During the last decade, there has occurred a phenomenal increase in human trafficking in the country as a whole. The long misery trail for the children or women usually ends in the northern states like Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh where female infanticides are common. What drives and sustains such trafficking is the skewed male/female ratio, leading to a shortage of marriageable girls in some states. Some are also taken as far as Ahmedabad, where such activity is on the increase of late, or to Mumbai and Delhi, where they are sold off to people based in the Middle East.

NGO sources in Kolkata say they have come across instances where young girls/women in the 13-30 age group, mainly from Dooars and the neighbouring North Bengal tea plantations, were lured away by agents or traffickers who promised them lucrative employment. Later, they were either sold off as brides or forced to become sex workers, in other states. Mostly, poor tribal families were targeted.

“It is difficult to decide which is worse - a bride-cum slave who gets mistreated by almost every male in a family, or outright prostitution!”, says a south Kolkata-based NGO activist.

But the menace is not quite an area-specific business either. There is widespread trafficking also from the somewhat loosely guarded Bangladesh border areas in Bengal or Assam, not to mention districts like Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas, Dhubri or Karimganj.

For some years now, West Bengal has remained the biggest hub of female trafficking in the country, according to the findings of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). In 2013, for instance, with 669 cases of trafficking, Bengal topped the list, followed by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. Altogether, 3,940 cases were reported from India as a whole that year.

“This suggests there is no hard and fast rule that poverty and economic backwardness help sustain this murky business of human flesh trade,” says a Kolkata police official.

Tracing children and women reported missing can be a more difficult and frustrating job in Bengal than elsewhere, particularly under the Trinamool Congress Ministry ruling the state. For some reason, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is extremely sensitive to any suggestion that in certain aspects the law and order situation in Bengal is much worse than other states.

“Presumably, she feels personally attacked whenever slippages on part the state/Kolkata police forces and the extremely poor rate of convictions and punishment of criminals, not to speak of the ever mounting number of unsolved cases, is pointed out to her,” says a CPI(M) State Committee member.

“Since she handles the police portfolio, she feels vulnerable. Nowadays, the TMC has even stopped submitting all crime figures and stats to the NCRB, unlike other states. Under the Left front, things were different. There was no confrontation between the Centre and the State over such simple, administrative matters. It is common knowledge that the result has been disastrous, for the victims of rape or related crimes, who do not get justice if those accused belong to the ruling party. State officials do not feel answerable to the central government as a rule,” he added. Bengal now tops the number for rapes and violent incidents in India.

Authorities of Northeast states are getting worried, as cases of young girls and children who go missing are increasing. Neighbouring tribal states like Manipur and Meghalaya are also affected, according to media reports. A Guwahati-based daily reports that the number of girls/women trafficked has gone up from 48 last year to 57 (up to September) in 2015. It quotes Union Home Ministry figures showing that altogether 1597 women and children went missing last year of whom, 616 only could be traced.

As in Bengal, initiating legal procedures against the traffickers or their agents, some of whom operate locally, can be more difficult than it seems in other states as well. Most criminals have strong links with and enjoy the protection of, powerful political figures, usually belonging to the ruling parties in different states. Even the police often cannot help the families of the victims very much. NGO sources claim that the situation would not have been so critical unless everyone involved in the chain, whether in the political parties, the administration or the criminals themselves were obviously gaining financially from illegal human trafficking. (IPA Service)