Human trafficking thrives on natural calamities

Andhra Pradesh must ensure children in drought-hit areas are safe and secure

Adrought is not just water scarcity. It has several other implications: Migration, trafficking, malnutrition, livestock deaths and agricultural losses. Such trying times are also an occasion for the State’s safety net to kick in and help people tide over the crisis. But that is not happening in Andhra Pradesh. According to a news website, a fact-finding team, which visited seven drought-hit villages in the Anantapur district, saw “shortage of water for irrigation as well as consumption by humans and livestock, the lack of PDS outlets and ration cards, migration, banking and debt”. But the most “harrowing ordeals” described in the report are about the children: Many of them have been left alone or with their siblings to fend for themselves while their parents have moved to the cities in search of work.

The fact-finding team found another disturbing fact: Some children could not get rations from the PDS because either the shops are located at a distance or the families did not have ration cards. “Further, issues were reported with biometric verification as well, especially in cases where the person in whose name the ration card was had migrated, and the machine wouldn’t accept the fingerprint of the existing beneficiary. So sometimes, the children would walk kilometres only to be turned away at the PDS outlets,” they added.

In Trafficking and Natural Disasters: Exploiting Misery (International Affairs Review), Joshua Finn writes that natural disasters exacerbate the root causes of human trafficking, including poverty and lack of viable livelihoods and governments need to secure “greater engagement of local stakeholders” and provide increased “access to safe spaces following a disaster”. It is the Andhra Pradesh government’s duty to ensure that these children without families are safe and that they get enough provisions to tide over this difficult time.