WHAT IS CHILD TRAFFICKING WHERE IT HAPPENS WHO’S BEHIND THE SCENE CAUSES OF CHILDREN BEING TRAFFICKED LIVES OF TRAFFICKED CHILD VICTIMS WHAT CAN BE DONE TO COMBAT CHILD TRAFFICKING   INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATIONS CHART OF NATIONAL LEGISLATIONS WHAT BBA DOES TO COMBAT TRAFFICKING THE WAY FORWARD
	SOUTH ASIA In Bangladesh, trafficking in children for labour exploitation occurs both within and across the country's borders over well-known routes. Bangladeshi children are trafficked for prostitution, forced and bonded labour, camel jockeying, marriage, and even the sale of organs. Girls are generally trafficked into domestic or commercial sex work, boys are most often sent to work in manufacturing industries and sweatshops in India and Pakistan. Some 90 percent of Bangladeshi children go to India, the balance to Pakistan and some Middle Eastern countries. The country's Ministry of Home, Social Welfare, and Women estimates that between 1993 and 1997, over 13,320 children were victims of trafficking out of Bangladesh. A separate report by UNICEF and the SAARC asserts that about 4,500 Bangladeshi children are trafficked into Pakistan annually for bonded marriage or bonded labour. Non-govemmental organizations (NGOs) working with child prostitutes estimate that in 1997, some 820 children were trafficked within Bangladesh into the commercial sex industry. And this only gives a glimpse of the total number of children working in Bangladesh's sex industry who may be victims of trafficking. Bangladeshi police estimate that there are between 15,000 and 20,000 child street prostitutes. A recent study commissioned by ESCAP revealed that 68 percent of child prostitutes interviewed were forced into their work. Even larger nwnbers of Bangladeshi child prostitutes, it appears, are working in neighboring countries. Research suggests about 200,000 Bangladeshi children work in the brothels of Pakistan, with another 300,000 employed in the brothels of India. Meanwhile, Lawyers for Hwnan Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) of Pakistan has reported that over 19,000 boys from the region, ranging in age from two to 11 years old, have been trafficked as camel jockeys to the Middle East - a trade that can cost them their lives. Though also a major receiving country, most of India's trafficking takes places within its borders. A study by the Central Social Welfare Board reported that most children brought to cities like Bombay, Calcutta, and Delhi come from states like Karnataka, Mahrashtra, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu. Estimates of the nwnber of children trafficked for prostitution in India vary widely depending on the source - from a low of25,000 children to a high of 500,000 children. Only about five percent of these children were trafficked from Nepal or Bangladesh. By most estimates over 20 percent of these foreign prostitutes were children. Within Nepal, child labour is found mainly in the agriculture, manufacturing, service, and sex industries. Many children are trafficked to Kathmandu, where they work in manufacturing, sweatshops, hotels, or as domestic workers and child prostitutes. Here again exact figures are lacking, but we can get a sense of the scope by looking at estimates of child prostitutes - which range from 3,000 to 40,000 children. A recent ESCAP study found that most of Nepal's child prostitutes were forced or deceived into entering the sex industry. Of course, children are trafficked within Nepal for reasons other than prostitution, though data on such cases are lacking. What we do know is that approximately 5,000 children in Nepal are living apart from their families and that the cause for this separation is generally due to trafficking for labour purposes or voluntary labour migration. While some of these children are prostitutes who would be included in the estimates above, others are trafficked into forced labour including domestic servitude. Cross- border trafficking also victimizes children ITom Nepal. Girls are sent to India -­generally for prostitution -- while boys are sent to work on construction sites, brick kilns, tea plantations, and in manufacturing. To get a sense of the total magnitude of the problem, consider estimates of child sex workers in India. One report suggests that about 200,000 Nepali prostitutes work in Indian cities - 20 per cent or 40,000 of whom are under the age of 16. While some of these children may have entered the sex industry willingly, to be sure a significant portion was trafficked into the trade under false promises of gainful employment. Maiti Nepal (a local non-governmental organization (NGO)) estimated that between 5,000 and 7,000 girls are trafficked ITom Nepal into prostitution in India annually. Source: Trafficking in Children in Asia A regional overview 2000, ILO-IPEC

