Combating Human Trafficking in India: The Role of Non-governmental Organisations

Human trafficking in the present century is one of the worst kinds of exploitation and abuse that human beings have ever known, and India continues to be a source, destination and transit country for this trade. There are so many international instruments governing the issue, yet many stones will remain unturned until the domestic legislation steps up. The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 is still the main legislative tool in the field, but till date it criminalises the procurers, traffickers and profiteers without defining ‘trafficking’ per se in human beings. That gap has now been narrowed by the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, which for the first time supplies a general statutory definition in Indian criminal law; but the ITPA itself stands unamended, and the two enactments do not yet speak the same language. A dedicated Bill on trafficking has been drafted twice, in 2018 and 2021, and has lapsed on both the occasions. Against this background the paper looks at the constitutional guarantees and the pronouncements of our courts, from Vishal Jeet and Gaurav Jain to Bachpan Bachao Andolan and Budhadev Karmaskar, through which the judiciary has been quite upfront in dealing with this evil. It then turns to the question in front of all of us: what can an NGO offer? It is submitted that NGOs are not merely welfare agencies but participants with a statutory foothold, they may move the Magistrate for rescue, take part in the rehabilitation process, and extend social, psychological and legal assistance long after the rescue is over. It cannot be denied that all stakeholders have to join hands together to solve this burning issue. What is required is not merely more law, but the will and the machinery to give effect to the law that already exists.