Contextualizing Human Trafficking In India: A Critical Reflection

Abstract

Human Trafficking is one of the oldest forms of crime existing in current times. Humans have been victims of trafficking on various pretexts like labour, slavery, trade and so on. There have been various regulations put in place globally and in various countries to tackle the menace of human trafficking. There has been a trend of seeing human trafficking only interms of prostitution thus restricting the efforts to deal with human trafficking per se prostitution only. Therefore, it is evident we find numerous laws and other measures which have constantly tackled the issue of prostitution as a form of human trafficking. However, with the advent of time a nuanced understanding of human trafficking was built wherein labour trafficking emerged as an increasing form of human trafficking. Thus, what we are currently witnessing is the reconceptualization of human trafficking by including new forms of labour trafficking within its ambit. This has further increased the scope of human trafficking by seen migration for labour as an interconnected web within the prism of trafficking. This paper tries to reflect upon the contextualisation of human trafficking in India and how it has been reshaped as a phenomenon over a period.