U.S. Department of State 2003 Trafficking in Persons Report - India

India (Tier 2)

India is a country of origin, transit, and destination for thousands of trafficked persons. Internal trafficking of women, men, and children for purposes of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, bonded labor, and indentured servitude is widespread. Indian men and women also are put into situations of coerced labor and sometimes slave-like conditions in countries in the Middle East and the West. India is a destination for sex tourists from Europe and the United States. Bangladeshi women and children are trafficked to India or transited through India en route to Pakistan and the Middle East for purposes of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and forced labor. Nepalese women and girls are trafficked to India for commercial sexual exploitation.

The Government of India does not yet fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so despite limited resources. It is strongest in the areas of prevention and protection. Significant progress was made in prosecution this past year but much more needs to be done. The government should speed up the prosecution of trafficking cases, increase training on trafficking for low-level police officers throughout the country, and increase prosecutions of corrupt officials. A major concern is the high number of child victims forced into commercial sexual exploitation in the mega-cities of India. Prosecutions of those involved in perpetrating the commercial sexual exploitation of children should substantially increase over the next year to combat this dreadful scourge.

Prevention

Both the central and state governments support prevention campaigns. They partner with international organizations, foreign governments, and faith-based groups in programs aimed at preventing trafficking and alleviating poverty. The central government's Poverty Alleviation Project reserves forty percent of its budget for women's projects and spent $3 million over the last year for micro-credit programs in key source areas for trafficking. In an effort to reduce the number of those vulnerable to trafficking, the project supports an educational scholarship program for girls and young women in 2000 of India's poorest regions, and a Women's Empowerment Scheme, covering 7,300 villages in 51 districts of several states. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment established a child helpline that covers 40 cities. The central government and an international organization signed a $400 million agreement for a five-year program to prevent trafficking and to assist at-risk children. Together with another international organization, the government is conducting the world's largest child labor elimination program, which includes providing primary education for 250 million children.

The state of Goa, together with NGOs, is supporting public awareness campaigns about pedophilia and sex tourism on the beaches. The State Transport Network in the state of Maharashtra conducts training programs for drivers and bus conductors to spot girls in distress and has prominently displayed anti-trafficking help line numbers at major bus stations. The state of Tamil Nadu established village level "watchdog" committees to prevent trafficking in women and children. These committees include representatives from the village council, school officials, representatives from police stations, and members of NGOs. The Chennai Central Railway Station set up a "Childline" to rescue and keep a record of children being taken out of the state for labor and to watch for runaways and other at-risk children. Stree Shakti (Women Power) is the state government of Karnataka's movement to empower rural women below the poverty line to achieve financial independence through income-generating activities such as agriculture and farming. The plan has over 7,500 self-help groups with savings amounting to $1.8 million. In an effort to bring children back to school, the Karnataka State Education Department launched a massive public awareness campaign called "From Labor to Learning" to raise awareness about the legal implications of child labor among employers and parents. In Bihar and West Bengal, NGOs and representatives from village governments and police have developed community-level watch groups to monitor the movements of women and children from, to and through the area.

Prosecution

Prosecution of traffickers, brothel owners, and others associated with trafficking, once rare, has increased significantly over the past year. Three special courts in New Delhi have been designated to hear trafficking cases. A total of 48 cases against traffickers and brothel owners are in the queue to be prosecuted and 14 people have been convicted and sentenced in New Delhi so far. In Mumbai, a Swiss couple was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for kidnapping and molesting a child, and making child pornography films for distribution on the Internet. The three minor victims were allowed to testify in camera to avoid trauma. Forty-two trafficking cases involving hundreds of traffickers were booked in the Krishna district in the state of Andhra Pradesh alone. In two other districts of Andhra Pradesh, local police arrested 14 traffickers and rescued 70 victims. Ten cases are presently in court facing trial and investigations are pending for two cases. In Karnataka, the police and an NGO rescued 29 girls in the Mysore district and arrested 20 traffickers. All of these cases are proceeding to trial, and many of the traffickers are being held in jail awaiting trial. Bangalore city Police busted a prostitution ring involving women from Africa and the Middle East and arrested six people. Railway police at the Chennai Central Railway rescued five boys from Tamil Nadu being trafficked to Hyderabad to work as laborers and arrested the five traffickers. District administration officers in Tamil Nadu rescued 55 child laborers and 17 bonded laborers from brick kiln factories and charged the factory owners under the Bonded Laborers Act.

