CHILD TRAFFICKING IN INDIA

By Shubham Bajaj, UILS

Child Trafficking is one of the biggest cartel of organized crimes India. Every 4 minutes, a child is
abducted or lured into assurances of getting a job in urban areas. It is alarming to realize that by
the time this article meets it end, as many as 10 children would have lost their lives to the
menace of trafficking. According to UNICEF, a child victim of trafficking is "any person under 18 who
is recruited, transported, transferred, harboured or received for the purpose of exploitation, either
within or outside a country". It is the 3 rd most profitable industry in the world and unlike other crimes, it
is prevalent both in developed as well as developing countries. Children under the age of 18 are lured,
abducted and manipulating into opting for prostitution, used for organ trade, regulated for cheap or
unpaid labor, illegal adoptions or forced marriages.

NGOs estimate that around 12,000 - 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the country
annually from neighboring states for sex trade, mostly from Bangladesh and Nepal. 200,000 Nepalese
girls under the age of 16 years are in prostitution in India. Around 1,000 to 1,500 Indian children are
trafficked out of the country every year to Saudi Arabia for begging during the Hajj period.  Andhra
Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu have the largest number of people trafficked. Intra
state/inter district trafficking is soaring in Rajasthan, Assam, Meghalaya, Bihar, UP, Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. Delhi and Goa are the major receiver states. In 2008, 529 girls
were trafficked to Delhi from Assam alone. The demand for live-in maids in urban areas of the country is
on the uphill, as a result, trafficking is on the rise too. Children living in under-developed, uneducated
areas of slums are trafficked more, as even their parents sell or send their children to the homes of
riches in hope of getting a job or earn some money of their own.

Numbers suggests that most numbers of trafficked children are forced into prostitution, causing them to
lead a miserable life with deprivation of even basic rights. They are coerced, beaten up, blackmailed,
and harassed by traffickers or even people who visit them. Even 3 year olds are being trafficked across
the country for flesh trade. Heinous might fall short of explaining what a grave intensity of inhuman
crime this is. Falling sex ratio in North India induces a higher demand for females needed for marriages,
consequently, more females are trafficked from the under developed states of India. It is a vicious cycle
involving the richest and the poorest of all, poorest of poor are forced to sell their children and the
riches are willing to buy them for their own selfish agendas.

To fights this, the Government of India procured a law called “Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women
and Girls Act, 1956,” which was based on the guidelines of “International Convention for Suppression of
Immoral Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of others”. This Act was further
amended in 1986, and changed to “Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1986”. The act defines child as
any person who has completed eighteen years of age. The first section of the act has provisions that
outline the illegality of prostitution and the punishment for owning a brothel or a similar establishment,
or for living off earnings of prostitution as is in the case of a pimp. Section 5 of the act states that if a
person procures, induces or takes a child for the purpose of prostitution then the prison sentence is a
minimum of seven years but can be extended to life. To ensure that the people in the chain of trafficking
are also held responsible the act has a provision that states that any person involved in the recruiting,
transporting, transferring, harbouring, or receiving of persons for the purpose of prostitution if guilty of
trafficking. In addition any person attempting to commit trafficking or found in the brothel or visiting the
brothel is punishable under this law.