By Adv. David Sunder Singh
In 2013, Surya Prakash and his cousin, Vijay, left their home in Tamil Nadu, to work at a confectionary in another state, for an advance of Rs. 1,000. There was practically no communication between Surya and his parents for the next few years, until they got a call one day, towards the end of 2016, when he simply said, “I’m coming home.”
However, he never did come home, and in January 2017, his worried parents reported him missing. Meanwhile, around the same time, Vijay gathered all his courage and ran away from his employer. With fresh oil burns on his legs, a punishment he received for adding too much food colour to the samosas, Vijay made his way back home, and an investigation began. It took five months but eventually, Surya Prakash was found in Nasik and he reunited with his family.
Sadly, while their stories are nothing new, Vijay’s visible signs of torture opened the eyes of parents across Tamil Nadu, making them aware of the suffering the children are enduring for the sake of providing for their families.
Trapped in terrible conditions for a meager salary, these children are often physically abused at their workplaces and are not allowed to leave. Parents are now hesitating to send their children to such factories. This, in turn, is alerting owners to be more cautious about hiring under-aged children for work.
While Prakash’s employer was eventually arrested, the victory was short-lived because he was soon out on bail. However, the fact that he was even arrested is seen as a great first step in combating child trafficking. Often, these cases have a very different outcome, with perpetrators getting off scot-free, allowing them to continue exploiting, because they know that there are no consequences for their actions.
This was the case with 15-year-old Marimuthu, who was working 15 hours a day in a sweet shop in Maharashtra. When his owner poured boiling oil on his legs, Marimuthu too, like Vijay, managed to run away. After traveling ticketless by train for two days, he finally reached home. The boy and his family filed a complaint with the Madurai police, but since the crime happened in another state, due to jurisdiction issues, social workers are not confident if he would get justice.
These stories are not rare. Police and CB-CID officers from Tamil Nadu went to Maharashtra in search of around 120 teenagers from Dindigul who were tricked into bonded labour. Prakash was one of the seven children reported missing by their parents. According to the Times of India, “the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court, based on a petition by Prakash’s father Arumugam, directed the CB-CID to constitute a team to trace the boys, all of who hail from Dindigul’s Nilakottai Taluk.”
A major reason why the crime flourishes, is due to a lack of deterrent punishments. It is impossible to expect the employers to quit trafficking children when they know that there are almost no consequences to their actions. But, the visible action on the part of the police to punish these perpetrators could send a message that “we will not accept this here,” and owners would think twice about hiring trafficked children.
Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code has been extremely successful in promoting deterrence, but challenges still abound. Section 370 clearly defines trafficking, but there are no directives on who bears the responsibility for deterrence: the source state or the destination state. In order for us to move forward and make progress, this gap needs to be closed.
Although there are changes that still need to be made, hope is not lost. On August 16, 2017, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court directed the state Labour Secretary to formulate a comprehensive procedure “in the form of rule, regulation or enactment (of legislation)” to keep a tab on bonded or forced labour and child labour within three months. The order came close to the heels of an admission by the labour department stating that they had no record of labourers, including adolescents, who leave Tamil Nadu to work in other states, despite being mandated to maintain a register under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, and Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act and Rules, 1979.
In a bold move, a new bill was initiated by the Ministry of Women & Child Development. The Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2017, proposes severe punishments for anyone engaging in human trafficking. It has been passed by the Lok Sabha. If made an Act, there would be a 10-year punishment for those engaging in “aggravated forms of trafficking,” while seeking life imprisonment for repeat offenders.
The new bill could be a game changer in bringing an end to trafficking across India. It will send a clear message to perpetrators: “You are not welcome here. We will find you and we will punish you.” Only when offenders realize that their actions are reprehensible and could get them imprisoned, maybe for a lifetime, will they find a new line of work.
Follow End Bonded Labour on Twitter and Facebook to know more about this heinous crime.