Slavery: The Role Of Human Trafficking In India

HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Is there a sight more heartwarming than being unbound, unhampered, unconfined and independent? When most people consider slavery to be extinct, the 21st Century is experiencing a tremendous boom of reincarnation of illegal slavery in most parts of the world in the form of human trafficking. Human trafficking or flesh trade is the third largest international crime industry which commonly runs for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labour or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others, extraction of organs or tissues, occurring nationally or trans-nationally. According to some estimates, approximately 80% of trafficking involves sexual exploitation and 19% involves labour exploitation. The exact extent is

Despite the tremendous rise of GDP, India seems to be overburdened with the highest number of child labourers, slaves and trafficked victims in the world. It affects large chunks of India’s population. Children’s voices are heard by none, they neither vote and their dignity is anonymous, thus increasing the likelihood of being exploited commercially by an organized chain of traffickers. The bewitchery eyes of the traffickers, the middlemen are casted on these vulnerable children who may not have the capacity to protect themselves. Children are mercilessly made to work for 12-14 hours a day and are exploited physically, mentally and sexually. Apparently, in the long run the exploiters are the gainers at the cost of the hard meticulous work of the children. Innumerable jobless adults actively seek for jobs all over the country in places which provide decent working conditions and high salaries. Paradoxically, children being cheap labourers are reluctantly made to work in harsh working conditions, malnourished and hardly paid enough to feed their hungry stomachs. They are the patient sufferers of rude and insensitive evils of the world who eventually think that it is their role in life. This vicious cycle of human trafficking exploits the dreams of a better life of millions of people across the globe. Poverty and unemployment among adults cannot be eradicated until and unless child labour is abolished. Besides

Most women and girls emerge from prostitution ill, traumatized, and as poor as when they had entered. It can prove to be fatal too it at all they contract HIV. No form of sexual exploitation leads to empowerment of women or enhances the status of women in society. It leaves them helpless and powerless. We have to oppose the legalization and regulation of prostitution and trafficking, which allow women to be exploited and abused. Every person can contribute towards this cause by being vigilant in his/her locality and reporting suspicious activities to authorities on hotline numbers. It is necessary to create awareness among students through seminars and workshops and the problem should be tackled at the grass root