Andhra Pradesh has become a transit point for trafficking with several cases being reported in the last few months. The Labour, Revenue, Police, and Women Development and Child Welfare (WD&CW) departments have registered a number of cases.
Officials, with the help of some NGOs, have rescued children being transported by trains on several occasions.
Recently, an NGO identified 12 Gond tribe girls of Chhattisgarh at the Vijayawada Railway Station when they were being trafficked to Chennai. In another incident, the Government Railway Police caught a Bangladeshi girl who was reportedly being trafficked for flesh trade to Andhra Pradesh.
Another flesh trade racket was busted by the Vijayawada police recently and a minor, who had been trafficked from West Bengal to Vijayawada, was rescued.
More than 10 persons were arrested in the case.
Earlier, the Labour Department rescued about 20 children, aged below 15, of Bihar and Odisha being trafficked reportedly for working in a jute mill in Guntur.
Under ‘Operation Smile’, the police and officials of other departments rescued about 35 children of Santali tribe of Jharkhand and Odisha from a shelter home on Vijayawada outskirts.
Even as courts have asked successive governments to take steps to prevent human trafficking, no serious effort is being made to check the menace and punish the culprits.
Victims
“As per studies, trafficking is high in Andhra Pradesh and the victims are being illegally transported to Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and Delhi for organising sex trade,” Rammohan, director of Help, an NGO, said, and added that 40 per cent of those being trafficked were minors.
Children and young girls are being targeted, and the victims are being trafficked to work in industries, brick kilns, construction sector, fish farms, hotels, or some hazardous industry.
Alternatively, they are employed as domestic help, or are encouraged to become beggars. “Organised gangs are operating to kidnap or traffic children and women on the pretext of providing lucrative jobs. In some cases, the gang members will sell young girls to prostitution dens. The problem is rampant in some rural areas,” said an officer working on anti-trafficking.
‘Enforce Acts’
Mr. Rammohan wanted the government to take measures to enforce the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015, Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA), 1986, and Trafficking Victims Protection Act, 2000.
WD and CW Project Director of Krishna district K. Krishna Kumari said that an action plan was being prepared to stop trafficking.
“Awareness programmes are being planned in schools, colleges, and the targeted groups to prevent human trafficking and provide counselling and rehabilitation to the victims,” she added.
“The Supreme Court has directed that a draft comprehensive plan be prepared to prevent trafficking and the ministerial committee constituted for the purpose is holding deliberations with different groups to solve the problem,” a police officer said.
