NCPCR to states/UTs: Identify vulnerable families in a bid to prevent child trafficking

New Delhi: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has now come up with a report on preventive measures that should be taken by states and union territories to curb human trafficking as lockdown restrictions gradually start being lifted.

According to the report, the child rights body has suggested discussions at district, block and village levels among stakeholders about identifying and matching vulnerable families."Though human trafficking is a continuous process wherein perpetrators operate in different manners throughout the year, however, in the aftermath of a calamity, disaster or pandemic there is an exponential increase in this phenomenon," read the report.

According to the report, such circumstances amplify the conditions that enable and attract traffickers. Children become soft targets who fall prey to the clutches of these predators constantly in search of an easy catch offline and online. The crime committed is serious and often committed through an organised nexus. "The children they exploit are extremely vulnerable. With family members, bread-earners deceased or affected by disaster, land and livelihoods destroyed and food and shelter hard to come by, people are more inclined than ever to take desperate actions," the report read.

According to NCPCR, the predators are often people known to the child or their families and usually from within the community or village and operate by means of alluring children under the pretext of providing them a good education, employment and a better life. Apart from conventional methods, the traffickers are also found to be in the guise of placement agents promising lucrative jobs or education, leveraging online technological platforms for targeting children.

Chairman (NCPCR) Priyank Kanoongo said as preventive measures, it should be ensured that vulnerable children at their source and destination states are mapped and they receive the benefits and entitlements enlisted in various schemes provisioned by the Government of India or the concerned state government.

The process should outline the basic indicators for the identification of vulnerable families and children at risk of trafficking at the village and urban habitation level and provide them with a safety mesh at the family level.