Child trafficking is a major problem in India, with over 40,000 children reported missing each year. Many factors contribute to trafficking, including poverty, lack of jobs, and social attitudes. Children are trafficked for forced labor, illegal activities like begging and organ harvesting, and sexual exploitation. While laws exist to address trafficking, they are not comprehensive or stringent enough. Stronger laws and enforcement are needed, along with prevention programs, to help end this abuse of children's basic rights.

1. CHILDREN TRAFFICKING – SHAME FOR
INDIA
TANYA
Dehradun
INTERNSHIP PROGRAMME
25 Days(1st July, 2015 - 25th July, 2015)

2.  There have been many cases where children just disappear overnight, as
many as one every eight minutes, according to the National Crime Records
Bureau.
 The children of today are the future of tomorrow; this powerful statement
assumes special significance in our context as children (0-14 years)
comprise one third of the total population in the country.
 Trafficked children are used for prostitution, forced into marriage, illegally
adopted, used as cheap or unpaid labor, used for sport and organ
harvesting. Trafficking exposes children to violence, abuse, neglect and
exploitation.
 This is due to rising demand for domestic maids due to rising income in
urban areas and widescale poverty … in rural areas. This trafficking shows
the rise of massive inequality in India.
 Filmmaker Manish Harishankar has taken the subject of Child trafficking
in India in his film Chaarfutiya Chhokare Produced by Sunill Khosla &
Vibha Dutta Khosla, intensively and shown this problem, nexus, modus
operandi and repercussions. Recently Pradeep Sarkar's Mardaani also
raised strong voice against child sex trafficking in India. Rani Mukherjee
was widely appreciated for her portrayal of an officer who rescues many
such trapped girls.

3.  According to a 2002 WHO Report, 150 million girls and 73 million
boys were subjected to various forms of sexual assault. The
numbers could be much higher, as many children and their families
do not report such incidents due to social stigma and fear of being
socially ostracized.
 According to Childinfo.org, the UNICEF June 2011 Study based on
surveys carried out from 2000-2009 reported that 12% of children in
South Asia, between 5-14 years, were engaged in child labour. In
India, 5% of girls aged between 15-19 years were victims of sexual
violence.

4. REASONS
 There are numerous contributing elements to kid trafficking, which
incorporate monetary hardship, conditions, absence of occupation
opportunities, societal position, and political uprisings. Huge numbers of
the families in India are not able to bear the cost of the essential
necessities of life, which constrains the folks to auction their kids to
posses, and the groups to endeavor them. Having roughly a large portion
of those in India living under the neediness line, this outcomes in if all else
fails, then just go with what works being taken to profit they can. As there
aren't even good work opportunities accessible, folks will do anything
from clearing the avenues to offering their children, regardless of the fact
that it just makes them a couple of rupees. The truth of the matter is that
kids, especially young ladies, are more powerless than grown-ups, making
them a simpler target and a thing for groups. They are looked upon as
more extra than whatever remains of the populace which makes them
accessible as articles to be sold. Another reason for sexual misuse is that
individuals around the globe discover delight in the results of this misuse,
hence creating an interest for it. Political uprisings lead to an interest for
troopers, and as youngsters are more powerless, they are compelled to
recruit and utilize their bodies as penances.

5. TYPES
1. LABOUR - Lawfully, youngsters in India are permitted to do light work,
however they are frequently trafficked for fortified work, and residential
work, and are worked a long ways past what is permitted in the nation.
They are regularly compelled to work, in the utilization of contraptions
that bound them to be not able to escape and afterward compelled to
submit to control. Others may be bound by misuse whether physical,
enthusiastic, or sexual. Those constrained in the process of childbirth
lose all flexibility, being tossed into the workforce, basically getting to be
slaves, and losing their youth.
2. ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES - Kids, over grown-ups are regularly decided to
be trafficked for unlawful exercises, for example, asking and organ
exchange, as they are seen as more defenseless. Not just are these kids
being compelled to ask for cash, however a critical number of those in
the city have had appendages persuasively cut off, or even corrosive
immersed their eyes to visually impaired them by pack experts. The
individuals who are harmed have a tendency to profit, which is the reason
they are regularly mishandled along these lines. Organ exchange is
additionally regular, when traffickers trap or power youngsters to
surrender an organ.

