Hyderabad: “I have experience of nearly three years. Prior to working in Hyderabad, I used to make bangles in Jaipur. I was rescued from there and sent back home in Bihar. But I was sent here again as the employer sends money home.”
This was shared by an eight-year-old who was rescued from forced labour in a raid on bangle making units in the city. This reflects two major aspects — lack of stringent action against traffickers and those involved, and that poverty remains the major reason for victims being trapped.
As per the United Nations protocol adopted by India in 2000: “Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs. The consent of the victim shall be irrelevant in human trafficking.”
In the South Zone of Hyderabad, nearly 25 raids and “cordoned off” searches have been conducted since January. Mr V. Satyanarayana, DCP South Zone said, “The law should be made more stringent and punishment should be more severe for traffickers. The current punishment is not at all having an impact. We are determined to have zero tolerance and have requested for ‘detaining laws’ which will permit us to detain the trafficker for a year without any hearing.”
While there are several teams and dedicated anti-trafficking units working for rescuing trafficked victims, little has been done to prevent the problem at the grassroots level.
A national-level data collation should be done at the earliest and the photos and information about traffickers should not only be shared across the police departments but also widely put up at railway stations, bus stations, hostels, across villages, towns and the city to curb this problem, senior officials said. Increasing surveillance at hostels, having government run hostels for women and girls is a must, said activists.
Speaking about the profiles of the women and children who are trafficked, senior police officials said that it has been established long back that one of the main reasons for trafficking is poverty and lack of livelihood opportunities.
“There is no awareness among the victims about several aspects including, say government schemes. The stakeholder NGOs should conduct such programmes regularly and not just once or twice a year,” Mr Satyanarayana added.
“A large amount of money is spent on rescue and rehabilitation, but nothing to correct the problems at the source level. There are no social audits or monitoring mechanisms to get an idea of vulnerabilities of the families whose socio-economic indicators are poor,” said national convener of MV Foundation, Mr Venkat Reddy.
“If the local governing bodies keep a track on that, a major part of the problem can be solved. Fix the lack of proper support and monitoring dropouts from schools and 90 per cent of child trafficking will be curbed,” he added.
