India Must Ban Child Labor

GORDON BROWN IN HUFFINGTON POST

Pressure is mounting on the Indian Parliament to end child labour after 150,000 Indians signed an abolition petition demanding an immediate change in the child labour laws. The petition follows the recent revelation of slave labour conditions under which young children of eight and nine were making Christmas decorations. Currently dangerous work is outlawed in India — but there is no blanket ban yet on child labour under the age of fourteen. As a result India accounts for some of the worst excesses in global child labour; overall fifteen million children worldwide work full time when they should be at school.

This week the children who escaped slave conditions have spoken of their fate and about their ambitions for the future. During their horrific ordeal they were trafficked, exploited, imprisoned and denied food and their stories underline the urgent action needed to end child labour. They would still be making tree decorations and other trinkets but for the courageous rescue carried out by Kailash Satyarthi and his co-leaders of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) and Global March Against Child Labour (GMACL).

Their captors were slave masters who had them trafficked from Indian provinces. Often their parents were tricked into believing they were leaving to be given free education.

Their stories, recounted in a new film published on our website EducationEnvoy.org, reveal a pattern of child abuse. The first child featured on the film is eleven year old Rahim from Malman Nagariain. From the moment he boarded a train to India’s capital he became a prisoner and was eventually confined to a dark and dingy sweatshop in LNJP colony. He was forced to work 18 hours a day with only two recesses of ten minutes each for eating. He was never allowed to leave the premises and had to cook food for himself and his employer inside the sweatshop. He was often scolded and hit for being slow at work. His employer did not pay him a single rupee for his work despite being promised INR1500 per month. Now free he wants to study hard and become a soldier.

Imran is eleven and hails from the Katihar district in Bihar. He was indentured to an employer who promised he could send home money to support his family. In the asphyxiating sweatshop, which also doubled up as his living quarters, Imran had to work 14 hours a day. While he produced quality Christmas ornaments and gifts for export, he was never paid anything.

Imran will find it difficult to recover from his ordeal as his health suffered having to spend endless hours inhaling chemicals and adhesives. Though he is now free from the shackles of slavery and wants to go to school, the injuries he endured may be lasting, standing in the way of his ambition to be a teacher. He feels strongly that no child should experience what he went through.

Aslam, twelve, is a native of Sipur village, Azam Nagar in the Katihar district. Despite being promised a good education he too ended up in the same dingy sweatshop in Delhi. Like the other rescued children he worked very long days, sleeping in the same room where he worked. He was never paid a single rupee. Interestingly he too now wants to be a teacher.

Abdul came from the same village as Aslam. His parents sold him after they were promised their son would receive training to help him get a job. Instead he worked from 10am until midnight every day for months. He is now at BBA’s transit Mukti Ashram rehabilitation centre whilst the legal formalities of his repatriation are completed so he can go home. Like Rahim, he wants to be soldier when he grows up.

These boys tell similar stories — from when they were trafficked through to being eventually rescued — but they are only four of around fifteen million children not at school because they are forced to work.

Only a bold change in the law and the policing of it will change the plight of these child slaves. So when the Indian parliament reconvenes in February, the Global March Against Child Labour is seeking a change in the law which bans forever child labour under fourteen and restricts the minimum age to eighteen. The bill has been drafted. Politicians of all parties support it. It just needs the time required to be heard in Parliament so it can be voted through and passed into law.

Join us at EducationEnvoy.org in demanding the Indian people finally abolish child labour. Children should be putting up decorations not making them; the only work they should be doing is school work.

Let’s make 2013 the year child labour is consigned to history.

Names have been changed in this article for the protection of those concerned.

Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; UN Special Envoy for Global Education

Finally, the will for the right ban

ENAKSHI GANGULY THUKRAL IN THE HINDU

The Cabinet decision to seek total prohibition of child labour is a step long overdue

The Cabinet Committee has passed the proposal seeking a total ban on employing children under 14 years and of 14-18 year olds in hazardous occupations. When passed in Parliament as law, it will be a huge milestone in the journey that many of us had started in the mid-1980s. This also marks a milestone in my own personal journey as a child rights activist.The first time I engaged with this issue was in 1986 when the government was drafting the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 (CLPRA). Activists were protesting against the proposed law that would allow children to work in “non hazardous” occupations below the age of 14 years and in all occupations, hazardous and non-hazardous, beyond that age. We saw this as a violation of the basic right to childhood, as children as young as six and seven years were employed and leading horrifying lives.The law was passed and since then, India has had a law that for all practical purposes, that allows children to work. Over the years, activists have been advocating, fighting and campaigning on child labour throughout the country so that the government recognised the gravity of the problem and showed the political will to address it.

