Anywhere between 20 million and 65 million people are thought to be affected by human trafficking in India.
India is a source, destination and transit country for men, women and children trafficked mainly for the purposes of forced labour and commercial sexual exploitation [EPA]
Published On 18 Sep 201118 Sep 2011
Other purposes include forced marriages, domestic labour, bonded labour, agricultural labour, industrial labour, entertainment, begging, adoption, drug smuggling and organ peddling [EPA]
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About 20 million to 65 million individuals are estimated to be affected by human trafficking in India [EPA]
The majority of the world(***)s 10 million trafficked children are from India [EPA]
As much as 80 per cent of the victims of human trafficking are female and 50 per cent are children [EPA]
According to media reports, activists allege that more than 6,000 children disappeared from New Delhi, the Indian capital, in 2010 [EPA]
Many workers leave homes in neighbouring countries, like Burma, Bangladesh and Nepal, hoping to escape poverty and improve their quality of life. India and Bangladesh share a 4,096km frontier that is regarded as one of the world(***)s most fluid borders [EPA]
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Many children and adults are smuggled to work in unsafe tunnels in thousands of privately owned and unregulated coal mines. Here they can earn as much as $150 per week, significantly higher than the national average of $15 per day [GALLO/GETTY]
According to some estimates, the annual turnover of human trafficking in India is around 20 billion rupees [EPA]
Ela Sangma, a rescued child trafficking victim from Meghalaya state, tells her story. Men, women and children in debt bondage are forced to work in industries such as brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture and embroidery factories [EPA]
Hundreds of parents and family members of missing children allege that traffickers are selling children in India for amounts that are often lower than the cost of animals. Most of them end up working as child labourers or commercial sex workers [EPA]
Sex worker families from the Sonagachi red-light district, the largest in Asia, participate with more than 1,000 sex workers(***) families in a one-day programme for HIV-intervention and against human trafficking [EPA]
In India, 87 local anti-trafficking units have been set up since last year, with the aim of increasing the number of convictions of people involved in human trafficking for forced labour [EPA]
The Indian government has introduced laws like the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act, 1956, The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, and many others, although perpetrators of human trafficking often escape punishment [EPA]
In its 2011 report on human trafficking, the US upgraded India to Tier 2, suggesting the country has made steps to combat human trafficking [EPA]
