of human
trafficking. Many times their parents sell them for illegal business for some
money. No doubt this is the most heinous act that anyone can do, but it exists,
it is the harsh reality of our humankind. According to a report by
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANISATION (ILO) in 2016, there is a gobsmacking number
of humans indulged in this traffic[2],
it is estimated that 40.3 million people fall under modern slavery, including
24.9 million under forced labor and 15.4 million in forced marriages. It's very
astonishing to note that 1 in 4 victims of slavery are children, out of 24.9
million 4.9 million people are victims of sexual trafficking. When we see these
mindboggling numbers of people as a victim of human trafficking, an obvious
question strikes to our mind that what the government is doing, is there any
law for tackling such wicked act. The answer to this is yes, we have laws
enacted for tackling these crimes, but we all know the gap between enactment
and implementation of law in our country. We have lump of laws like IMMORAL
TRAFFICKING PREVENTION ACT(ITPA) which penalizes commercial sexual exploitation
and punishes an offender with a punishment which can extend up to 7 years, we
have BONDED LABOUR ABOLITION ACT which prohibits bonded laboring, CHILD LABOUR
ACT which no doubt is a milestone in preventing child labor. Child labor is
something that we are still struggling with. Human traffickers find making
children their prey very easy, whenever there is any disaster or conflicts like
that of Rohingyas a new market opens for human traffickers. In the very recent
Rohingyas strike many children went missing, nobody knows the whereabouts of
those children, they may have been sold. According to a report by NATIONAL
CRIME RECORD BUREAU (NCRB) [3]
every 8 minutes, a child misses India. In India, our eastern[4] part
act as a hub for those traffickers, because of the fact that we have a very
porous border in our eastern region so smuggling and trafficking becomes very
easy for them. Ministry of women and child development in a report[5] claimed
that 20,000 women and children were victims in the year 2016 which showed a 25%
rise from 2015 reports. The number of cases above mentioned are the cases that
have been registered in police stations but the actual figure could be much
gobsmacking as many victims didn’t register their cases because in many cases
they didn’t know the law and in case if they know then they are under fear of
traffickers. One of the main reason that people easily fall prey to human
trafficking is lack of awareness and education .so govt of India must ensure to
have proper awareness camp for prevention of human trafficking .we as a citizen
too holds a duty to aware people about this trafficking and inform police and
concerned authority whenever we feel that someone is being trapped in this business.
what is the meaning of humanity if it is not meant for helping others and
uplifting others. martin Luther king very well said – ‘‘our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that
matter’’ so come forward and help them whom you find getting into this
trap.
Very insightful and well researched.
ReplyDeleteKeep it Up Rahul !!