PREVENTING TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN AND GIRLS
Anju Dubey Pandey,
Resource person SIRD ODISHA

• Human Trafficking
• Vulnerability of women and girls
• Prevention and Role of EWRs

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I understand the concept of trafficking and its elements
It happens only through force and for sexual exploitation
Men always migrate for work of their own free will and therefore do not experience violence
Trafficked victims are found only in brothels
All traffickers are from cities
A FIR for a trafficked case can be lodged only at the point of destination
It is the individuals responsibility to protect herself
Only the victim and/or her family members can file an FIR
I am aware of Anti-Human Trafficking Units, Special Juvenile
Police Unit and Trafficking Police Officer
Just Knowledge among EWRs can prevent trafficking

• Human trafficking a systematic violation of human rights
• It is the third most profitable illicit trade, after that of arms and drugs
• Generates about US$ 217 billion in revenue, annually*, linked to other organized crimes - human smuggling, drug trafficking, and money laundering
• ILO ** - there are 2.45 million trafficking victims currently under exploitative conditions - estimated that another 1.2 million persons are trafficked annually
* Trafficking in Persons Report, United States Department of State, 2006, p. 13.
** State of the World Population Report, UNFPA, 2006, p. 44.

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Home to second largest numbers of internationally trafficked persons…150,000 annually*
India, Bangladesh and Nepal are major source countries for trafficking of women and children
Estimated that 50% of all female sex trafficking victims in South
Asia are under age 18 at the time of exploitation**
Media Report : 6,88751 ‘registered’ sex workers in India : not mandatory for them to have a health certificate on STDs ***
However, due to the clandestine nature, all statistics, even at their best are inaccurate
* Highest estimates from South East Asia: 225,000 , State of the World Population Report, UNFPA, 2006, pg 45
** US State Department, Trafficking in Persons Report
*** Times of India July 2010, reported as reply by the GOI to a RTI filed by a New Delhi resident

Article 21 – Protection of Life and Personal Liberty
Article 23 – Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour
The 2002 SAARC Convention on Preventing and Combating
Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution , defines trafficking as :
“the moving, selling or buying of women and children for prostitution within and outside a country for monetary or other considerations with or without the consent of the person subjected to trafficking”.

The UN Protocol, 2000 to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children
(Trafficking Protocol) which supplements the Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime states that “Trafficking in persons” shall mean:
“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs .”

• Forced labor
• Bonded labor
• Debt bondage
• Child soldiers
• Camel jockeying
• Organ trade
• Begging
• Illicit adoption
• Circus bondage
• Forced marriage
• Sexual exploitation
• Children exploited in commercial sex
• Etc etc

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Poverty
Lack of livelihood opportunities
Relative disparities of income, employment and livelihoods
Illiteracy
Lack of economic development
Food insecurity
Increase in demand for women and children for sexual and labor exploitation
Growth in crime syndicates
Poor law enforcement
Insensitive social and cultural practices
Natural and human made disasters
Conflict
War
Etc etc….

• Street children with no guardians;
• Adolescent girls, adolescents in general;
• Children from families in crisis (e.g., alcoholic parents, traumatized from war or civil conflict);
• Single women with children (unmarried, divorced, widowed, or abandoned);
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Single women (often traumatized through stigmatization e.g., rape victim, suspicions regarding morality, etc.); and
Women/girl migrants —either alone or with families.
• Girl children from vulnerable families/places
• Women and girls who are illiterate
• Women and girls from disadvantaged groups (SC, ST, girls from
Bedia, Kanjar, Devdasi, Nat communities)
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Women and girls from areas affected by natural disasters, political conflict etc
Young girls trafficked for child marriage…others….

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Social and demographic
(SC, ST, female literacy rate, age specific sex ratio, crime against women, prevalence of HIV AIDS, female outmigration)
Economic(lack of livelihood, ownership of land, food insecurity…poverty,
Cultural(e.g. Devdasi, Jogini,
Nat, Bedia )
Environmental (natural calamities)

Source: U.S. Departments of State and Justice, 2006

A trafficker/offender in trafficking crimes includes all persons, agencies or institutions:
• Involved in any act in the process of trafficking
• Who gains/makes profit/exploits
- As the trafficked person passes through a chain,
- From the final point of source area through the transit area to the point of final destination and
- From any act involved in the process of exploitation of the trafficked person(s)

• Recruiter/Agent of Recruiter
• Seller of trafficked person
• Buyer of trafficked person
• Transporter
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Conspirator
‘Customer’/clientele, who create/perpetuate demand
• Pimp
• Brothel madam
• Brothel managers
• Financier
• Parent(s)/guardian(s) who knowingly sell/cause to sell/traffic their children/ward

• the source point (e.g., place of recruitment)
• the trafficking routes (including mode of transport)
• the transit points (e.g., halting places enroute)
• the destination point
• the points of exploitation (e.g. brothel)
• the places where the ‘products’ of exploitation were transferred to (eg. in a case where the CSE was to produce pornography, the SOC includes places where the pornographic materials were sent to, stored, transported, and places where they were sold/purchased, etc).

