The way India prevents human trafficking, and rescues and rehabilitates victims trafficked for various purposes may soon turn out to be the best among the South Asian countries, thanks to a new law on the subject, approved by the Union cabinet on Wednesday.
Called the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018 , it is expected to introduced in Parliament when it reassembles for the Budget session on March 5.
Maneka Gandhi, the Union minister for women and child development, revealed that when they were in Argentina in November last for the IV Global Conference on the Sustained Eradication of Child Labour, she had not taken the draft bill as it had to be approved by the cabinet, but India’s Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi had carried it with him.
To check how good the bill was, the child rights activist showed it to leaders from about 30 countries, who told him that it would be amongst the best in the world.
Gandhi pointed out that the bill was “one of compassion because it focuses on rehabilitation of the victims.” “I am not going to wait for the court to convict the traffickers before we start with the rehabilitation of the victims. The traffickers are not going to spend on it. So the rehabilitation will begin almost immediately,” she said.
Once it becomes law, the bill will fulfill all the factors that are part of the UN Protocol on it that India had signed. “The bill has been prepared in consultation with ministries, departments, state governments, NGOs and domain experts. A large number of suggestions received by the ministry of WCD in hundreds of petitions have been incorporated in the bill,” the minister elaborated.
The bill addresses the issue of trafficking from the point of view of prevention, rescue and rehabilitation. Aggravated forms of trafficking, which includes trafficking for the purpose of forced labour, begging, trafficking by administering chemical substance or hormones on a person for the purpose of early sexual maturity, trafficking of a woman or child for the purpose of marriage or under the pretext of marriage or after marriage, among others, come under the new bill.
The bill also makes fast tracking of all aspects of the cases mandatory.
While it provides for time bound trial and repatriation of the victims—within a period of one year from taking into cognizance—the provision for retaining the confidentiality of victims, witnesses, and complainants by not disclosing their identity is also built into the new bill. The victims are entitled to interim relief immediately within 30 days to address their physical and mental trauma, and further appropriate relief within 60 days from the date of filing of charge sheet.
Union Law Minister Ravi Shanker Prasad described the Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018, as a “historic one”, and said it was a substantive law.
Pointing out that the bill creates dedicated institutional mechanisms at district, state and Central level that will be responsible for prevention, protection, investigation and rehabilitation work related to trafficking, he said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) will perform the tasks of Anti-Trafficking Bureau at the national level.
Punishment ranges from rigorous minimum of 10 years to life and fine not less than Rs.1 lakh. In order to break the organised nexus, both at the national and international level, the bill provides for the attachment and forfeiture of property and the proceeds from crime.
Trafficking of human beings is the third largest organised crime, violating basic human rights. There is no specific law so far to deal with the crime.