India sees 25 pct rise in trafficked women and children in 2016
March 9, 2017
NEW DELHI, March 9 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Almost 20,000 women and children were victims of human trafficking in India in 2016, a rise of nearly 25 percent from the previous year, government data released on Thursday showed.
The Ministry of Women and Child Development told parliament that 19,223 women and children were trafficked last year against 15,448 in 2015, with the highest number of victims recorded in the eastern state of West Bengal.
Police officials attributed the rise to increased public awareness of trafficking-related crimes and more police training.
“It’s difficult to claim these crimes are rising dramatically,” said a senior Delhi police official, who declined to be named.
“I think more victims are coming forward and reporting because of more information about trafficking,” the official said. “Government and civil society groups are doing campaigns and people are also seeing more cases being reported in the media.”
The official said the actual figure could be much higher as many victims were still not registering cases with the police, largely because they did not know the law or feared traffickers.
South Asia, with India at its centre, is one of the fastest-growing regions for human trafficking in the world.
Thousands of people – largely poor, rural women and children – are lured to India’s towns and cities each year by traffickers who promise good jobs, but sell them into modern day slavery.
Some end up as domestic workers, or forced to work in small industries such as textile workshops, farming or are even pushed into brothels where they are sexually exploited.