Leads to poverty

Child labour is a harsh reality, we were told by the government, children of the poor must work or how will they will survive?

This was the very argument that led to India’s declaration to Article 32 to the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child when the government ratified the Convention in 1992, stating that “… being aware that it is not practical immediately to prescribe minimum ages for admission to each and every area of employment in India — the Government of India undertakes to take measures to progressively implement the provisions of article 32 ….”

And hence even while India marched into economic growth and its place as a world superpower, child labour continued with legal support.Child rights activists were clear that child labour leads to poverty and not vice versa; child labour was a reality because without doubt, employers preferred children as they could be paid less, made to work longer hours and beaten into submission: the only way to address child labour and poverty was to ensure that child labour was banned, every child was in school and that they were replaced by adults who were paid at least minimum wages.

Educating children

But, the child labour law was in direct disharmony with the Fundamental Right to Education after (86th Amendment to the Constitution, 2002) and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE) passed in 2009. All children had the right to education but how could children be at school and at work at the same time?A public Interest litigation (PIL) filed by HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, M.V. Foundation and Social Jurist in 2005, for the first time raised this contradiction between the two laws in the Supreme Court, which issued a notice on December 12, 2005, to the Centre seeking enforcement of the right to education of every child in the age group of six to 14 by abolishing child labour in all its forms. But the government did not pay heed.

Moreover, even as raids and rescues of child labour revealed exploitation and abuse, CLPRA did not make child labour a cognisable offence. It was the Campaign against Child Labour (CACL) and the Campaign against Child Trafficking (CACT) that drew the government’s attention to this as did HAQ, a member of the Central Advisory Board on Child Labour. This issue was addressed somewhat in 2007, when the rules for the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 (JJA), in Section 26 of JJA made child labour a cognisable offence, bringing some relief. However, now there was a contradiction between JJA and CLPRA. JJA covered all children under 18 years in hazardous sectors, while CLPRA remained restricted to under 14 year olds.

Meanwhile, India was under tremendous international pressure to recognise child labour as a problem. Big companies under flak from activists, began to opt for “child labour free” declarations for the products they bought from, or produced in India. U.N. agencies such as the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child to which India has reported three times (the last report is due for discussion) raised questions about India’s continued stand on child labour being a harsh reality and therefore not possible to eliminate.The present move of the government to finally ban all child labour below the age of 14 years and in hazardous labour between 14-18 years is a coming together of all these efforts. It will finally resolve contradictions between the different laws.Better late than never! Of course, this is only the first stage to its becoming law, and we hope that Parliament will pass the proposal making it a law.

Will the law alone lead to the elimination of child labour? Perhaps not. After all, any change on the ground is dependent on the successful implementation of the law and this is an area in which India lags behind severely. And hence the battle for implementation of the law, once it is passed, will have to continue.But let us not be sceptical for now. Let us recognise and rejoice that this will be a giant leap in the history of child rights in India. For the first time, after over two and a half decades of struggle, the government has recognised that despite child labour being a “harsh reality,” the law must be forward looking. Instead of law reflecting reality, it must be designed to change it.

(Enakshi Ganguly Thukral is co-director of HAQ: Centre for Child Rights.)

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A Move That Could Help Reduce Child Labor

By Joanna Sugden in the WALL STREET JOURNAL

Campaigners for the abolition of child labor in India welcomed a Cabinet decision Tuesday which would ban the employment of children under the age of 14.

The government’s ministers called on Parliament to pass an amendment to the Child Labour Act 1986, a law which, until now, has allowed children below 14 to be involved in “non-hazardous” work. The amendment, if passed, would impose a maximum three-year jail term and 50,000-rupee fine for anyone employing a child under the age of 14 in any kind of work or engaging under-18s in hazardous work.The change would be the most significant development in India’s child labor laws since the introduction of a partial ban in 1986, according to activists working for an end to the practice.

However, activists also warned that without sufficient political backing, effective implementation, adequate budgets and robust enforcement, the amended law could remain on the statute book without any impact for the estimated 12.6 million under-14s working in the country.Kailash Satyarthi, chairman of the Global March Against Child Labor, said the change had the potential to strengthen a law that was “inappropriate and weak” at its inception and had become “redundant” as a result of contradictory legislation introduced subsequently.

