Hyderabad: Human trafficking came under the spotlight in August 1991 when Amrita Ahluwalia, an air hostess on an Indian Airlines flight from Hyderabad to Delhi noticed a 10-year-old girl consistently sobbing. On being asked, she told the air hostess that she had been married off to a person in his late 60s or early 70s and was being taken to the Gulf. The air hostess managed to prevent the girl from being taken out of the country and was instrumental in ensuring that her so-called husband was prosecuted. It is another matter that he jumped bail and left the country on a forged passport.
Soon after, instances of young boys between the ages of 4 and 10 years being sold to the Gulf millionaires for camel racing continued the spotlight on human trafficking and exploitation. These children were used as jockeys by tying them to the camel's back. The running speed of the camel depended on their fearful screaming. Some of them who were not securely tied fell off and got trampled upon. Those who managed to survive the race continued their arduous and uncertain life and were perhaps even sexually exploited.
More recently, workers in brick kilns have been found to be exploited by contractors. Some of these workers, including women and children are virtually treated as slaves and expected to work for hours together in inhuman conditions and are paid a pittance. In 2013, some brick kiln workers tried to escape from the clutches of the contractor. They were unfortunately caught and given the option of having one leg or hand chopped off!
Just a couple of days ago, a newspaper reported the courage of a young tribal girl Mansi Bariha working in a brick kiln on Rs 250 per week. When she and others wanted to leave, they were mercilessly beaten up by the contractor and his goons. Mansi managed to record the events, put it up on social media and when the recording went viral, it woke up the administration leading to the rescue of more than 6,000 brick kiln workers in Tamil Nadu.
Read: Covid-19 may push millions of children into child labour: UN report
Some of these instances suggest sexual exploitation of victims of human trafficking. A report of the United Nations suggests that about 70 per cent victims of human trafficking all over the world are women and girls. Why else would they be trafficked if not for sexual exploitation? There is no reason to believe that the women and children being trafficked in India is any less but whatever the percentage, it is totally unacceptable. Many of these victims of sexual exploitation are extremely poor and have taken loans which they cannot repay. There are several instances where, because of poverty, young children have been sold by their parents. There are also instances of young boys and girls being kidnapped and sold to a trafficking mafia.
Other forms of human trafficking go under somewhat sophisticated titles such as child marriage or child labour or even bonded labour which, I believe is nothing short of slavery. The latest form of human trafficking is cyber trafficking where young girls are seduced by traffickers and their agents over the internet and ultimately inducted in what is called the flesh trade. Since all the discussions and transactions are over the Internet, many victims are unable to identify the agents and contractors. This makes it difficult to apprehend the trafficker and even more difficult to successfully prosecute him or her.
The recent arrest of a female trafficker in Delhi points to the existence of trafficking mafia with a nexus with influential persons or authorities. This female trafficker is believed to have been operating in and around Delhi from 2000 onward and for almost 20 years her nefarious activities were carrying on either unchecked or she was unstoppable for some reason.
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The United Nations has launched a Blue Heart campaign to raise global awareness and initiative to fight human trafficking and its impact on society. A few days ago, World Day against Trafficking in Persons was observed and I had the occasion to participate in a webinar hosted by a renowned Hyderabad-based NGO called Prajwala. The views and experiences were aired of three survivors of human trafficking, who represent a forum of survivors called Aparajita. One of them had been sold into prostitution by her mother, another was enticed by a 'friend' while the third was brought to Delhi from Hyderabad and taken to a red-light area by an employee of the school in which she was studying. Their sharing of experiences certainly shook the participants, as did the sharing of experiences by several others from 14 different states across the country. Their tales were horrific, to say the least
What can we, as a society, do to stop human trafficking? As things stand today, it appears that this evil cannot be totally stopped but it surely can be controlled to a very large extent. It is the primary duty of a welfare state like ours to ensure that children and women are allowed to live a life of worth and dignity so that they are not exploited, whether for sexual purposes or otherwise. The law enforcement agencies must be far more vigilant than they have been so that the nexus between traffickers and influence peddlers is broken. These basic steps must be accompanied with a will to bring about a change. Shelter homes for survivors of human trafficking must be established as suggested by the three survivors but these must also be effectively supervised and monitored so that we do not have a recurrence of mass rapes as were being carried out in a shelter home in Muzaffarpur, run with some sort of political patronage and funds provided by the State.
Society has an extremely important role to play in all this and it is, I believe, the duty of all of us to ensure that we are alert and we must report every instance of child labour, bonded labour or any other form of trafficking which may or may not be related to sexual exploitation. Unless we react as a collective, this horrendous evil will consume a large number of our children and women. Surely, we cannot afford to let that happen.
Read: MHA asks states to set up more anti-human trafficking units amid COVID-19
