Caught in the flesh trade
(Published in new Indian Express on November 2, 2003)


Lakshmi eloped with a man when she was just 15. They led a happy life in Chennai till their first child — a daughter — was born. A few days after that, he left her. She had to pay the rent for the premises and take care of her daughter. With an infant in her hand, nobody was willing to give her a job. So Lakshmi picked up odd works that came her way. That was when she met a flower vendor (a lady) in the neighbourhood who offered a job as a domestic help. She was told that the baby too was welcome. Lakshmi readily agreed. And before she knew it, she landed in a brothel. The flower vendor received a hefty sum for this good-looking “family” girl. They are much in demand in the flesh trade. Rani’s story is similarly saddening. The 13-year-old school dropout belongs to Madurai, Chennai. Her parents are agricultural labourers. She took care of the domestic chores while her mother was away at work. The monsoon failure and the subsequent drought drove the family into abject poverty. As the eldest among the siblings, Rani internalised the harsh reality and wanted to help her parents. She, however, didn’t know how she could help. That was when an acquantaince, a lady, offered to help her out. Rani was offered a job with which she could earn around Rs 1,000 per month. An incredibly high amount for her. She immediately agreed. She was brought to a bungalow where her “employers” used sedatives to “tame” her. Later on she was shifted to Kodaikanal with other girls to entertain the customers under the strict vigilance of the agents. Young girls always fetch bigger sums. In both instances, the girls were trafficked and thrown into the flesh trade. These are not isolated cases. Trafficking in women and children is happening across the world and is an estimated $9 billion industry according to calculations done by the UN and its agencies. It is estimated that in India alone 7 lakh children are trafficked, every year, for various purposes. The alarming factor is that the comparative age of the children trafficked into the sex industry is progressively decreasing. The issue is beginning to bother policy makers and civil society institutions in a big way. So far, there have been two World Congresses against trafficking, one each in Sweden, Stockholm in August 1996 and Oklahoma, Japan in December 2001. The factors behind the rapid rise in human trafficking are the increasing levels of poverty, apart from ignorance of rights because of illiteracy, a mindset that discriminates against the girl child, unemployment, tourism, migration, social and religious customs, consumerism and attraction to the glamour world. Trafficking is done systematically. Recruitment or procurement is the first step. A broad network that operates at the ground level is integral to this. Apart from them, there are part-time traffickers (who have regular jobs and indulge in trafficking as a part-time job), occasional traffickers (who do trafficking as and when they get a chance) and one-time traffickers. All these people may not even be part of a large network. Next comes the issue of transporting the victims, followed by their transfer to the various brothels or to other traffickers. Sometimes the brothel owners themselves are traffickers. The last stage is the exchange of money between the trafficker and the buyer. The buyer then “owns” the victim and she is pushed into the flesh trade. There are various means used to force a person into the trafficking chain, including that of threat, coercion, fraud, deception, or abuse of position. The victim’s vulnerability — financial or emotional — is central to all these instances as it’s the indebtedness of the victim or her family that is most often the starting point of the trafficking chain. And needless to say, those trafficked for sex undergo severe physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Trafficking is a very lucrative business as in drug or weapon trafficking. However, trafficking in drugs or weapons involve huge expenses and are far more dangerous acts to indulge in than trafficking in women and children. The investment involved in human trafficking is restricted to the price to be paid at the “procurement” stage and the expenses for transportation of the victims. The “procurement” cost is what is paid to the agents or the facilitators at the lower rung in the network; they are the persons who help in luring the away girls from their locations, making use of their vulnerability. The net profit is, invariably, more than 100 percent. For instance, a trafficker pays his agent anywhere around Rs 5,000 to procure a girl and spends Rs 1,000 more as cost of transporting her to the destination. The money earned by the trafficker when he “transfers” her to the brothel is about rupees one lakh or more, which works out to a big profit. The person who buys the girl, engages her to entertain different customers, over a period of time. All that the victim gets in return, as it was revealed in a recent study by the author, are food and clothing. Running away from this situation is just impossible. All the brothels have their own gangs to prevent such a situation. The girls do not have any choice but to entertain 20 to 25 customers per day. It is only