Law Enforcement Agencies Within the Legal Paradigm of Human Trafficking: An Analytical Study of India’s Anti-Trafficking Framework

Law

Modern slavery in India, which targets an estimated 11 million people in human trafficking as manifested in the form of forced labour, sexual exploitation and bonded servitude, is a severe act of human indignity and constitutional requirements. In this analytical paper, the interaction between law enforcers and the legal structure against trafficking in India is deconstructed through the lens of the modern legal frameworks and formulation of laws over time to what it used to be, specifically the colonial legal footprint of Indian Penal Code (IPC) of 1860 to the journey of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. The paper is based on the analysis of the doctrines and the use of empirical methods and data related to this issue through the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), U.S. Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Reports, and the resources of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The paper will assess the effectiveness of specialized organizations such as the Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) or the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Anti-trafficking Cell. Among the main conclusions are the identification of a strong prosecutorial framework that is but undermined by various issues such as police corruption, misclassification of evidence, and lack of resources that provided only 4.8 percent conviction rate in 2018-2022. In such historic cases as Vishal Jeet v. Union of India the study, based on the recent Kolkata convictions, reveals the contradictions in enforcement: whereas rescues have increased to 882 through the Railway Protection Force in 2024, inter-state coordination is lagging, with only 2,358 victims being rescued, despite the increasing number of cross-border scams. It has been recommended to implement a single Trafficking of Persons Act, trauma-informed policing, and inter-ministerial synergy to be in line with the standards of Palermo Protocol.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.