With Less Than 10 Per Cent Conviction Rate, Human Trafficking Continues To Flourish In India

India faces a big challenge to tackle human trafficking. Experts believe a poor conviction rate has encouraged the traffickers to continue the unlawful activity in many parts of the country.

In 2020, a total of 4,966 registered cases of Human trafficking from across India, and 3661 people were charge-sheeted.

It has led to 101 convictions and 715 acquittals, while the other cases are still pending, as per the crimes in India 2020 report by the National Crime Records Bureau.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs recently told the Parliament that as many as seven states ¡ª Assam, Chhattisgarh, Kerala, Goa, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab ¡ª did not see a single conviction in such cases in 2020.

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Conviction rate is falling

As per the government data, the conviction rate in Human trafficking cases has been falling over the past few years.

The conviction rate in 2020 was 10.6% while it was 22.5% in 2019, and 19.4 in 2018.

In 2017, the conviction rate was 24.5% and 27.8 % in 2016.

According to activists, and NGOs working with human trafficking survivors, it is a major challenge to get convictions in such cases.

"The low convictions in human trafficking cases are leading to traffickers having no fear of the law and acting with complete impunity. The registered human trafficking cases are only a small portion of the actual number of crimes that have been committed," Kaushik Gupta, a lawyer at the High Court of Calcutta told Indiatimes.

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Lack of coordination

According to him getting justice for the survivors and punishing the culprits are challenging tasks and most of the time the traffickers getaway using the legal loopholes.

"Like terrorism, and drug trafficking human trafficking is an organized crime and it involves interstate and sometimes international networks. If a person is trafficked and their kin goes to the local police station, they can only do so much to investigate the case at the local level as their resources are limited. If a person from Bengal is trafficked from Bengal to Hyderabad and then Pune and sold to a brothel, only if the police investigation can prove all the chain of circumstance, the perpetrator can be punished. This is next to impossible and that is why there is a low conviction rate," Gupta explained.

"In most of the registered cases, the accused are mainly brothel owners, and the cases are registered after a rescue. Even then since the chances of them getting convicted is slim due to the lack of circumstantial evidence," Pompi Banerjee, psychologist and researcher at Sanjog India, a Social impact organization based in West Bengal said.

Lack of legal resources

In such cases, where the evidence is very little, the prosecution has to rely on the statement of the survivor, who is both the victim and the witness of the crime.

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¡°The issue of declining rate of conviction essentially indicates there is a lack of strong and appropriate investigation that spans across state borders. There is also a lack of a proper rehabilitation mechanism and victim compensation for the survivors which would encourage them to cooperate with the investigators. The survivors don¡¯t turn hostile. They are dealing with a justice system which is not at all accessible to them,¡± Pompi said.

"For a village woman, who just went through the trauma of trafficking, it is not easy to go to the police station the day after she is recused and narrate her ordeal to the cops, in the most cases who are male. Under the Constitution of India, article 23, it is the responsibility of the state to protect me from getting traffic, and if the state has failed in its duty, it is wrong to say that the victim did not report the crime on time," Advocate Gupta said further.

One of the major drawbacks, activists say in the investigation of human trafficking cases, especially if it is inter-state, is the lack of coordination between the respective police departments there.

In 2018, the NIA agreed to take up human trafficking case involving two or more states, but it is still in the early stages.

"An organized crime is required to be fought in an organised manner. There should be better cooperation between the anti-human trafficking units (AHTU) personnel from different states. This can lead to more convictions," Advocate Gupta said.

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He further said that the AHTUs have done better than the local police when it comes to getting the culprits convicted as they take the survivors to destination states to identify traffickers and the place of crime leading to arrests and conviction of the perpetrators.

Victims need witness protection

In the case of survivors who want to take their traffickers to law one of the major challenges is safety, as one or more chains of the network will be people who are part of their own community or village.

"There is no proper mechanism for witness protection and victim compensation. The survivors have to deal with this powerful network that is very intimidating. Survivors getting threats from traffickers against seeking legal measures is not uncommon. In the current system, the only protection the victim is offered is to place them in a shelter home," Pompi said.

The maximum punishment in human trafficking cases is 10 years in jail and in cases of sexual exploitation, the prison sentence can be for life.

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"When a survivor decided to file a complaint, he or she goes through an immense amount of harassment, including from the family and the society. A conviction will also support the survivor to get victim compensation, but it is not the only criteria," Pompi said.

¡°The conviction rate will remain low unless India has comprehensive legislation that provides for a strong investigation mechanism clarifying the roles and responsibilities of investigating agencies such as AHTUs and the NIA. The proposed Trafficking In Persons Bill 2021 is one of the instruments that can really help in addressing all aspects of human trafficking and increasing conviction rate,¡± she adds.

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