Sex Trafficking in India

May 23rd, 2023

Today we went back to JSS to attend another lecture, but this time focused on sexual trafficking and sex work in India, a topic I hold dear to my heart. Much of my work in Miami centers survivors of sexual violence, which includes those impacted by sex trafficking and includes people who engage in sex work, so this lecture was an important one for me to attend. This post will go over the major points I learned during this lecture and how I will relate it to my research and work with survivors in Miami.

About Sex Trafficking in India

Sex trafficking (also known as commercial sexual exploitation) is an umbrella term defined as the recruitment, transport, transfer, and harboring of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion. Through sex trafficking, another individual achieves financial gain or advancement by sexually exploiting another human being. This is different from sex work which is a consensual means of offering sex to others in exchange for financial gain.

The reason people sex traffic is because it is a “good deal” for them. Sex trafficking is high in demand, there is zero investment, and if they got caught, the punishment for sex trafficking is less than drugs. 79% of all human trafficking involves sexual exploitation, so it is a big industry. Additionally, a large proportion of those being trafficked and doing the trafficking are women.

In India, sex trafficking happens mostly with the local Indian population. Low-income Indian women are promised a job, are forced into sexual exploitation, then trapped in this cycle because of stigma and lack of familial resources. Many of these women are transported to high income countries where most of the sexual exploitation is being done because the demand for sex slaves there is high, then brought back to India until another opportunity for exploitation arises. What’s even more alarming is that the people forcing women into this are usually friends or partners. And these traffickers are good at concealing the sex trafficking because they have many ways of signaling.

Most people in India view sex trafficking as a “women’s issue” and blames survivors for their abuse. Additionally, there’s not much discussion about the depth of sex trafficking in India, which leads to a lot of misinformation surrounding the subject. As a result, survivors do not have a lot of support in India.

Furthermore, there is not a lot of policy in India addressing sex trafficking. Even the policies that exist to stop sex trafficking is rarely enforced. Additionally, a lot of corruption happens in the judicial system as many in roles of power are also part of these rings. Survivors then do not trust law enforcement or anyone in the judicial system. Anti-human trafficking service organizations (AHTSOs), which are non-governmental organizations whose goal is to fight against sex-trafficking, aren’t trusted because they often re-traffic survivors and make false promises. Many AHTSOs aren’t doing it to truly stop sex trafficking but to improve their self-image and take advantage of the resources given to them. It is a grim situation for survivors in India and more has to be done to put an end to this atrocious practice.