Transnational human trafficking cases coming down in India

NEW DELHI - Cases of transnational human trafficking are coming down in India, a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) official said Friday.

Speaking to IANS on the sidelines of a conference, UNDOC official P. Venkata Rama Sastry said that the cases of trafficking have come down in volume. He, however, added this may not really be an indication of decrease in trafficking.

“Earlier trafficked people, specially women, were treated as the defaulters. Mostly, they were pushed in prostitution or other illegal activities. However, now due to sensitisation, these people are not being treated as criminals, and that may be a reason for the registered trafficking cases to come down,” Sastry said.

“But we can say that the volumes of cases of human trafficking are stabilising,” he added.

“On the other hand, wild life and cyber crimes are on the rise,” he said.

Sastry said that the emphasis to solve the problems should be from the market side, an aspect which has been long ignored.

“We have failed to address the market side, the gangs are busted but the demand remains there, so new gangs come up,” he said.

Sastry was participating in a pre-OSCE (the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe) conference called as a prelude to the OSCE conference scheduled to be held in Kazakhstan Dec 1 and 2.

Participating in the conference, Kzakhstan Ambassador Doulat Kuanyshev said that poverty and unemployment coupled with lack of social security and law enforcement are the factors that lead to rise in human trafficking.

“We have to deal with both factors to capture the trends in human trafficking,” he said.

The OSCE has 56 members from Europe, Central Asia and America, and the presidency of the council is at present with Kazakhstan.