The Last Link: The Inequity of India’s Response to Child Trafficking

Abstract:

Child trafficking in India is a product of complex socioeconomic issues such as inadequate labor protections, poverty, caste oppression, predatory lending practices, and more. However, Indian laws and policies instead treat trafficking as a simple question of unchecked criminal activity. They concentrate on incarcerating street-level recruiters, many of whom are the neighbors and kin of trafficked children, who are simply the last link in the long chains of exploitation that culminate in trafficking. I argue that such an approach criminalizes the poor and leaves underlying systemic issues untouched. I am not simply arguing that India’s approach is flawed in its implementation because of corruption, as is so often argued, but that even bureaucrats and police committed to child protection are constrained by laws and an institutional machinery that incentivize them to focus on the weakest links in the chain of exploitation instead of on wealthy employers where the demand for child labor originates. I draw on ethnographic research (key informant interviews and participant observation) I conducted in the state of West Bengal to ground my analysis of the legal and political landscape of India's anti-trafficking response.