“The current law is contradictory to the Right to Education Act which guarantees free schooling to every child under 14,” Mr. Satyarthi told India Real Time.He added: “We are concerned about the implementation of this [amended] law because most of the welfare laws in India are not enforced because of a lack of political will.”

As well as the need to remove contradictions from its statute book, the government is under pressure to meet the 2016 International Labour Organization’s deadline for the abolition of the worst forms of child labor.Mr. Satyarthi, who is also founder of the nongovernmental organization Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) said there had been an encouraging change in attitude among the political elite towards the practice of employing children.

“Image is very important now since India is promoting itself as the fastest-emerging economic power in the world,” he said. “They can’t afford legislation which goes against that image.”

The case of a 14-year-old domestic helper rescued by an NGO earlier this year after two doctors allegedly locked her in their apartment without adequate food while they went on vacation, also helped change the mind-set within India’s political class, according to Rishi Kant, the coordinator at Shakti Vahini, the organization which rescued the girl said. After “that incident the government became sensitive towards the child labor,” said Mr. Kant. “And within months, the Cabinet decision comes to ban all forms of child labor.”

Mr. Kant said that India needed a better mechanism for reporting and finding missing children to prevent child trafficking, which fuels the child labor industry. Figures released this week by the government said that 55,000 children go missing in India each year.

“Parents are lured by the money that their children are promised for petty jobs in big cities but the parents never get the money and the child gets all sorts of problems and all kinds of exploitation happens to the child,” Mr. Kant said.

Both Houses of Parliament must pass the amendment before it becomes law. Cassie Dummett, head of programming at Catholic Relief Services India, said that a change to the law would strengthen the hand of those working at the grass roots to eradicate child labor.

“We support projects in rural and poor India and are dealing with the police and Panchayats” or village councils, said Ms. Dummett. “If we are able to say to them, ‘This is the law, no child under 14 should be working’ it would be very useful.”

Sherin Khan, senior specialist on child labour for the International Labour Organization for South Asia, said the impact of the amendment, if enforced, would be “far reaching for the millions of children who are missing out on their development in a country that is now a global power.”

“For those needing assistance to do well in the formal school system there are a number of schemes, including the National Child Labour Project centres or bridge schools helpingRelated articles

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Shakti Vahini welcomes the Ban on Child Labour till age of 14

PRESS RELEASE DATED 28 AUGUST 2012

Shakti Vahini welcomes the move by the Government of India to ban all forms of Child Labour till the age of 14. With these amendment the classification of Hazardous and non hazardous jobs by children will not apply . With these move the Child Labour legislation is being brought in conformity with the Constitutional Provision of Right to Education Act .

Employing a child below 14 years in any kind of occupation is set to become a cognizable offence, punishable with a maximum three years imprisonment or fine upto a maximum of Rs. 50,000.The Union cabinet is likely to approve the Child & Adolescent Labour (Prohibition) Act, 1986 today which will allow employing children only between 14-18 years in non- hazardous industries like forest gathering, child care etc. Children between 14-18 years have been defined as “adolescents” in the amended Act. The existing Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, while prohibiting employment of children in hazardous industries allows children below 14 years of age to work in industries not considered to be hazardous. The amended Act, being moved by the labour ministry, also puts a blanket ban on employing anybody below 18 years in hazardous occupation.Such hazardous occupations have also been re-classified in line with the increase in the minimum age of child labour from 14 to 18 years.

As an organization which has been struggling for rescuing and rehabilitating thousands of children across the country who are engaged in child labour this move by the Government comes after years of advocacy and campaigns for Policy change and will have a lasting effect in the war against child labour in India. At Shakti Vahini we feel that banning any employment of children below 14 years will go a long way in enforcing the Right to Education Act, 2009 which mandates free and compulsory education of all children in the age group of 6-14 years.

Concerted efforts will weed out trafficking

Concerted efforts will weed out trafficking

MALLICA JOSHI IN THE HINDUSTAN TIMES

Picked up from Simdega district in Jharkhand, Meena was first taken to Patna and then to Delhi by train. She stayed in the national Capital for a week after which she was put on a bus for Ahmedabad. In a story traversing four states, the 13-year-old found herself changing hands four times after which she was finally rescued by the police from a house where she was working as a domestic maid.

Meena’s story indicates how the challenge of trafficking needs coordinated efforts by different states. The growing menace of child trafficking can only be curbed if state agencies formulate laws and work together.

