Human Trafficking
Safeguarding and protection is the right of every person and must be our collective responsibility.
ABOUT THE ISSUE
What makes women and children feel unsafe? It is the threat of violence and of abuse. From being stared at, touched, or teased to being sexually abused. The threat of forced marriage and abduction. The fear of being violated and exploited, both in the physical world and in the virtual online space. This fear is real in public as well as in the private lives of women and children. It can be seen tangibly around us and in the crime-related data in our country especially in the context of Child Sexual Abuse, Online Abuse, and Human Trafficking.
While there is a rise in the number of sexual abuse cases being reported under POCSO and this is helping strengthen systems and communities to acknowledge the problem, this is merely the tip of the iceberg. We are witnessing an increase in the use of technology or the internet to facilitate the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, including the production and sharing of child sexual abuse material online.
Children who experience these vulnerabilities and crime go through significant psychological, emotional, and physical trauma that can impact their entire life.
Abuse or exploitation of any kind may stifle the proper development of the child’s personality.
One of the worst forms of abuse and exploitation is human trafficking. It is an organized crime that robs an individual of all his/her rights and violates all tenets of human dignity. For every ten trafficking victims detected globally in the year 2018, five were adult women and two were girls. About a third of detected victims were children, both girls, and boys. Adult men were about 20% of detected trafficking victims.
Data available cannot give us the true picture of the extent of the problem. The data we have is from those cases that are reported. We know that there are far more instances of abuse and exploitation of children that remain entangled in the culture of silence that either goes unnoticed or are not reported. Gender inequality increases the sheer vulnerability of women and children, particularly girls to gender-based violence. This and the low priority accorded to them in society at large and in policy and program decision-making arenas makes the situation even more complicated.
Some of the critical factors and challenges in tackling the extent of abuse, violence, and exploitation of women and children are given below -
As a result, the response to sexual abuse and exploitation against women and children in India remains fragmented and needs much more focused attention.
There is no easy or uni-dimensional solution to such abuse and exploitation since it is influenced by a complex set of factors, often working in combination with one another. Control measures alone cannot stop the occurrence of abuse, exploitation, and human trafficking. While the Government through its laws, schemes, and programs is confronting the issue of safety, measures must be agreed upon and coordinated between organizations and governments across regions. There is also a need for these norms to be strengthened through behavioral and attitudinal changes amongst individuals and communities if
we must achieve long-term and sustainable solutions. This need should be based on a larger collective intent and responsibility.
This collective intent is also the one placed on us through the framing and the ratification of the Sustainable Development Goals. While Goals 1, 5, 10, and 16 speak about the factors that make women and children more vulnerable, Goal 8 in its target (8.7) asks that immediate and effective measures be taken to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery, and human trafficking.