Human Trafficking

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Human Trafficking

• In South Asia

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Why Human Trafficking?

• Late 1990s, human trafficking became centerpiece
• High-profile articles in major media sources
• Social service providers witnessed increase in
  trafficked persons
• Clinton administration at forefront
• Helped draft Palermo Protocol with UN

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Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA)- 2000

• Unilateral sanctions against countries that fail
  to meet U.S. minimum standards
• U.S. is the global watchdog
• TIP reports assess each countrys effort to
  combat trafficking
• Countries given Tier rankings

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What is human trafficking?

• Trafficking in persons includes
• Recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring,
  or receipt of persons
• Threat, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception
• For the purposes of exploitation

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Human Trafficking Problem

• Every year, 800,000 people are trafficked
  across international borders
• 80 are women or girls
• 50 are minors (under age 18)
• 2,450,000 persons globally are in forced labor
• Trafficking industry estimated worth is 20
  Billion a year (up to 14 of gross domestic
  product)
• 5 Billion is directly from child prostitution

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Trafficking-South Asia

• 300,000 to 450,000 people are trafficked within
  Asia each year (UNDP, 2007)
• More than half takes place in South Asia
• Asia has lucrative sex tourism prostitution
• Contributing factors are
• Mobility of people via tourism
• Migration policies of government
• Building of infrastructure for sexual
  entertainment

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Nepal to India

• No immigration control or documentation procedure
  
• An estimated 5,000-7,000 Nepali girls trafficked
  annually to India (Huda, 2006)
• There are approximately 270,000 child prostitutes
  in India alone with the sexual exploitation of
  children on the rise

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Women Trafficked from Nepal
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Push Factors

• Low employment prospects
• Lack of education and/or opportunities
• Political and armed conflict
• Discrimination against women
• Devdasi and Nat system
• Lead to desertion, divorce, husbands 2nd
  marriage, dowry issues

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Pull Factors

• High demand for prostituted sex
• Misconceptions of young girls
• Globalization and spread of modernization with
  greater access to transport, media,
• Conflicts and natural disasters
• Migration policies exclude unskilled from legal
  means for migration

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Trafficking Conceptual Model
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Pre-departure Phase

• Traffickers coerce young women and their families
• Many trafficked women leave their homes of their
  own volition
• Many have limited knowledge of what awaits them
• Promise economic or employment opportunities
  (60)
• Dalal (sex trade broker) poses as boyfriend or
  marriage broker and trick them into false
  marriage (12)
• Tricked into accompanying employer or friend on a
  visit to India
• Forcibly abducted (17)
  
  

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Travel and Transit

• Sold to a Dalal (sex trade broker) once they
  cross the Nepali border
• Transported to a brothel in Mumbai

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Destination- sex work

• Debt bondage -must repay cost of transport and
  repurchase in India
• Break in period- Gang rapes/sexual violence
• Physical and mental abuse
• Deprived of food, water, shelter, and access to
  people
• Forced to service up to 20 clients a day

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HIV/AIDS in India

• Low prevalence of HIV (1)
• Estimated 2.5 million in India are infected with
  HIV
• Sex trafficking
• Direct cause and effect link to spread and
  mutation of HIV.

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India HIV/AIDS Sex trafficked

• Victims of sex trafficking in South Asia high
  prevalence of HIV and other STDs
• Self-reported HIV prevalence rates of 8.3
• There are 2,000,000 prostitutes in India
• 60 of women in prostitution in Mumbai are HIV
  positive (Huda, 2006)
• Clients serve as the bridging population to
  general population

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Girls and HIV/AIDS

• Girls are in high demand because of
  misconceptions
• Girls earn the virgin price
• Young body is 2-times more likely for HIV
• immature and highly vascularized cervix
• the putative site of most heterosexual
  transmission of HIV

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Nepal HIV/AIDS

• 1995-WHO estimated 26,000 HIV-positive people,
  with adult infection rate of 0.5
• HIV/AIDS and other STIs now prevalent across
  urban and rural sectors of Nepal
• Nepalese girls returned home by Indian
  brothel-keepers b/c suspected of having AIDS
• 60-70 of sex workers return from India with
  HIV/STIs
• AIDS is projected to become one of leading causes
  of mortality in people 15-49 years of age by the
  year 2010

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Human Rights Violation

• Sex-trafficked women have no control over
  condom-use or number of clients
• Universal right to life, liberty, and security of
  the person
• India is on the Tier 2 watch list

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What is being done?

• Department of Women and Child Development provide
  support services
• NGOs
• Targeted intervention
• Programs for HIV positive trafficked
• Awareness campaigns
• UNDP Trafficking and HIV/AIDS Project

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Thank you!