“Political will is very important. It will not help if Delhi alone follows all guidelines. We need a strong coordinated effort by the state governments and police force of Jharkhand, West Bengal and Delhi. The Juvenile Justice Act needs to be followed in letter and spirit in all states and the Child Welfare Committees need to be made functional,” said Raajmangal Prasad, child rights activist.

While child trafficking is an organised crime, the investigation and prosecution of traffickers is lackadaisical.”Inter-state investigation in such cases is very weak. They are not linked from the source states to the destination area,” said Rishi Kant, member, Shakti Vahini, an NGO working in the field of child rights.

While the union home ministry (MHA) has started Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTU) in 225 districts in the country, training and sensitisation of the police is yet to be completed.

“While the AHTUs have been instrumental in rescuing a large number of children, the network needs to be expanded. We have already held a number of training sessions for police personnel to sensitise them. We need to get the message out that the trafficked women are not the culprits. They are, rather, the victims of circumstances,” said Praveen Kumari Singh, director (SR), MHA. The non-implementation of the provisions of the Integrated Child Protection System (ICPS), which talks about identifying vulnerable families and supporting them, is also adding to the woes.

“ICPS can ensure that a lot of poor families and their children don’t have to migrate but its non-implementation remains a big drawback,” Prasad added.

Child Welfare Committee should have members of civil society

TIMES OF INDIA

GURGAON: Unlike other cities like Delhi where civil society manages the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), in Gurgaon it’s the administration that runs the show. This fact not only hampers the functioning of the committee, but also creates confusion between the NGOs engaged in child welfare on the one hand and the administration on the other.

In Gurgaon, the deputy commissioner is also the chairperson of the CWC, while other officials from the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), district child welfare officer, district social welfare officer, a government-appointed social worker, besides the chief medical officer, DCP (headquarters) and district attorney, are other members.

Officials from NGOs and other organizations working in the field of child rights alleged that it takes undue time in getting a simple job done related to care and protection of a child. “As members are subordinate to the deputy commissioner in the administration set-up, no CWC official raises any question and simply follows his order in letter and spirit. CWC members should not be bureaucrats, said an owner of an NGO, adding that the officials might be efficient but they lack expertise and the necessary sensitivity in handling a child-related case.

Organizations demanded constitution of CWC based on provisions in Juvenile Justice Act (2000). “The members of the civil society having experience in child issues should be the chairperson and members of the committee. The Gurgaon DC is busy in his other works and how can one expect him to be present in any hearing, said a senior official from another NGO.

Childline (1098), Gurgaon, which provides emergency outreach service for children, also face a similar problem. Rishi Kant, spokesperson, NGO Shakti Vahini which runs Childline in Gurgaon said, “We don’t officials in CWC. There should be a proper bench of magistrates for deciding any order. Given the volume of cases and issues reported in Gurgaon, the CWC office should be functional for at least three days. Moreover, the order should be in accordance with the Juvenile Justice Act.” In Gurgaon, mostly a decision is taken by an individual member,Kant said.

Even the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has raised objection to the way CWC functions in Gurgaon. NCPCR member Vinod Kumar Tikoo, said, “We having raising this issue for the last one and a half years and asking the state government to revamp the set-up. The government has been asked to set up the CWC in accordance with JJ Act (2000) and JJ Rules.” “There are advantages of not having a committee with government officials. Administrative officials will have more inter-departmental authority. The deputy commissioner here, for instance, is so busy that it becomes difficult to take time out for the welfare committee,” said P C Meena, Gurgaon deputy commissioner.

Compensation meant for rescued child workers seldom reaches them

PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU

“It is essential that the system is made more transparent by having the Labour Department reveal the details of the penalties levied and compensation paid to the child workers” said Supreme Court lawyer . Rescued child workers seldom get the compensation or benefits under various schemes they are entitled to and often end up forced into working like bonded labourers due to the same.

Supreme Court lawyer Ravi Kant, also President of NGO Shakti Vahini, which has been actively involved in the rescue of child workers in Delhi and elsewhere, said less than 20 per cent of the rescued children are getting the compensation meant for them.

“The idea behind imposing the Rs.20,000 fine was to make it act as a deterrent, but I do not know how effective it has proved as a tool,” Mr. Kant said.