WHAT IS CHILD TRAFFICKING

Trafficking of children refers to recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of children for the purpose of exploitation, their relocation within the same country or across borders for forced labour.  Forced labour includes use of children for carpet weaving, domestic work, work in stone quarries, agriculture and various industries, prostitution, pornography, organ removal or use as child soldiers and other illicit activities like beggary and drug trade. Child trafficking is one of the worst forms of child labour. The practice of slave trade, as we all know, existed hundreds of years back and was officially abolished worldwide at 1927 Slavery Convention, but the centuries-old tradition of slavery carries on even in the 21st century as bonded or forced labour with more than 12.3 million forced labour victims worldwide out of which 2.4 are victims of trafficking, according to ILO’s Global Alliance Against Forced Labour Report. In 2003 ILO estimated that of the 8.4 million children engaged in the ‘unconditional worst forms of child labour’, 5.7 million children are engaged in forced or bonded labour and 1.2 million are trafficked. 

The number and extent of child trafficking has been on the increase over the last few decades with a deliberate attempt to profit by the most vulnerable children and women. Therefore trafficking is carried out with the intention to exploit the trafficked people and is not similar to people smuggling as it involves aiding people to illegally cross borders and does not involve the intention to exploit them. 

Conservative estimates say that there are 700,000 people trafficked each year.  However, some figures suggest that the number could be as high as 1 million or even 4 million, taking into account the people who are victims of human cargo.  Children account for a large number of these trafficked victims. 800,000 persons are trafficked across international borders each year and 50 percent of all victims are children, according to US State Department. 

Though child trafficking is growing rapidly in India, there is no reliable data available on the issue in India. 200,000 persons are trafficked into, within or through India every year, according to U.S. State Department. Only 10 % of human trafficking in India is international, while almost 90 % is interstate (NHRC Report). According to figures provided by the National Crime Records Bureau, in 2004, as many as 2,265 cases of kidnapping and abduction of children qualified as forms of trafficking and were reported to the police. Of these, 1,593 cases were of kidnapping for marriage, 414 were for illicit sex, 92 for unlawful activity, 101 for prostitution and the rest for various other things like slavery, beggary and even selling body parts. Most of these children (72 per cent) were between 16 and18 years of age. Twenty-five per cent were children aged 11-15 years.

The definition of Trafficking and child trafficking according to UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children

WHERE IT HAPPENS

Child trafficking is a global and complex problem affecting all continents but is most extensive in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Trafficking often originates from a poorer developing nation to a nation of emerging economy within geographical regions or continents.  Some victims are trafficked across the ocean from developing countries to developed countries.  However, it should also be noted that it frequently occurs in those countries in social and economic transition, for instance from countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

The routes and patterns of human trafficking that exist within these broad regions are not static. They are dynamic and rapidly changing, according to the economic and political circumstances, rise and fall of the market economy, and changes in modern technology.

Trafficking as a phenomenon exists in the European Union countries, Central and South America, South Asia, South East Asia, West Africa and Southern Africa. The children are forced to steal, kept as domestic help, used as drug peddlers or exploited sexually as prostitutes and for pornographic films. Even adoption child trafficking has a clientele in the EU countries.

WHO’S BEHIND THE SCENE

All the people who contribute towards trafficking of children and profit from it are traffickers. While it is, most often than not, assumed that large organised crime syndicates are the main culprit for trafficking of children, the recruitment and trafficking of children is carried out by a rather smaller networks with a few representatives in different countries. Others who facilitate trafficking are transport workers who help cross borders illegally, professionals like lawyers who help in trafficking babies for adoption, officials who help producing false documents and border police who are reportedly bribed to cross borders. It is common to find that many individuals involved in the business were once also trafficked or subjected to exploitative labour during their childhood.

