HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Human trafficking is the “trade of humans”, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labour, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or orthers.

According to recent studies, its seen that around 20 to 65 million Indians are affected every year due to human trafficking. India is also a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. And Indian women are trafficked to the Middle East, mainly for sexual exploitation. Human trafficking results in physical as well as mental disorders. Physical ailments like- HIV, TB, other STD’s as condoms are rarely used. Mental disorders like- PTSD, depression and anxiety.

Indian authorities also use Sections 366(A) and 372 of the Indian Penal Code, prohibiting kidnapping and selling minors into prostitution respectively, to arrest traffickers. Penalties under these provisions are a maximum of ten years’ imprisonment and a fine. And although children trafficked for forced labour and sexual exploitation maybe housed in government shelters and are entitled to 20,000rs, the quality of many of these homes remains poor and the disbursement of rehabilitation funds is sporadic. The Government of India launched an anti human trafficking web portal in February 2014 that they hope will be an effective way for interested parties to share information about this topic.

An innocent girl was forced into human trafficking industry of Mexico, Karla Jacinto(23) who believe she was raped for almost 43,200 times. A number we can’t imagine even having sexual intercourse with our spouse. She was forced to have sex with at least 30 men everyday continuously for four years. After getting out of that, she started spreading awareness, conducted public talks etc. she was trafficked when she was just 12 years old to Tenancingo, Mexico which is the sex trafficking capital of the world and is the single largest source of sex slaves sent to the US. She explained how she would start at 10am and end only by midnight and often closed her eyes n cried to avoid looking at what the men were doing to her! Women just are treated like sex toys, used and thrown in an unforgettable manner. Karla was beaten with a chain all over her body, kicked, her hair was pulled, was punched with his fists and sometimes burnt with the iron. There is an outstanding estimation of 20,000 trafficking victims every year in Mexico!

There’s an instance of a boy, who was trafficked sexually since he was 5 years old by a paedophile ring. He was surrounded by domestic violence, alcoholism, childhood sexual abuse and divorce. His step father molested him brutally and faced threats of violence against his mother and thus, surrendered to being molested. For seven years, he was trapped in this hell and “served” during school life and wasn’t helped at all. When human trafficking occurs, it not only destroys the prey’s life physically, it destroys their mental balance and supresses any chance of improvement in future. Just for the sake of satisfying their sexual needs, humans target their fellow beings and zone them in such a way that the preys aren’t left with another option. This brutal an inhuman behaviour has to stop. We can do our best by taking care of our loved and dear ones, guarding them and also, by spreading awareness.

Raising our voice against such an issue is going to send a clear warning to the predators to avoid repeating their brutal doings and learn to live in harmony. As one, I believe we can fight this for the ones being trafficked and for those who might be if we don’t put an end to this.