For the welfare of the children, he said, it is essential that the system is made more transparent by having the Labour Department reveal the details of the penalties levied and compensation paid to the child workers. Mr. Kant said the Supreme Court had also laid down that forced work by children without wages be booked under the Bonded Labour Act. This was also meant to provide the benefits of the Indira Vikas Yojana, to enable one member of the family get a job and enable the family access to ration supply as under the Below Poverty Line category that provides for the cheapest rations.

But even here, the implementation has left a lot to be desired and only a small fraction of the rescued children actually get the benefits of this scheme. A senior Labour Department official agreed that less than 20 per cent of the rescued children get the compensation money in hand. The reasons for this are many. The law as of now prohibits opening of an account in the name of a minor alone and they also cannot be issued debit cards. “While there is no one to ask about the welfare of these children when they are working, once they are rescued their relatives or distant relatives turn up for a slice of the money they are to get. It has also been seen that sometimes the families of these children force them back into the drudgery after getting the compensation amounts. The money lures them.”

The official said the Municipal Corporation of Delhi had in 2008 issued instructions that all rescued child workers would be given admission in the schools all through the year to ensure their proper rehabilitation. “Despite this, most child workers find their way back into the trade they are engaged in due to family pressure.”

The official said the parents are seldom booked for abetting child labour. Though The Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, 1933, provided for imposition of a penalty of Rs.50 on the parents and of Rs.250 on those engaging the parents for the services of their children, this law is seldom used to curb child labour. He said the children who are rescued are produced before the Child Welfare Committee dealing with the respective area. In all, there are four such committees in Delhi. These committees have magisterial powers and they give the custody of the children to the care homes which are being run by various non government organisations.

Children hailing from other States are repatriated to their native place. They are supposed to be paid a part of the Rs.20,000 fine imposed on the employer.

PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU

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Establishments being sealed across Delhi to curb child labour

PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU

“Apart from nearly 18 hazardous trades and about 65 processes, other works involving children are exempted under Sections 8 to 11 of the Act” said Labour Department official. Most establishments from where child workers are being rescued are now being sealed as per a recent Delhi High Court order.A senior Labour Department official said on Saturday that ever since the High Court’s May order, in which it had directed the sealing of all those premises from where child workers are rescued, the Department has been getting such premises sealed through the area Sub-Divisional Magistrates or the Tehsildars.He said it is also pertinent to note that not all cases of child labour are punishable under the law. The Child Labour Actprohibits employment of children in certain specified hazardous operations and processes and regulates the working conditions in others.  He said the Act covers children up to the age of 14.

“Apart from nearly 18 hazardous trades and about 65 processes, other works involving children are exempted under Sections 8 to 11 of the Act. But they also specify the working conditions for the children.”

Stating that children cannot be made to work for over six-and-half hours a day and have to be mandatorily given a rest after every two hours of work, the official said these rules were seldom followed.It was a Division Bench comprising Justice A. K. Sikri and Justice Rajiv Sahai Endlaw which had also directed the Delhi Government to file a status report by July 30 on the matter along with the details of the rescue operations and rehabilitation plans.

“In pursuance of the court directives, we have been actively carrying out raids against establishments and premises engaging child workers,” said the official.

Stating that child labour was basically a “social evil,” the official said the Right to Education Act has also made it mandatory for every child to have access to schools and education. Therefore, to discourage employment of children, raids are being mounted by the Labour Department along with officials of Revenue Department, Delhi Police, Department of Health, Municipal Corporation and NGO representatives.

“Each of these departments play a different role. We also videograph or photograph the raids wherever possible as evidence to prove the guilt of the establishments being raided.”

The official said the District Task Forces, comprising members of these departments and groups, have been carrying out raids across Delhi.

The problem of child labour has been compounded by issues such as growth in population, dependence of families on the incomes of their children or their inability to support the young ones, the demand for cheap labour and the fact that children are seen as docile workers who do not know about their rights and who, for fear of being beaten up, put up with long hours of work. Incidentally, the offence of employing children is bailable and most often those guilty of engaging child labourers get away by payment of a mere penalty.

President of Shakti Vahini, an NGO engaged in rescue and rehabilitation of child workers, Ravi Kant said the time has come to redraft the old, weak Child Labour Act as it neither has prosecution value nor provides provisions for proper rehabilitation. “Even now the reliance is more on the Juvenile Justice Act because of its stronger provisions.”

