by Juthika Baruah
Human trafficking has been a risingproblem in India especially in Assam and Northeast from where most of thetrafficking cases take place. Northeast India continues to be the destinationof human traffickers.
Recently, the United States has retained India in Tier 2 list of countries in its annual report of human trafficking arguing that the country does not fully meet the minimum standards for its elimination even as it is making progress.
Tier 2 is meant for those countrieswhose government does not fully meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act(TVPA) of 2000's minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bringthemselves into compliance with those standards.
The efforts includes convictingtraffickers, initiating a high-profile investigation into one case thatallegedly involved officials complicit in sex trafficking at agovernment-funded shelter and continuing to raise awareness of trafficking.
The main purpose of human trafficking is sexual exploitation and almost 80% of all worldwide trafficking is meant for the said reason with an estimated 1.2 million children being bought and sold into sexual slavery every year. It is very unfortunate the women and girls are the main victims of human trafficking in India and as a nation it is still being used by the traffickers as receiving, sending and transit country.
In Assam alone, as many as 1,185people have trafficked from 2011 to June 2017 and 722 of them were rescued fromdifferent places of the country. And during that period of time, as many as 895cases were registered during the period under human trafficking under Section370 and 370 A of Indian Penal Code.
With the increasing number of cases ofhuman trafficking in the Northeast, the Assam Rifles will also guard 1,624 kmIndo-Myanmar borders and is also preparing a team to deal with the cases ofhuman trafficking which mostly takes place through the borders in theNortheast.
To deal with the move, more than 80Assam Rifles officials have been posted along the border in Manipur who wereprovided with training on trafficking and child abuse.
According to report, the mostvulnerable borders through which trafficking are mostly taken place areManipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh which share the borders withMyanmar. Vast stretch of these borders is still unfenced.
Assam and Northeast has been facingthe brunt of human trafficking for a long time and now that the statistics hasgone up the region has a long way to go to curb the menace.
According to data for 2015, released byNational Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Assam has emerged as the trafficking hubof the country.
With 1494 cases, the state accounts for 22% ofthe total reported cases of trafficking across India. Assam also has thehighest number of child trafficking—1317 cases, which account for 38% of thenational figure.
However, the recent data of Assam police fortrafficking shows that the trafficking cases has risen from 25 in 2005 to 70 in2018.
Although Assam Police has created Anti HumanTrafficking Units (AHTU) in all the districts of Assam to combat crimes relatedto trafficking of persons specially women and children but still the cases oftrafficking is increasing day by day.
