Trafficking survivors want more focus on justice than their testimonies

A 25-year-old woman from a village in Sathyamangalam, Tamil Nadu, had once aspired to be an engineer. After being trafficked and getting exploited as a factory worker and later rescued by an NGO, she only wishes to reach out to the government at the Centre and encourage others like her across India to fight a colossal crime that the society ignores.

After passing Class XII, her father, an alcoholic, discouraged her from enrolling in a college. A neighbour lured her to join a textile factory in Coimbatore, with the promise of a 9-to-5 job that could allow her to independently pursue higher education. But it proved to be hellish. The factory employed nearly 4,000 women workers, most of whom, she says, were trafficked from the southern states. Working for more than 12 hours a day, the women routinely faced sexual harassment in the factory — that lacked the legally mandated internal complaints committee — and were kept like captives in a hostel.

The woman, married to an agricultural labourer and with a two-year-old daughter, is among the survivor leaders who came together last month at the launch of a national platform in New Delhi called the Indian Leadership Forum Against Trafficking (ILFAT).

The forum, “by, for and of” survivors, has over 2,500 members who have faced several forms of trafficking such as being forced into prostitution, begging, domestic work, and working in brick kilns and factories. They aim to expand their membership after bringing together various collectives from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh under one umbrella, with a mission to combat human trafficking and improve access to justice for victims. 

The non-governmental organisations (NGOs) associated with ILFAT and the forum’s leaders met with members of Parliament and are lobbying for a new law with greater focus on rehabilitation of victims. Last year, the Lok Sabha passed the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill but it lapsed after failing to get approval in the Rajya Sabha.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), in 2016 — the most recent data available — 8,132 cases of human trafficking were reported from across India. The number of cases rose steadily from 3,517 in 2011 to 3,554 in 2012, 3,940 in 2013, followed by a sharp increase to 5,466 in 2014 and 6,877 in 2015. Among the states, in 2016 West Bengal registered 44.01 per cent of the cases, NCRB data show. Three out of every five people trafficked in India were children, according to an IndiaSpend report.

The current manner of rescue and rehabilitation of trafficked persons has come in for criticism from researchers, who point out several inadequacies in the process. The testimonies of different “survivor leaders” of ILFAT echo these concerns.

For instance, an 18-year-old from Gaya, Bihar, who was enticed by a trafficker with promises of school education and made to work in a bangle factory in Jaipur, says that although he was rescued and kept in a shelter home, he did not receive any meaningful skill training. He was taught to use computers, but schools refused to admit him because he was older than other students, he adds.

 A woman from West Bengal says she was kept in jail when she went to complain against her trafficker. She has been fighting a case for four years after being rescued, and yet cops point fingers at her. Curiously, the trafficker also recently blamed her for “destroying his life”. Another woman from West Bengal says that while shelter homes teach them skills, when they eventually return home with a certificate they don’t get jobs because of social stigma. She adds: “NGOs should teach victims what are our rights. When we are rescued from brothels they ask for proof to establish that we were trafficked from West Bengal to Maharashtra. I came back after three years and the local thana blocked my case.”

The survivors in Delhi also asked the media to focus more on stories involving the trafficker rather than the victim, even as they demanded the need for inter-state investigation by the police, fast-track courts and community-based rehabilitation rather than a shelter home-focused approach. One of them pointed out that traffickers were let off in a matter of days or months, whereas victims had to stay in temporary shelters for years before returning home and reintegrating with society.

 Researchers, too, flag concerns such as low inter-state probe of trafficking and the burden of prosecution resting on survivors. Investigations tend to be extremely time-consuming. And even when cases are registered at the source point of the crime, provisions of the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act or Section 370 (trafficking of persons) of the penal code are rarely used, says Snigdha Sen, a researcher at Tafteesh, a justice programme involving organisations working for the protection and rehabilitation of victims.

According to research conducted by Tafteesh in Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, only three out of 429 traffickers have been convicted in the past decade. Based on a study of 198 cases of human trafficking, the research showed that the names of only 30 traffickers were mentioned in cases at the source as well as the destination. Also, the majority of traffickers tended to be neighbours of the victims, with none from among the primary family members. “Only if human trafficking is made a political issue will the government be more compelled to act,” says Sen.

Kaushik Gupta, a Kolkata-based lawyer associated with Tafteesh, says that government data is not credible or a true reflection of the incidence as the police often register cases of abduction rather than trafficking. “There is a lack of structural support when it comes to prosecution. Even sub-inspectors do not have the power to pursue cases, as trafficking is not viewed as a priority offence,” he adds.

Tafteesh, a consortium of NGOs, stresses the need to offer greater agency for survivors, which is the rationale for the formation of ILFAT.

“The entire discourse is about rescue and rehabilitation. Where is the conversation about prevention? There are so many brick kilns or cases of forced domestic labour which we know of. Doesn’t the government know? Either it is ignorant or silent,” says Gupta, adding that the forum seeks a composite law that talks about rehabilitation as a right, not as a gratis that the state will dole out.
 

Under the direction of the ministry of home affairs, Indian states set up anti-human trafficking units (AHTUs) that are specialised investigation cells more than a decade ago. But, Gupta says, there has to be proper funding of these units with independent charge for the personnel to ensure their accountability.

At the state level, every case should be referred to the AHTU in order to deny the impunity enjoyed by the trafficker, says Pompi Banerjee, a social worker with Sanjog, an NGO that works on prevention, rehabilitation and reintegration of survivors.

“Trafficking is not limited to sexual exploitation but includes bonded labour, slavery etc. One of the ways in which states can help is by holding the corporations responsible so that the supply chain is free of slavery,” she says, adding that all points of the chain of traffickers have to be checked to curb trafficking.

As scattered groups across the country come together under one forum, bringing the trafficker into the dock will be the most critical challenge.