What is Human Trafficking and Forced Labour?
Human trafficking is an illicit trade for the purposes of forced labor, sexual servitude or commercial sexual exploitation of people or others may include the provision of the pair in the context of forced marriages, or the extraction of organs or tissues, including the elimination of surrogacy and ovum.
Violation of the victims’ rights
Human trafficking can basically occur within a country or trans-national. Human trafficking is a crime against persons because of the violation of the victims’ rights through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. In fact, Human trafficking mainly occurs to vulnerable people, especially women and children, and does not always involve the movement of people from one place to another.
United Nations
Palermo protocol
Although human trafficking can be local or domestic, it has implications internationally. It is recognized by the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children (also referred to as the Trafficking Protocol or the Palermo Protocol), an international treaty under the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime which entered into force on 25 December 2003. Interpol plays the main role in the eradication.
Trafficking Protocol
The Trafficking Protocol is a global, legally binding instrument on the trade first in over half a century and the only one with an agreed definition of Human trafficking. One aim is to facilitate international cooperation in the investigation and prosecution of traffickers. Another is to protect and assist victims of Human trafficking with full respect for their rights as stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Trafficking Protocol, which has 117 signatories and 173 parties per November 2018, which defines Human trafficking as follows:
Human trafficking by means of threat
(A) recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of wok by force or other forms of coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or of a person of vulnerability or by giving payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person to have control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Prostitution
Exploitation in the protocol shall include, at a minimum starting from the exploitation of a person by involving in prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or removal, manipulation or organ implantation;
(B) The consent of a victim of trafficking to the exploitation set forth in sub-paragraph (a) of this article is irrelevant where any of the means set forth in sub-paragraph (a) have been used;
(C) Any person involved in the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means of exploitation set forth in sub-paragraph (a) of this article;
(D) “A Child” in the protocol means any person under the age of eighteen.
International Labour Organization
Although forced labor is universally condemned, the ILO estimates indicate that 24.9 million people around the world still experience it. Of the total number of victims of forced labor, 20.8 million (83 percent) are exploited in the private economy, by individuals or companies, and the remaining 4.1 million (17 percent) is in the form of State-imposed forced labor.
Victims of forced sexual exploitation
Among them are exploited by individuals or companies, 8 million (29 percent) are victims of forced sexual exploitation, and 12 million (64 percent) of forced labor exploitation. forced labor in the private economy generates about the US $ 150 billion in illegal profits each year: two-thirds of the estimated amount (or the US $ 99 billion) came from commercial sexual exploitation, while the US another $ 51 billion is the result of economic exploitation force in Domestic Labour, agriculture and other economic activities
Forced Labor Convention, 1930
This convention prohibits all forms of forced or compulsory labor. The meaning of Forced labour is nothing but “any type of work or service which is forced to a person under threat to punishment. Moreover, it is which the person has not offered himself voluntarily to do.”
Exceptions were made for the work required by compulsory military service, civil liability outstanding, as a consequence of a conviction in a court of law (as long as the work or service in question carried out under the supervision and control of a public authority and that the person who did it was not hired or placed at the disposal of the individual person, company or association), in cases of emergency, and for minor communal services.
The Convention also requires that the illegal extraction of forced or compulsory labor punishable as a Criminal offense, and that ratifying states ensure that the relevant penalties imposed by law are adequate and strictly.
Abolition of Forced Labor Convention, 1957
This fundamental convention prohibits forced or compulsory labor as a means of coercion or education or as a punishment for holding or expressing political views or ideologies contrary to the system of political, social or economic policy established; as a method of mobilizing and using labor for purposes of economic development; as a means of labor discipline; as a punishment for having participated in strikes; and as a means of discrimination of racial, social, national or religious.
Protocol 2014 to the Forced Labor Convention, 1930, and Labor (Additional Measures) Recommendation 2014
It is a new legally binding Protocol on Forced Labor, supported by a Recommendation (No. 203) of the International labour Organization, which aims to advance preventive measures, protection, and compensation, as well as to increase efforts to eliminate all forms of forced labor, including human trafficking.
Indian Constitution
ARTICLE 23: PROHIBITION OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND FORCED LABOR
(1) Traffic in humans and other forms of forced labor are prohibited and any contrary provisions of this being a violation penalty in accordance with the law.
(2) Nothing in this article that prevents the State from imposing compulsory service for public purposes, and in a state to impose such services would not make discrimination on the ground only of race, religion, caste or class .
ARTICLE 24: PROHIBITION OF CHILD LABOR IN FACTORIES, ETC.
No children under the age of fourteen years shall be used to work in any factory or mine or engaged in other hazardous occupations.
Punishments for Human Trafficking and Forced Labour
Section 370 of criminal law (amendment act 2013) – Trafficking in Persons.
Whoever, for the purpose of exploitation, (a) recruited, (b) transport, (c) port, (d) transfer, or (e) receiving, a person or a few people, by-
First– using threats, or
Secondly- use of force, or other forms of coercion, or
Thirdly- by kidnapping, or Fourthly- by practicing deception, or fraud, or
Fifthly- by abuse of power, or
Sixthly- by persuasion, including giving or receiving of payments or benefits, in order to achieve the consent of every person who has control over the person is recruited, transported, harbored, transferred, or received, violations of trade.
Explanation I-phrase “exploitation” should include measures of physical exploitation or other forms of sexual exploitation, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude, or the involuntary removal of organs.
Explanation 2.-The consent of the victim is not important in the determination of trade violations.
(2) Any person engaging in Human trafficking shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term not less than seven years but which may extend to ten years, and also be liable to fine.
(3) Where the offense involves Human trafficking more than one person, it is punishable by imprisonment for a period, not less than ten years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, and is also liable for fine.
(4) Where the offense involves a minor being traded for Human trafficking, will be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a period not less than ten years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, and is also liable for fine
(5) Where the offense involves more than one minor, it is punishable by imprisonment for a period not less than fourteen years, but which may extend to imprisonment for life, and is also liable for fine.
(6) If a person is convicted of trafficking a minor on more than one occasion, that person shall be punished with imprisonment for life, which means prison for the rest of the people’s natural life, and is also liable for fine.
(7) When an official or police involved in the human trafficking, the civil servant or the police shall be punished with imprisonment for life, which means prison for the rest of the natural person’s life, and shall also be fined.
Section 370 A of criminal law (amendment act 2013) – exploitation of the trafficked person.
(1) Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that a minor has been traded, moving light as for sexual exploitation by any means, shall be punished with imprisonment for a period not less than five years but which may extend to seven years, and also liable for fine.
- Any person who, intentionally by or has reason to believe that a person has been trafficked, involve the person to sexual exploitation by any means, shall be punished with imprisonment for a period not less than three years, but which may extend to five years, and also liable to fine.
The Bonded Labor System (Abolition) Act of 1976
The Bonded Labor System (Abolition) Act of 1976 makes illegal all forms of bonded labor. Anyone who forces others to make each bonded for Labour shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and fines which may include two thousand rupees.
