While the media and the nation are focused on the brutal
sexual assault cases in New Delhi and Mumbai, what seems to have gone unnoticed
or less noticed is the steady increase in incidents of sex trafficking across
the country.
Human trafficking is a group of crimes
involving the exploitation of men, women and children for financial gains which
is violation of fundamental human rights. Victims are lured or abducted from
their homes and subsequently forced to work against their wish through various
means in various establishments, indulge in prostitution or subjected to
various types of indignities and even killed or incapacitated for the purposes
of begging and trade in human organs.
NCRB collects data under the following heads
of crimes related to human trafficking:
Indian Penal Code
(IPC) Crimes
(i)
Procuration of minor girls (section 366-A)
(ii) Importation
of girls from foreign country (Sec. 366-B)
(iii)
Selling of girls for prostitution
(Section-372)
(iv)
Buying of girls for prostitution (Section -373)
Special & Local
Laws (SLL) Crimes
(i)
Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act
1956 (PITA)
(ii)
Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006.
A total of 3,940 incidents of crimes under various provisions of laws
(for which data is being collected for this report) relating to human trafficking
were reported in the country during the year 2013 as compared to 3,554 during
the year 2012 recording an increase of 10.9% during the year 2013.
A trend line of incidents of human trafficking is showing a steady rising
during 2009 – 2013. From 2,848 cases relating to human trafficking reported
during 2009, it rose to 3,422 cases in 2010. It further rose to 3,517 cases in
2011, 3,554 cases in 2012 and 3,940 cases in 2013.
A large number of cases are reported under
Section 366-A for inducing minor girls (under 18 years) into trafficking for
sexual exploitation. As we can see from the table below, cases under various
categories .
West Bengal Reports Highest Cases
The highest number of
cases of sex trafficking is from West Bengal with 669 cases in 2013. But unlike
other states, West Bengal has more cases of procuration of minor girls than
PITA cases. Other states with high number of trafficking cases are Tamil Nadu,
Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala.
High
Convictions in U.P, Low Convictions in Maharashtra
The police arrested
25,730 people all over the country in 2010-12 for sex trafficking. Among
the persons arrested, 6,123 persons were convicted, a conviction rate of 24%.
If we discount North
Eastern states like Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland where there are few or no
arrests, Uttar Pradesh, with 73% conviction rate, tops the list. U.P. is
followed by Delhi with 68% but the number of arrests in U.P. and Delhi are not
as high compared to Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.
Kerala, despite being
a much smaller state than U.P., seems to have more persons involved in sex
trafficking – almost double from U.P. Karnataka also has a high number of
persons arrested for sex trafficking but could convict only about 27% of those
arrested.
A look at the states
with the worst conviction rates: 501 persons were arrested in Assam between
2010 and 2012 but the state has a conviction rate of 1%. Goa, Gujarat and
Odisha also have low conviction rates.
Maharashtra, which
recorded the highest arrests for sex trafficking for the period 2010-12, has a
conviction rate of 7% – one of the worst in the country.
Prevention
The Government of India continued its efforts
to prevent human trafficking. The MHA's Anti-Trafficking Cell continued
bimonthly inter-ministerial meetings on trafficking, which also included
participation of anti-trafficking officers from state governments. The MWCD's
inter-ministerial anti-trafficking committee held routine meetings regarding
the government's policy directives on trafficking. The MHA recognized certain
state governments for their efforts on human trafficking. The state governments
of Assam and Andhra Pradesh were each given awards of approximately the
equivalent of $3,500. The MOIA continued to conduct safe emigration awareness
campaigns. Some state government organized public awareness events.
From above data it is clear that, human
trafficking is increasing enormously day by day. More worrying is the fact that
minor girls are being trafficked increasingly. India needs to urgently more strengthen
its laws to protect its girls.
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