• Offering them jobs as domestic servants
• Promising jobs in the film world
• Coercion Offering money
• Luring them with ‘pleasure trips’
• Making false promises of marriage
• Befriending them by giving goodies
• Offering shelter to girls who have run away from home or are street children
• Offering to take them on pilgrimages

Trafficking is an organized and continuing crime. Multiple crimes can be culled out under trafficking such as: abduction, kidnapping, illegal detainment, illegal confinement, criminal intimidation, hurt, grievous hurt, sexual assault, outraging modesty, rape, unnatural offences, selling and buying of human beings, servitude, criminal conspiracy, abetment, etc.
Therefore, multiple abuse and abusers located at different points of time and place together constitute the organized crime of trafficking.

• What does the preponderance of women and girls indicate?
• Why are more women and girls trafficked ?
• Why are more women and girls trafficked for SE?

• Does it mean that women and girls experience trafficking in a different way than men and boys?
• If yes, what is the difference?
• What are the specific vulnerabilities of women and girls?

• How are vulnerabilities linked and one leads to another?
(Dalit, Poor,Young,Widowed,Woman, HIV &AIDs)
• Where and how does gender intersect with other social categories of caste, class, religion, race and ethnicity?
• How the cause-effect indicators reflect a thin line of difference : sometimes difficult to differentiate the cause from effect

• preponderance of women and girls means it may not help to consider the notion of ‘trafficking in women’ within the context of ‘trafficking in person’
• the gender neutral generalization although broadens the concept may prevent us from discovering specific features of trafficking in women and girls
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• a gendered perspective will reveal the specific ways in which women and girls experiences of trafficking are different from those of men and boys situate in the context of women and girls as ‘Rights
Holders’

• Acknowledging that both men and women are trafficked;
• Addressing the shared and differed experiences undergone by women and men in trafficking with regards to their vulnerabilities, violations and consequences; and
• Addressing the divergent impact policies have on men/boys and women/girls

• If gender inequities are socially conditioned…how can we change them at an individual and societal level in the direction of justice, equity and partnership between men and women?
• Current initiatives/interventions/programmes face at least following three problems :
• Lack of prevention initiatives that engage local governance
• Lack of attention to change societal attitudes
• Traditional vocational trainings have often not led to sustainable livelihoods in rural source areas

• Prevention at the
• Prevention at the
• Prevention at the

ROLE OF EWRs IN PREVENTION OF
TRAFFICKING

Go back to source areas:
Evidence based research…data that is sensitive, comparable and appropriate
• Strengthen Civil Registration System, child protection
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Capacity development
Capacity building of local government functionaries
Build capacities of fellow ERs
Advocacy for change
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Trafficking issues to be raised in Palli Sabhas/Gram Sabhas
Convergence of government programs
Using community resources to create Centres of action to prevent trafficking in source areas (e.g. common property resources,
MGNREGA)
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Committees as mandated under the Odisha PR Act
Gender responsive budgeting

• Women and Girls
• Capacity to assess their own vulnerability to trafficking through self awareness and knowledge
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• Sustainable Livelihood options
Strong sense of empowerment (most at risk to trafficking in the community are encouraged to access micro credit services)
• With Community based Anti trafficking task force
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Vigilance, Effective surveillance and watch on suspects
Maintain a list of NGOs showing their expertise, specialization as well as contact address, telephone, e-mail, etc.
Identify the vulnerable persons/areas and focus attention on them. Empower them. Let this be a priority.
Pay special attention to the most vulnerable persons. This needs to be top priority.
Mount surveillance for suspects and look-out for victims
Public Awareness, legal awareness, information booths, temporary shelters
Anti trafficking and safe migration messages
• With local justice systems (both formal and informal)
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• Nyaya panchayats
Nyaya Samitis

Prayas Bharti, an NGO based at Patna, was instrumental in rehabilitation of a trafficked girl of 16 years, who was lodged in jail for two years on the charge of ‘soliciting’. The villagers refused to accept her back,‘branding’ her as prostitute.
Prayas Bharti spent one full day with the entire villagers, speaking to them, coaxing them, and finally convincing them that the girl is a ‘victim of trafficking’ and a ‘child in need of care and protection’. The commendable initiative by this NGO helped in rehabilitation of the girl.

Bhoruka Public Welfare Trust has done door-to-doorsurvey of the vulnerability of women and children in those areas which were trafficking-prone. After the survey, the empowerment programmes which they initiated in partnership with state government and state police agencies have produced such encouraging results that they could ensure that the erstwhile trafficking-prone areas are now “sanitized” and are “trafficking- free”.

Women’s and Girls’ vulnerabilities to trafficking are a result of unequal power relations between and among men and women in the society… and we can CHANGE this…

UN Women
South Asia Sub-regional Office
19-A Rajdoot Marg
Chanakyapuri
New Delhi 110021
Phone No. 011-26119120/28 anju.pandey@unwomen.org