India’s new Bill against human trafficking another false promise?

As India faced a 90 per cent increase in human trafficking over the past five years, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the government has responded by drafting new policies towards eradicating this problem; a commitment that seems trivial.

While the creation of new laws is an important step forward in ending human trafficking in a country with the world’s largest population of slaves, it is easy to feel disheartened over the legitimacy of the efforts when India’s government has been lax in actually enforcing their trafficking laws for years.

Since 2011, the US State Department has categorised India under Tier 2 in the Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, stating that India, “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.” But these “efforts” that the TIP report takes into consideration show little promise in reality.

While the report may indicate that India has increased its efforts since 2010 and still strives to do so, many anti-slavery activists believe that this list is corrupted. In order to combat this, the US Congress passed the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act that would push any country that was in Tier 2 for two consecutive years to Tier 3, unless they provided a plan to combat trafficking.

Why this has proven to be ineffective is that it has only required written plans, while countries like India consistently lack action of properly implementing these plans or laws that they pass. The bill aims to increase penalties of offenders and set up a special court and an organised crime investigation agency.

Maneka Gandhi, the Indian Union Cabinet Minister for Women & Child Development, acknowledged that there are many areas of human trafficking that are being addressed by different laws and agencies, specifically stating forced labor as one of them.

The irony in this is that according to the 2015 report, conducted by University of Chicago Law School, Cornell Law School and Jindal Global Law School, India has consistently failed to “recognise and punish labour trafficking as a form of human trafficking reflected in its Bonded Labour Act” and concluded that a large number of victims in the human trafficking trade are not recognised by India’s laws.

The Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA) has been considered to be the most efficient Trafficking In Persons law in India; however, its Section 8 has been predominantly used to harass victims.

Reports conducted by Asia Foundation on Human Trafficking have shown that the statutes are poorly known to the law enforcement officers and that it is frequent where the victims are the ones prosecuted and protection is provided for the criminals.

India’s criminal justice system is plagued by corruption, where between 50 and 74.9 per cent of the population reported participating in bribery with someone in public service, according to Transparency International.

The arrest rate for traffickers is extremely low due to bribery and malpractice of laws, with it only reaching 3.7% in 2011, according to the NCRB. Not only are arrests and convictions extremely infrequent, but many law enforcement officials will not even file reports on complaints given by the women who muster the courage to speak against their offenders.

Many officers work in conjunction with brothel owners and traffickers, tipping them off about any possible raids. In the 2015 TIP report, these issues have continued and are commonplace throughout the country. Despite the passing of laws that target human traffickers, the trade is booming.

The government’s inability to tackle the issues of poverty and lack of education in the country directly contribute to the problem, as many children are kidnapped by the false promise of employment or are sold by their parents. Urban poverty and a corrupted system have spawned a society that has few or no resources to grow, leaving them to fend for themselves with little recourse.

In addition to the government implementing new policies in the prevention of human trafficking and the protection for victims, serious efforts need to be made to combat corruption and further train officers in awareness, empathy and proper practices. Female officers are a crucial component but are pointless if they are being withheld from investigations, as is often the case.

The international community, including the US State Department, also needs to hold the Government of India accountable for their actions, rather than just take their word. Without a drastic revamp of law enforcement and judicial procedures, India’s anti-human trafficking laws are inconsequential and these proposed policies appear to be only an appeasing display of apathetic promises.

(The writer is a current graduate student at New York University in the Global Affairs programme and has worked for nonprofits in the US and Japan. Her concentration is in Transnational Security and Gender, focusing on human rights and humanitarian efforts)

THE SCOURGE PERSISTS

• Arrest rate for traffickers is extremely low; it was merely 3.7% in 2011.
• Law enforcement not filing reports even if victims lodge complaints
• Labour trafficking not even recognised as a form of human trafficking
• Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act considered most efficient but misused to harass victims
• New bill aims to increase penalties, set up a special court, and a crime investigation agency
• Global community needs to hold India accountable, rather than just go by its word

By Natasha Louis