He said the child labour law was now in conflict with the Constitution, as under the Right to Education Act, there should be a complete ban on child labour whereas it only prohibits it in parts. “The Government should also take a firm stand in the matter. The Act only deals with children up to 14 years of age leading other adolescents up to 18 years prone to all kinds of exploitation while being employed as domestic or other workers.”

PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU

Eight girls rescued from placement cells

TIMES OF INDIA

NEW DELHI: Eight girls from Assam, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have been rescued from four placement agencies in east Delhi allegedly involved in human trafficking. Four persons, including a woman, have been arrested.

“There was a tip-off from an NGO, Shakti Vahini, and we raided the four placement agencies, Babita Enterprises, India Maid Bureau, Deepika Placement Agency and Mission Welfare Society,” said Sanjay Kumar Jain, deputy commissioner of police (crime). The arrested have been identified as Ravinder Yadav, Pradeep Toppo, Vimal Kerketta and Babita, all residents of Shakurpur in east Delhi.

Four of the rescued girls are from Assam, one from Chhattisgarh and three from Jharkhand. “The girls were terrified and have disclosed that the placement agencies had employed them as domestic help across Delhi. When they wanted to go home, the agencies had detained them and withheld their earnings. These placement agencies wanted them to employ further as domestic helps

,” Jain said. After medical examination, the girls were sent to the children’s home for girls at Nirmal Chhaya in Hari Nagar. Ten girls, who were lured on the pretext of employment in the capital, were also rescued from GB Road brothels in central Delhi. The girls in the age group of 15-18 years were rescued from GB Road brothels following a tip-off by Rescue Foundation, an NGO. Nine of them are from West Bengal and one from Bihar.

“They all belong to poor families and were lured on the pretext of providing them employment in Delhi,” Devesh Srivastava, Additional Commissioner of Police (Central), said. The raid was conducted after the NGO informed police that a a minor girl who was missing from 24 Pargana in West Bengal is confined at Kotha No- 58, GB Road. Out of ten, nine are residents of West Bengal while one is from Bihar.

Trafficking in Persons Report 2012 lauds the role of Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTU)

AHTU Training Programme to combat Modern Day Slavery

INDIA (Tier 2)

US TIP Report 2012 recognizes the work undertaken by the Ministry of Home Affairs initiated Anti Human Trafficking Units to combat Trafficking in India.

India is a source, destination, and transit country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. The forced labor of millions of its citizens constitutes India’s largest trafficking problem; men, women, and children in debt bondage are forced to work in industries such as brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture, and embroidery factories. A common characteristic of bonded labor is the use of physical and sexual violence as coercive tools. Ninety percent of trafficking in India is internal, and those from India’s most disadvantaged social strata, including the lowest castes, are most vulnerable. Children are also subjected to forced labor as factory workers, domestic servants, beggars, agricultural workers, and to a lesser extent, in some areas of rural Uttar Pradesh as carpet weavers. There were new reports about the continued forced labor of children in hybrid cottonseed plots in Gujarat, and reports that forced labor may be present in the Sumangali scheme in Tamil Nadu, in which employers pay young women a lump sum to be used for a dowry at the end of a three-year term. An increasing number of job placement agencies lure adults and children for forced labor or sex trafficking under false promises of employment. Indian boys from Bihar were increasingly subjected to forced labor in embroidery factories in Nepal.

Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of forced prostitution. Religious pilgrimage centers and cities popular for tourism continue to be vulnerable to child sex tourism. Women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh, and an increasing number of females from Uzbekistan, Ukraine, and Russia, are also subjected to sex trafficking in India. There were increasing reports of females from northeastern states and Odisha subjected to servile marriages in states with low female-to-male child sex ratios, including Haryana and Punjab, and also reports of girls subjected to transactional sexual exploitation in the Middle East under the guise of temporary marriages. Maoist armed groups known as the Naxalites forcibly recruited children into their ranks. Establishments of sex trafficking are moving from more traditional locations – such as brothels – to locations that are harder to find, and are also shifting from urban areas to rural areas, where there is less detection.

Some Indians who migrate willingly every year for work as domestic servants and low-skilled laborers find themselves in forced labor in the Middle East and, to a lesser extent, Southeast Asia, the United States, Europe, Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and other countries. In some cases, such workers are lured from their communities through fraudulent recruitment, leading them directly to situations of forced labor, including debt bondage; in other cases, high debts incurred to pay recruitment fees leave them vulnerable to labor trafficking. Nationals from Bangladesh and Nepal are trafficked through India for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation in the Middle East.

