‘In trafficking cases, consent of victims immaterial’

Consent of the victim will no more be alibi to escape punishment for trafficking as the government in the recent promulgated ordinance on criminal law says that any trafficking willingly or forced is because of vulnerable condition of the victims, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 15, 2013, 02:20:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Consent of the victim will no more be alibi to escape punishment for trafficking as the government in the recent promulgated ordinance on criminal law says that any trafficking willingly or forced is because of vulnerable condition of the victims.

The ordinance for the first time also addresses the use of this "lack of choice" of the victims terming the consent immaterial and prescribes heavy penalties for the offending persons or traffickers.

The ordinance also says traffickers can face a maximum of ten years of imprisonment and upto one's natural life in case of trafficking of a child or more than one person.

The earlier punishment for trafficking was maximum of three years and life imprisonment in case of trafficking children for sexual exploitation.

The ordinance also makes employing trafficked persons a crime with an aim to curb child trafficking for employment.

Employers knowingly employing children and adults for labour can face maximum imprisonment for seven and five years respectively, the new law says.

"Prescribing such a strict punishments would act as a deterrent for trafficking and also hit the organised crime of trafficking, the third largest organised crime after small arms and drugs," said Bhuvan Ribhu of NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, which has run a campaign seeking stricter for human trafficking of any kind.

The government seems to have agreed that human trafficking is not restricted only for sexual exploitation. Therefore, the definition of trafficking covers child labour, slavery and forced removal of organs.

With this the government seems to have given recognition to that the fact that of people due their poverty and illiteracy are vulnerable to new forms of trafficking and the change brings the Indian law at part with the United Nations Protocol to End Trafficking in Persons.

In India, over 100,000 children go missing each year and hundred of thousand of girls are trafficked for prostitution and forced labour. The ordinance may help to curb trafficking menace.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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