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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Activists flag focus on criminalisation over welfare in draft anti-trafficking bill

Activists flag focus on criminalisation over welfare in draft anti-trafficking bill

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published Published on Jul 18, 2021   modified Modified on Jul 19, 2021

-The Hindu

Existing laws on juvenile justice, bonded labour and POCSO sufficient, say experts.

The emphasis on criminalisation and policing instead of welfare measures in the new proposed anti-trafficking Bill makes it anti-migrants and anti-sex workers, warn experts.

The Ministry of Women and Child Development recently placed the Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021, in the public domain and sought stakeholders' comments till July 14. The Bill is also scheduled to be taken up by Parliament during the upcoming monsoon session.

The draft Bill empowers the NIA to carry out investigation, prosecution and coordination in cases of trafficking. It categorises offences into trafficking and aggravated forms of trafficking, with the former carrying a maximum punishment of 10 years in jail and fine of 1 lakh and the latter carrying death penalty and fine of upto 30 lakh.

“The criminalising intent of the Bill expects a tribal or a dalit migrant worker to take on his employer, but doesn't deal with improving employer-employee relationship. Instead of harping on creating harmony in the labour market, it talks about forcefully rescuing and sending workers into institutions which will deprive them of their livelihoods,” says Chandan Kumar, National Co-ordinator, Working People's Charter.

He adds that the worker-centric Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, along with CrPC and IPC are sufficient to deal with labour trafficking and a new law is not required.

Delhi-based NGO HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, in its submission to the WCD Ministry, has underlined that conflation of exploitation with “forced labour” will result in all migrant workers in the unorganised sector to be treated as forced labour.

“While anybody who is subjected to forced labour should find recourse in law, the recruitment and movement for such labour which is often a result of inducement and may also involve false promises and deceit, will bring them under the definition of trafficking,” notes HAQ.

Similarly, “equating sex work with sexual exploitation and by rendering the consent of a sex worker immaterial in the determination of whether she was trafficked or practising sex work of her own volition leads to harmful practices such as forced rescue of adult women, their detention, and rehabilitation as victims of trafficking against their consent as well as separation from their families,” says the Coalition for an Inclusive Approach on the trafficking Bill.

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The Hindu, 18 July, 2021, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/activists-flag-focus-on-criminalisation-over-welfare-in-draft-anti-trafficking-bill/article35392756.ece?homepage=true


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