[India] Poverty listed as root cause

from The Hindustan Times

EMPLOYMENT AND food schemes from the Centre are not reaching the real beneficiaries. This maintains poverty at the grassroots level and thereby supports human trafficking in areas of extreme poverty in the country.

This was the conclusion of surveys in different parts of India to gather information about the status, causes and remedies for spread of human trafficking.

Participants on the second day of the workshop on human trafficking and its relativity with HIV, organised by UNDP at hotel Gomti here, were of the view that poverty was among the major causes that promoted human trafficking.Shashi Kant of Shakti Vahini said, “Poor parents in remote places are targeted by traffickers. The parents are convinced that the girl would be safe but actually she is turned into a prostitute. Due to extreme poverty, parents can not afford to travel to distant places to rescue their daughters from the clutches of the traffickers.”

He said that one of the reasons for poverty was unemployment in the country. Even schemes from the Central government did not reach places and people who actually needed them.

Another major source of human trafficking was abduction of little girls openly by the traffickers. They picked girls from railway stations, bus stands and even from residential colonies.“It is a failure on our part if we observe these ever increasing figures but find ourselves helpless in checking flesh trade. This not only spoils the life of the girls but also becomes a source for the spread of HIV,” he said.