Corruption in law enforcement plays a large role in the growth of organised crimes profiting from human trafficking. Border police, immigration officials, and local police are often in hands with human traffickers to receive their share of profits by truing their heads away from the crime. 

Human trafficking ranks as the second most lucrative form of International crime after trafficking drugs, but unlike the latter, children can be sold several times.

CAUSES OF CHILDREN BEING TRAFFICKED

The root causes of trafficking in children are multiple and complex. Trafficking of children often involves exploitation of the parent’s extreme poverty. Due to their desperation for a better life, many suffering from poverty fall prey to trafficking.  Today’s knowledge and technology-based economy has allowed only the skilled and educated to thrive to the top.  And with lack of the governments’ will to provide educational and vocational training for the most vulnerable children, it leaves a group of poor and illiterate utterly submissive to exploitation. In most developing countries today Globalization has severed the traditional socio-economic relations and the growth of tourism has rendered children vulnerable.

School enrolment is one of the major preventive measures against trafficking. Children who are not enrolled in schools are at a higher risk of being trafficked and so are children without birth certificates. It is easier to hide and difficult to trace children without legal identity. Unemployment of parents and their ignorance to realities of trafficking heightens children’s vulnerability to traffickers.

During natural disasters and political conflicts children many be orphaned or separated from their parents, which make them vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. These children could also be abducted by armed groups and forced to participate in armed conflict.

Religious and cultural traditions in the form of Devadasi system of dedication of young girls to gods and goddesses in some parts of India or the Devaki system in Nepal sanctifies and institutionalizes this crime. Gender discrimination and beliefs that sex with virgins and young children is safer and can heal sexual disorders only add to the problem.

Some of the biggest hurdles in child trafficking remain lack of public awareness, increasing demand for cheap labour and exploitative sex, porous borders and insufficient penalties against traffickers.

Girls are usually easy targets of trafficking. In West and Central Africa, 90% of trafficked child domestic servants are girls.  They are considered more submissive and docile.  Some children of ethnic minority groups are not granted citizenship of the country where they are born and live.  This limits their opportunities for education and legal protection, making them even more vulnerable.  Lack of legal protection is also a problem with refugee children and children who no longer have a nation to belong to, due to ethnic or armed conflicts. 

LIVES OF TRAFFICKED CHILD VICTIMS

Trafficking is violation of child rights in itself but further leads to violation of child rights due to the kind of exploitation and abuse it pushes the children into.  The day children arrive in the foreign land, in false hopes for a better life and education or in shame of being abducted, is when the ever-lasting nightmare begins.  Children are seen as the cheapest disposal labour who can be easily forced into the most exploitative and hazardous work. Many children end up in prostitution, illegal adoption, armed forces, mail-in-bride sale, plantation work, sweatshops, domestic servitude, forced beggary, and criminal activities.

These children are abused and violated constantly at all stages of the trafficking cycle. Their abuse can vary from verbal abuse and threats to physical abuse, sexual abuse, house arrest, starvation, forced use of drugs and sedatives being injected into them. The helplessness of these children and their illegal status make them highly vulnerable to coercion and maltreatment.

Even when these children are rescued, they face ill-treatment in police custody as, more often than not, they are considered perpetrators rather than victims of trafficking. They face threats of violence against them or their relatives from the traffickers and also undergo mental trauma due to the stigma attached to sexual exploitation.

Finally these children are denied the right to a dignified life. They are denied schooling, normal socialization and love and most of all are denied a healthy childhood they are entitled to.

WHAT CAN BE DONE TO COMBAT CHILD TRAFFICKING

Laws Concerning Child and Human Trafficking:

Several International laws, which aim to curb and prevent the trafficking of human beings of all ages, now exist. In essence, these laws should be sufficient to combat the problem. Unfortunately, several countries have not ratified or implemented these laws. Others do not recognise them and a few, who have ratified them, do not observe them.

INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATIONS

CHART OF NATIONAL LEGISLATIONS

Indian Penal Code

WHAT BBA DOES TO COMBAT TRAFFICKING

Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA) has made efforts to combat trafficking at various levels. More specifically, a comprehensive response to protect all the rights  of  all children, specially the right to be free from economic exploitation as well as right to education and participation, comprise of following dimensions:

Any time-bound, multi-pronged, pro-active and holistic approach to protect children in most difficult circumstances would also consist of the following 6 stages of intervention:

It is necessary to recognise here that most of the worst forms of child labour are, in fact, victims of trafficking. A child cannot be forced to work for long hours nor can s/he be exploited or beaten up in front of his parents. Thus, child labour complies with all the internationally recognised essentials of trafficking – movement of the victim, under a menace of penalty, use of force, fraud or deception and exploitation for economic gain and the victim’s position of vulnerability.

 Creation of Child-Friendly Villages (Bal Mitra Grams) is a grassroots level preventive initiative by BBA to keep children from being trafficked. A Child-Friendly Village is one where all children are withdrawn from any form of child labour, all children are enrolled in mainstream education system, adult Village Panchayat recognizes and incorporates the voice of Bal Panchayat (Children’s Parliament) and efforts are made for the socio-economic development of the marginalized sections of the village. Watch groups like Youth Group, Women’s Group, etc are formed for identification of out-of-school children and at-risk children and monitoring. Community ownership is developed which in turn makes the community responsible and thus makes it a sustainable strategy. This is creation of awareness as well as empowerment of the stakeholders themselves. Change can only be brought about when the victims themselves rise against the exploitation perpetrated upon them. Through creation of Child-Friendly Villages, BBA wants to finally create a Child-Friendly Society. BBA also works towards increasing Birth Registrations in villages where people are not aware of the importance of birth registration certificates. Children without official recognition of their name and nationality are more likely to be trafficked as they cannot be traced back to their country of origin.

At the policy level BBA aims to advocate child-friendly policies and laws which truly work in favour of the children and do not violate their rights, for example, BBA is advocating for a law against trafficking for forced labour.

BBA works towards generating awareness among the consumers, employers and the people most susceptible to trafficking i.e. at-risk children. BBA had launched a huge Consumer Awareness Campaign in European countries and United States for consumers in these countries unaware of the inhuman conditions in which children were working in the carpet industry as forced labourers. It worked towards labelling of carpets made without the help of children and the result was RUGMARK which guarantees the consumer that no child was involved in the process of making the carpet. As a result of this, the import of these carpets into the consumer countries plummeted. Since 1995, Rug Mark has freed more than 3,000 children from carpet looms and deterred thousands more from entering the trap of forced labour which is the main reason for trafficking of children. In a recent nation-wide campaign by BBA against employment of children as domestic help, “From Work to School” Campaign, awareness was generated to stop employing children who were usually trafficked from the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and the neighbouring countries of Nepal and Bangladesh.
BBA works towards generating awareness among the employers through a multi-pronged approach. BBA initiated dialogues with the circus owners to stop employing children who were mostly trafficked from Nepal.  On January 27th, 2004, a declaration was signed between BBA and the Indian Circus Federation to the effect that:

a) There shall be no further recruitment of children in Indian Circuses;
b) The children currently employed shall be phased out in a time bound manner;
c)  BBA would ensure that the children released are safely repatriated and rehabilitated.

People in the fashion industry are also made aware of how children are trafficked and made to work in abhorrent conditions in the zari industry.

BBA also carries out awareness campaigns through the Mukti Caravan, a mobile campaign of former child labourers. These former child labourers go from place to place sensitizing people on various issues such as child trafficking, child labour, illiteracy, etc. through street plays, puppet shows, IEC material, documentaries, etc. Mukti Caravan makes the people aware of how the middleman or trafficker takes advantage of their socio-economic condition and lures them to send their children with the trafficker for a better future. But in reality the children are pushed into bondage where they are made to work for long hours in the most inhuman conditions and are not in a position to fight for their rights.

THE WAY FORWARD