The Social ION
Year : 2018, Volume : 7, Issue : 1
First page : ( 38) Last page : ( 48)
Print ISSN : 2319-3581. Online ISSN : 2456-7523.
Article DOI : 10.5958/2456-7523.2018.00006.X

Forced migration and human trafficking in India: An appraisal

Dr. Chantia Alok

Anthropologist AIRONDF, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, Email: alokchantia@gmail.com

Online published on 24 August, 2018.

Abstract

A girl is migrated conventionally from her native place to another in the anticipation of better life in the bracket of marriage (60.8% of the rural migrant females migrated due to marriage followed by 29.4% due to movement of parents/earning member in 2007‐08). But migration of a girl/woman is also associated with forced migration in the form of human trafficking. Migration is taken as a natural process and it is inevitable in the process of progress and evolution but when it is done against the will, it comes as forced migration which is commonly traced as human trafficking. The response to the trafficking of women is primarily dominated by the discourse of criminal law both internationally and nationally. By contrast, in the refugee law context, women are constructed as victims in a ‘culturally relative’, patriarchal society. This paper explores the tensions between these constructs and the practical responses for protecting trafficked women. This paper reveals an idea about the real meaning of culture in context of forced migration in India. A woman, who is forced to enter in such inhumane business is the same woman who also works as an agent to promote the same forced migration which was once denied and protested by her in past. The paper describes how the trafficking/smuggling distinction is blurred by constructing trafficked women both as victims/witnesses and as free agents rather than as rights bearing individuals. This profoundly affects the way that government agencies and decision-makers respond to the issues.

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Keywords

Girl child, migration, marriage, women, decision makers.

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