6. 3. SEXUAL EXPLOITATION - Sexual exploitation is an issue that is
confronted among numerous creating nations and is characterized as
"the sexual exploitation of children and youth through the trading of sex
or sexual represents drugs, sustenance, cover, insurance, different nuts
and bolts of life, and/or cash". Regularly young ladies are taken from their
homes and sold as things to wind up sex slaves and even constrained
into prostitution. This may appear to be sufficiently terrible, however
sexual abuse is not generally constrained. Out of franticness, a few folks
will even auction their children to be sexually mishandled, with a specific
end goal to have the capacity to procure the essential necessities of life.
As the folks are liable to have been sexually mishandled as youngsters,
eras to come are compelled to live in this apparently endless cycle of
offering their kids into sexual misuse and misuse.
Sexual exploitation through sex tourism, child sex tourism, paedophilia and
prostitution in places of religious pilgrimage and other tourist destinations
are all on the increase.

7. PREVALENCE
 Child trafficking happens all around India. There have been reports from
numerous territories about the increment of trafficking occurring in India.
 As indicated by the US State Department, there are give or take 600,000 to
820,000 individuals trafficked a year crosswise over worldwide fringes, and
up to half of those are children. This is most likely seen as a developing
issue in Asia, with the numerous youngsters that are and keep on being
trafficked for some reasons and also being misused.
 In 2005, a study was led by the National Human Rights Commission of
India (NHRC) after they got a disturbing number of reports from the press,
police, and non-government associations (NGOs) about the ascent of
human trafficking inside India.
 They found that India was quick turning into a source, travel point and
destination for traffickers of ladies and youngsters for sexual and non-
sexual purposes. The regions of the best concern were destitution stricken
ranges, for example, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, [more in[Karnataka]], Uttar
Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa and West
Bengal

8. FIGURES
 NGOs estimate that 12,000 - 50,000 women and children are trafficked into
the country annually from neighboring states for the sex trade.
 1000s of girls are trafficked from Bangladesh and Nepal. 200,000 Nepalese
girls under 16 years are in prostitution in India.
 An estimated 1,000 to 1,500 Indian children are smuggled out of the
country every year to Saudi Arabia for begging during the Hajj.
 These girls from poor families and often in the age group of 9-14 years are
brought into India and sold to brothel owners in Kolkata, Mumbai and
Delhi, amongst several other cities. Not all are kidnapped or forced out of
their homes in their native lands. Many are sold by their parents or close
relatives to get away from abject poverty.
 Almost 35,000 children were officially reported missing in 2011 over
11,000 of them were from West Bengal. However, it is thought only 30 per
cent of cases are reported.
 Only 10% of human trafficking in India is international, while almost 90% is
interstate. Nearly 40,000 children are abducted every year of which 11000
remain untraced according to a report by the National Human Rights
Commission of India
 Every year, 44,000 children fall into the clutches of the gangs.

9. RECENT ACTION
 According to the National Human Rights Commission of India, over 40,000
children are reported missing every year of which over 11,000 remain
untraced.
 It is in this backdrop, that the recent discovery of child trafficking into
Kerala has got the government’s attention. Children from various states
were being brought into Kerala by train.
 At the station, they were stopped and the persons who were escorting
them couldn’t come up with an acceptable reason as to why they were
being brought in to Kerala.
 All escorting adults were arrested and now the Kerala High Court has
ordered a CBI investigation into the matter.
 There are many such stories which didn’t get much exposure. The story of
Jyoti is one of them. Jyoti, age 14, was sold and married to a 40-year old
man for Rs 15,000 in order to produce a mail heir.
 Smita ,a 16 year old girl was taken from her village in Jharkhand and
subjected to various forms of sexual abuse and exploitation at the hand of
her employers including rape. When rescued her parents refused to take
her back since she had been tainted by rape.

10. RECOMMENDED ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN
 Although there is an Immoral Traffic Prevention Act set up to associate in
the shamelessness of human trafficking, "it just alludes to trafficking for
prostitution subsequently does not give exhaustive insurance to kids. Nor
does the Act give clear meaning of 'trafficking'". Additionally, India has
neglected to maintain The Palemo Protocol, which gives assurance to
youngsters against trafficking.
 The TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS (TIP) Report clearly mandates that all
governments have to focus on:
i. Prevention
ii. Prosecution
iii. Protection
 The governments need to redefine laws to make them more stringent and
ensure severe punishment delivered quickly. The Government must
ensure that the necessary and effective infrastructure is in place to
identify, arrest, prosecute all involved in the trafficking chain. Unless the
entire chain feels the heat of the prosecuting agencies with active support
from NGOs and Civil Society, our children will continue to be threatened
by this social evil.

11. It’s time to prevent the evils from robbing
the children’s childhood.
The time to act is now. Remember it could
be your child next.