INDIA
Law Case Study
Building on the UNODC analysis of court cases, this report looks at case law in two countries – the Netherlands and India – in more detail. These case studies illustrate the apparent prevalence of institution-related trafficking and the overrepresentation of institutionalised children as victims of trafficking.
OVERVIEW
In 2020, Lumos undertook desk research into Indian case law on child trafficking to give an indication of the country’s overall scale of institution-related trafficking. Limited data exists on the cycles of institution-related trafficking as a proportion of overall child trafficking cases in India. The desk research included all 91 publicly available high court- level cases from 2015 to 2019 that referenced both Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code (which defines human trafficking in Indian law) and where the victim was a child.
CONTEXT
Government data from 2016-17 indicates that at least 370,000 children were living in more than 9,500 residential ‘childcare institutions’ (CCIs) in India. More than 87,000 children lived in CCIs in the state of Tamil Nadu alone. A 2018-2020 audit by the National Commission for Protection for Child Rights (NCPCR) showed that 38% of CCIs did not have adequate measures to prevent any form of physical and emotional abuse of children, a number that rises to 68% in the state of Odisha. This is concerning as many instances of exploitation and trafficking related to child abuse go unnoticed and unaddressed, leaving victims unprotected and no deterrents for perpetrators.
CONTEXT (cont…)
The link between child trafficking and orphanages has been well-documented in India. In 2018, following a petition by the NCPCR, the Supreme Court began to explore allegations that the West Bengal government had illegally formed ad hoc committees to give away 17 orphans for adoption, as an act of child trafficking. It is understood that the outcome of this investigation remains pending. There is evidence of hundreds of children being trafficked both into and out of orphanages across India.
KEY FINDINGS
The main results are depicted in the tables on the following page.
In approximately 15% of the analysed child trafficking cases in India, the victim had some link to institutional care.
The percentages depicted in the tables only include those victims whose history of institutionalisation was explicitly mentioned in the court judgement; these are therefore conservative estimates. The analysed case law mentions trafficking into as well as out of residential institutions. Moreover, various victims were placed in institutions after the trafficking occurred. The findings highlight the overrepresentation of institutionalised children in human trafficking court cases in India.
