Survivors Speak: Human Trafficking Victims Share Their Stories And What They Want From New Bill

The Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021, is one of the legislations that the ongoing Winter session of the Indian Parliament will consider.

The new bill seeks to prevent and combat trafficking in persons, especially women and children, to provide care, protection, assistance and rehabilitation to the victims while respecting their rights, and creating a supportive legal, economic and social environment for them, and also to ensure prosecution of offenders, and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.

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What is human trafficking?

The United Nations describes human trafficking as "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people through force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them for profit."

Men, women and children of all ages and from all backgrounds can become victims of this crime, which occurs in every region of the world. The traffickers often use violence or fraudulent employment agencies and fake promises of education and job opportunities to trick and coerce their victims.

Human trafficking in India

About 1,714 cases of human trafficking were registered by the government''s anti-human trafficking units in 2020 with sexual exploitation for prostitution, forced labour and domestic servitude being the top reasons behind it, according to the NCRB data.

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Among states, Maharashtra and Telangana recorded the highest number of such cases at 184 each, followed by Andhra Pradesh at 171, Kerala at 166, Jharkhand at 140 and Rajasthan at 128.

The conviction for cases of human trafficking was recorded at 0 in seven states, while the highest conviction rate of such cases was reported from Tamil Nadu at 66 per cent followed by Delhi at 40 per cent.

For a long time, survivors of human trafficking have been trying to call attention to their plight and call for better rehabilitation of the victims who had to go through unspeakable mental and physical pain.

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ILFAT ¨C Indian Leadership Forum Against Trafficking - A platform for the survivors, from the survivors and by the survivors has been a leading voice in this.

Indiatimes spoke to several human trafficking survivors to learn about their expectations from the new bill.

Janaki

The life of Janaki a native of Erode in Tamil Nadu took a turn for the worse in 2012 when she was 16 years old. She was offered a job at a textile factory, with a salary of Rs 7,000 a month. She was even told that they will help her study and that she would get Rs 1 lakh for her wedding expenses in the future. This was an offer the family of four who had been struggling could not resist. But once she reached the garments factory, to her shock the teenager realized that she had to work for nearly 12 hours a day, without any rest. Sexual harassment was also rampant at the workplace. Instead of the Rs 7,000, she was promised, Janaki was being paid less than Rs 5,00 a month.

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Hundreds of girls like her were confined to a 'hostel' with no means to contact the outside world. In 2014, she managed to get out of the factory after her grandmother passed away and she had to rush home.

According to her, there should be fast-track courts to deal with human trafficking cases. She also said that the rehabilitation process for human trafficking victims should be streamlined and the process for victim compensation should be simplified. She also argues that there should be committees in every district for the rehabilitation of the victims and that their representatives should be included in the panel.

Sunil

Sunil, a resident of Janjgir¨CChampa in Chhattisgarh, like most of his village belonged to a family of daily wage workers. Most of them live hand-to-mouth and anything beyond that had to be borrowed, which in turn will make them bonded labours for a lifetime. In 2008, for an emergency, the family had to borrow Rs 20,000 from an agent. He then took them to Rohtak, Haryana where the 16-year-old along with his family were made to work in a brick kiln. According to Sunil, he and others had to work for 14-18 hours every day and they were given was food. After nearly 6-8 months of backbreaking work, Sunil managed to flee from the kiln and reach Chhattisgarh.

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He said that from in the new bill there should be provisions to file FIR against the traffickers anywhere. He also said that the victim compensation should be increased to help people like him to restart their lives.

Ashish Kumar

Ashish Kumar from Bihar was one of the seven members of his family. His father who used to earn around Rs 250-300, on days when he had work was the only earning member of the family. As the eldest of the siblings, the responsibility of feeding the family also fell on the shoulder of Kumar, who was just 14. An agent who came to the village looking for children to work in a bangles factory in Jaipur offered to pay him Rs 2,000 a month. In 2014, Kumar, along with six more children from the village went to Jaipur with the agent.

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At the factory, Kumar said children, even as young as 10 were working. The children were kept in a compound that had several gates and they were never allowed to leave. At the factory, they were made to work for 16 hours a day and were made to sleep in rooms filled with smoke and dust from the factory. In 2017, one of the child laborers managed to get out of the factory and inform the police. Following a raid, other children were also rescued and sent to a shelter home.

According to him, there should be fast-track courts to deal with human trafficking cases. He also felt that the process of rehabilitating human trafficking victims should be expediated and they should not be held in shelter homes for more than 2-3 months.

Piu Mondal

Piu Mondal from West Bengal was rescued from a train when she was just 14 years old. She was drugged by an unknown person who then abducted her and was taking her to an unknown location. Though she was rescued Piu said the trauma and social stigma affected her mental and physical health.

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From the bill, Piu said she wants provision to help people like her to get proper mental health treatment. She also was of the opinion that those rescued from trafficking should not be kept in shelter homes for long, and there should be community-based rehabilitation for them.

She also said that the skill training that they receive should not be limited to courses like beautician, computer or stitching, which may not have much scope in their villages.

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