CRY: Contribution of Community Members Vital in Addressing Child Trafficking

NEW DELHI, India, July 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Cross-border trafficking has emerged as a global threat plaguing many nations, including the South Asian countries. Open and porous borders have often boosted the rate of this crime. Among the South Asian countries, India, Nepal and Bangladesh have taken centre stage for rampant cross-border trafficking of women and children. As per recent estimates by the UNODC, approximately 38% of the victims of trafficking in South Asia are men, while 31% are women and 31% are children. In India, children accounted for 59% of all trafficking victims in 2016.

Child trafficking is defined as any person under 18 who is recruited, transported, transferred, harboured or received for the purpose of exploitation, either within or outside a country. Causes of trafficking are rooted in poverty, illiteracy, lack of opportunities, gender discrimination, social violence and demand for services that trafficking victims are forced to provide.

Ayingbi's (name changed) story is a testimony of how human trafficking victims often fall prey to the traps that play on their vulnerabilities. A 16-year-old girl hailing from Moreh, a small town in the India's north-eastern state of Manipur that shares its borders with Myanmar, Ayingni had fallen prey to the dream of living a better life. The traffickers promised her a lucrative job in China and Singapore and she believed in their false promises in the hope of a glittery future. But she realised that she has been trapped, as the traffickers smuggled her off and demanded a hefty ransom from her family. Fortunately, a timely intervention by NEEDS, a local NGO supported by CRY, turned her fate around and she was reunited with her family.

While Ayingbi is one of the few fortunate survivors freed from the clutches of the traffickers, not every traffic victim is as blessed.

CRY, in its journey through the last four decades, has been working in the trafficking hinterlands of India. Along with its project partners and alliances, CRY battles this social evil by focusing mainly on response (intervention post tip-off from whistle-blowers), system strengthening and anti-trafficking advocacy across diverse stakeholders.

Puja Marwaha, the CEO of CRY, said, "Child trafficking is still largely unaddressed, thriving on the challenges of open and unmanned borders with weak security checks, lack of regular monitoring and long repatriation process for the victims. But we count on the contribution of every individual from all the walks of life, as greater awareness and a robust monitoring mechanism at the community level will go a long way in combating child trafficking in India." 

Note to the Editor:

CRY - Child Rights and You is an Indian NGO that believes in every child's right to live, learn, grow and play. For the last 40 years, CRY has worked with parents and communities to ensure Lasting Change in the lives of more than 3 million underprivileged children in India. Visit us at http://www.cry.org/ 

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Abhik Bhattacharya at [email protected] or call +91-90516-68304.