In March 2012, a U.S. court entered a default judgment of $1.5 million in favor of an Indian domestic worker who sued a former Indian consular officer who had employed her while assigned to duty in the United States; no appeal was filed. The domestic worker accused the Indian diplomat of forcing her to work without adequate compensation for three years and subjecting her to physical and mental abuse.

The Government of India does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) continued to establish Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs), which were responsible for combining law enforcement and rehabilitation efforts. The Central Bureau of Investigation launched an anti-trafficking unit in the reporting period and gave investigation authority under trafficking-related laws to all its police officers. Challenges remain regarding overall law enforcement efforts against bonded labor and the alleged complicity of public officials in human trafficking.

Recommendations for India: Develop a comprehensive anti-trafficking law or amend anti-trafficking legislation to be in line with the 2000 UN TIP Protocol, with adequate penalties prescribed by the UN Transnational Organized Crime Convention; increase prosecutions and convictions on all forms of trafficking, including bonded labor; prosecute officials allegedly complicit in trafficking, and convict and punish officials complicit in trafficking; encourage states to establish special anti-trafficking courts; improve distribution of state and central government rehabilitation funds to victims under the Bonded Labor (System) Abolition Act (BLSA); improve protections for trafficking victims who testify against their traffickers; encourage AHTUs to address both sex and labor trafficking of adults and children; encourage state and district governments to file bonded labor cases under appropriate criminal statutes; improve central and state government implementation of protection programs and compensation schemes to ensure that certified trafficking victims receive benefits; and increase the quantity and breadth of public awareness and related programs on bonded labor.

Prosecution

The government continued to make progress in its law enforcement efforts to combat human trafficking in 2011, but concerns remain over the uneven enforcement of trafficking laws and alleged official complicity. India prohibits most forms of forced labor through the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the BLSA, the Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, and the Juvenile Justice Act. These laws were unevenly enforced, and their prescribed penalties are not sufficiently stringent. India prohibits most forms of sex trafficking. Prescribed penalties for sex trafficking under the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA) and the IPC, ranging from three years’ to life imprisonment, are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes, such as rape. The ITPA also criminalizes other offenses, including prostitution, and has some sections that are sometimes used to criminalize sex trafficking victims.

The government did not report comprehensive law enforcement data, and the challenges of gathering accurate, comprehensive, and timely data make it difficult to assess law enforcement efforts. However, the Ministry of Home Affairs established scorecards for its AHTUs in June 2011 to improve the availability of real-time data. A variety of sources noted that there were many investigations, including inter-state investigations. In Mumbai, in 2011, there were 242 sex trafficking cases prosecuted in the special ITPA court; 125 sex trafficking offenders were convicted with sentences of up to three years’ imprisonment. Two NGOs reported that six trafficking offenders were convicted for forced and bonded labor. Four offenders were sentenced to one year in prison – these sentences are being appealed – and two offenders were charged with fines. Most government prosecutions were supported in partnership with NGOs. A senior government official noted that while trafficking rescues and registration of cases have increased, convictions remain low. However, conviction rates were low across the penal system. Some NGOs continued to criticize the categorization of trafficking crimes as bailable offenses, which in some cases resulted in the accused absconding after receiving bail. Enforcement of trafficking laws, particularly labor trafficking laws such as the BLSA, remained a challenge.

NGOs continued to report that official complicity in trafficking remained a problem. Corrupt law enforcement officers reportedly continued to facilitate the movement of sex trafficking victims, protect suspected traffickers and brothel keepers from enforcement of the law, and receive bribes from sex trafficking establishments and sexual services from victims. Some police allegedly continued to tip-off sex and labor traffickers to impede rescue efforts. Some owners of brothels, rice mills, brick kilns, and stone quarries are reportedly politically connected. The Indian government reported no prosecutions or convictions of government officials for trafficking-related offenses during the reporting period; NGOs said this was due to a lack of sufficient evidence. In September 2011, the police arrested a member of the border security force for trafficking. He was released on bail as of December 2011, but there is no further information on that case. There was no information on the status of an arrest of a former member of parliament or an investigation on an Indian Administrative Services officer – as noted in the 2011 TIP Report – for his involvement in human trafficking.

