Modern day slavery goes unpunished
STUDY CITES LACK OF LEGAL CARE AND PROTECTION FOR BONDED LABOURERS
Ashortage of specialised legal care and protection means that victims of trafficking and bonded labour in India fail to get justice and perpetrators continue to buy and sell people with impunity, a report said yesterday.
The study by the Freedom Fund and Thomson Reuters Foundation said charities on the front-line of anti-trafficking efforts were unable to support victims to pursue their cases in court as they were chronically under funded and poorly trained.
“Traffickers are motivated by high profits and the low risk due to weak law enforcement and low levels of prosecution. To tackle human trafficking, prosecution and punishment of offenders must be pursued as well as legal action to seize the assets and profits of traffickers,” said the report.
“While prosecutions alone will not bring an end to trafficking, there is immense potential to use legal strategies to deliver justice to victims, deter potential perpetrators and put traffickers out of business,” it added.
India is home to more than 14 million victims of slavery, ranging from bonded labour to prostitution, according to the 2014 Global Slavery Index. The index found India had by far the greatest number of slaves of the 167 countries surveyed.
Trafficked to cities
Thousands of Indians — largely poor, rural women and children — are lured to cities each year by traffickers who promise good jobs but sell them into domestic or sex work or to industries such as brick kilns and textile workshops.
In many cases, they are not paid or are held in debt bondage. Some go missing, with their families unable to trace them.
In January, hundreds of children trafficked and enslaved to make bangles were rescued by police in the southern city of Hyderabad. Some of the children were as young as six.
The report, which is based on interviews with NGOs, lawyers, survivors, police and government child welfare officers in New Delhi, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, said that despite thousands of people being rescued, many perpetrators went unpunished.