natural that they become physically and mentally strained. The owners then drug them. While the drugs are administered initially by force, it becomes “voluntary” after a stage. Soon, the victims are also addicted. Out of 200 sex workers interviewed for a study in Chennai city alone, 90 percent were alcoholics. All of them, it was observed, had entered the business at a very young age. Legalities According to the IPC section 366 A, procuring a minor girl and forcing her or seducing her into illicit intercourse with another person is punishable with imprisonment up to 10 years. Those found guilty of this offense are liable for fine (also read section 372 IPC — selling minor for purpose of prostitution). The law is also clear that having sex with a minor girl (girls under 16 years of age) with or without her concern amounts to rape. Given this, sex with girls who are just 14 or 15 years of age is by itself a crime. Despite this, we find several girls in this age group being forced to “comfort” as many as 20 or 25 persons a day on a regular basis. Legally speaking all the men (customers) must be charged for rape. But it hardly happens. The first lessons the victims are taught here is to lie about their real age as and when they are caught in a police raid. They all declare their age to be 18 years or even more when they are taken before a magistrate by the police (for remand). The study also revealed that their statements regarding their age were taken as given by the police and courts! The victims are fined (after they admit to have indulged in prostitution) and they are taken back to the same old places by the same old masters (or mistresses)! Thus their own vulnerable state and the ineffective implementation of the law render them into a hapless lot. Access is an important factor in trafficking. Who is a trafficker? It can be anybody; husband, boyfriend, parents, relatives, friends, colleagues, recruitment agencies, an acquaintance. Strangers too manage to lure away girls at times. In all these cases, barring that of strangers, the victim’s proximity with the trafficker is the major factor. In one such case, the brother-in-law of a girl was arrested along with her. He was booked under 4(1) of ITP Act (pimping). This educated girl belongs to Kerala and was jobless. Her brother-in-law took her to Chennai on the pretext of finding her a job. No one suspected his intention. In the notorious Suriyanelli case involving the rape and abuse of a 14 year old girl, it was her lover who dumped her into the flesh trade. Rather he was also part of the network. Many unemployed girls fall into the dragnet of the “recruitment” agencies. Usually nobody checks the authenticity of the agencies. This makes their job easier. There are instances of celebrities turning traffickers. Take for example the reports involving an ex-Olympian from Austria. A skating gold medallist has been sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of human trafficking. He was a member of a gang that recruited women from the Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania. Trafficking in women and children is a huge and vicious network. It happens within the state (from rural to urban areas), across states and from one country to another. In India, this human trade is worth crores. There are agents and sub-agents functioning at various levels and possess the best of the communication equipment. Our study revealed that girls from Kolkata are brought to Chennai via Mumbai. They are on contract to spend a fortnight in Chennai, taken to Bangalore and spend the following week there before returning to Kolkata. These girls are all in their teens or their early twenties. Their clientele come from the middle level professionals in various fields and also the rich and mighty. Many countries have begun to take steps to tackle this problem and new laws have been enacted. Countries like Thailand, Philippines have initiated tough measures to prevent child prostitution. Sri Lanka too has taken radical steps to tackle sexual abuse of children. The US Congress had passed an Act recently. Prevention of Trafficking in Women and Children is now a serious concern for the governments in Europe. But most of these countries are only the destination points for girl children being trafficked. These are not the place of origin. It is the third world countries and the Republics of former Soviet Union that have emerged as the countries of origin. Though we have provisions in the Indian Penal Code and also the ITP Act, with which the guilty can be punished, they have proved to be inadequate to deal with the traffickers. As far as the ITP Act is concerned, it is used more to victimise the victims; in other words, the provisions apply more stringently against those who have been pushed into the flesh trade than those behind the cruel game. The traffickers, invariably, go unpunished. Hence we need an exclusive law to deal with trafficking. For the present, the least that can be done is to ensure that the existing provisions are effectively implemented. The most important factor is the role of civil society and the society. We need to campaign against the dominant attitude towards women at one level and think of a movement that will internalise women’s rights within the larger question of human rights.