India has numerous federal laws criminalizing trafficking for sexual exploitation and labor. The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA) prohibits trafficking in persons, criminalizes sexual exploitation, and provides enhanced penalties for offences involving minors. During investigations, police frequently do not utilize all provisions of the ITPA and, as a result, may minimize potential criminal penalties against traffickers and brothel owners for exploiting minors. Officials used numerous provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Juvenile Justice Act to prosecute traffickers. Legislation also exists in numerous states to prohibit the dedication to religious shrines of girls for exploitation. Forced, bonded, or indentured child labor is illegal in India. Penalties for trafficking are commensurate with penalties for rape or forcible assault.

India's central government is handicapped in the fight against trafficking by the lack of federal laws to establish jurisdiction over inter-state crimes for central agencies to investigate. Although the anti-trafficking laws are national laws, their enforcement is a state government responsibility. The execution of the law is further complicated when it involves cross-border trafficking due to varying degrees of coordination and networking between state police forces. The government has significantly increased the number of arrests, prosecutions, and convictions of traffickers and brothel owners over the past year, but backlogged courts slow criminal justice proceedings.

Low-level border guards have taken bribes or turned a blind eye to trafficking across borders. In addition, some law enforcement officials have been implicated in "tipping off" brothels to raids. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), charged with investigating allegations of corruption, bribe taking, or collusion of public officials and law enforcement in trafficking, has prosecuted numerous police officers, public defenders, and prosecutors; those corrupt officials have been found guilty of receiving bribes and have been punished with fines and jail sentences. The CBI, in cooperation with law enforcement in Goa, investigated a foreign racket, in which a trafficker, a citizen of New Zealand, under the guise of running an orphanage for destitute children, sexually abused the children and supplied them to foreign tourists for sexual abuse and pornography. The ringleader was sentenced to life imprisonment. The CBI requested extradition of six other foreign nationals (of Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Thailand/UK, and France) in this case.

Trafficking and brothel-keeping are now crimes under an amended state of Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act, which means that those accused of these offenses are unable to receive bail. The Maharashtra police organized a course on preventing trafficking as a mandatory part of its training for direct-hire police officers. The state government of Andhra Pradesh instituted new anti-trafficking performance indicators for police officers that require they be evaluated on the number of arrests made of traffickers and brothel owners, not women for solicitation. Calcutta City Police and West Bengal State Police have agreed to permit NGOs to accompany them on brothel rescues.

The borders are patrolled and monitored but the levels of monitoring vary and there are many incidents of unchecked border crossing. The border between India and Pakistan is closely monitored. Passports and visas are not required for Nepalese to enter India, and thus the border between Nepal and India is very open. The Governments of Nepal and India have agreed to form a Joint Cross Border Committee against Trafficking in order to collaborate on investigations and more efficiently share information about traffickers. The border between Bangladesh and India is monitored, and passports and visas are required for entry; however, there continues to be a regular influx of migrants searching for work and women trafficked to India.

Protection

A recent Supreme Court of India decision held that victims of trafficking may testify in camera. The Department of Women and Child Development (DWCD) helps NGOs finance the repatriation of women and children trafficked to India from other countries. Over the past two years, state governments have established eighty Protective Homes that provide custodial care, education, vocational training, and rehabilitation. The DWCD and the Juvenile Justice Act sponsor a network of 350 short stay homes for the protection and rehabilitation of victims. The DWCD launched a project in 2001 called "Swadahar" to provide services for women in difficult circumstances, including trafficking victims, that includes shelter, food, clothing, counseling, medical and legal assistance, vocational training, and education. Thirty programs in several states are in various stages of development. The central government supports rehabilitation projects in 11 states for 200,000 children removed from hazardous work conditions. The state government of Andhra Pradesh created a statewide rescue and rehabilitation policy, which requires every district to form anti-trafficking committees. Together with NGOs, the Calcutta City Police have opened support service centers in every police station that has a female police officer to help victims of trafficking or rape. Indian embassy officials in key destination countries help citizens trafficked into exploitative labor situations.