The Central Bureau of Investigation established a dedicated federal anti-trafficking unit in January 2012 whose police officers have nationwide investigative authority. The government continued to implement its three-year nationwide anti-trafficking effort by disbursing funds to state governments to establish at least 107 new Anti-Human Trafficking Units in police departments during the reporting period, for a total of at least 194 AHTUs. Some NGOs believed that some units were more focused on sex trafficking than labor trafficking, including bonded labor. Some units appeared to focus on child trafficking rather than on the trafficking of both children and adults. Some units continued to be understaffed, which hampered efforts. The government funded more than 500 police officers to participate in a six-month anti-trafficking course at the Indira Gandhi National Open University. The government reported that it covered transportation and lodging expenses for over 5,000 government officials who participated in NGO-organized anti-trafficking trainings.

Protection

India made efforts to protect and assist trafficked victims. The MHA, through a 2009 directive, advised state government officials to use standard operating procedures developed in partnership with UNODC to proactively identify trafficking victims and refer them to protection services; however, the implementation of these procedures is unknown. The government continued to fund over 100 NGO-run hotlines that help assist vulnerable people, including trafficking victims. The Ministry of Labor and Employment reported 865 bonded laborers rescued and the equivalent of almost $170,000 distributed in government-mandated rehabilitation funds in 2010-11, the latest data available. This represents a small fraction of the millions of Indian citizens subject to bonded labor. There were some NGO reports of delays in obtaining release certificates, and distribution of rehabilitation funds was uneven across states. There were numerous reports that sex trafficking victims were rescued, most often in partnership between police and NGOs. There were increased reports of inter-state coordination among the AHTUs resulting in rescues. In one case, the Manipur, Rajasthan, and Kerala AHTUs collaborated in the rescue of 33 trafficked children.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) allocated the equivalent of $118 million for 2011-12 to fund 153 projects in 17 states under the Ujjawala program – which seeks to protect and rehabilitate female sex trafficking victims – and 58 new Swadhar projects – which help female victims of violence, including sex trafficking. Some NGOs have cited difficulty in receiving timely disbursements of national government funding of their shelters under these programs. India does not provide care for adult male trafficking victims. Conditions of government shelter homes under the MWCD varied from state to state. NGOs reported that a number of shelters were overcrowded and unhygienic, offered poor food, and provided limited, if any, services. There were some NGO reports that some shelters did not permit victims to leave the shelter purportedly for security reasons; this violates international principles on the protection of victims. In some cases, traffickers continued to re-traffic victims by approaching shelter managers and pretending to be family members to get the victims released to them, although this practice is declining. Some Indian diplomatic missions in the Middle East provided services, including temporary shelters, medical care, legal assistance, and 24-hour hotlines, to Indian migrant laborers, some of whom were victims of trafficking.

There were some reports of trafficking victims being penalized for acts committed as a result of being trafficked. Section 8 of the ITPA (solicitation) and Section 294 of the IPC (obscenity in public places) continued to be used to criminalize sex trafficking victims. Reports indicated that some victims are punished for being undocumented migrants or for document fraud. Foreign trafficking victims were not offered special immigration benefits such as temporary or permanent residency status, although some NGOs reported that foreign victims had the same access to care as domestic victims. Foreign victims are not offered legal alternatives to their removal to countries where they may face hardship or retribution. In most cases, NGOs assisted rescued victims in providing evidence to prosecute suspected traffickers. Many victims declined to testify against their traffickers due to the fear of retribution by traffickers, who were sometimes acquaintances. Some NGOs continued to report the government was increasingly sensitized against not treating victims as perpetrators, and law enforcement activities against victims decreased. There were some reports of police treating victims as perpetrators, not using victim-centric policies, and not improving victim-witness security, which hindered victim testimony and prosecutions.

Prevention

The Government of India continued to make progress in its efforts to prevent human trafficking. The MHA’s Anti-Trafficking Nodal Cell continued bimonthly inter-ministerial meetings on trafficking, which also included participation of anti-trafficking officers from state governments. The Ministry of Home Affairs raised public awareness on trafficking though radio talk shows and press conferences; the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs continued to work with state governments to conduct safe emigration awareness campaigns; and the Bureau of Police Research and Development organized a workshop on the linkages between missing children and human trafficking and encouraged all police officers to track cases of missing persons.

The Ministry of Labor and Employment continued its preventative convergence-based project against bonded labor in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha, but not in Haryana. The government reduced the demand for commercial sex acts in the reporting period by convicting clients of prostitution. The government continued its multi-year project to issue unique identification numbers to citizens; more than 100 million identify cards were issued in the reporting period. Training for Indian soldiers and police officers deployed in peacekeeping missions reportedly included awareness about trafficking.