Criminal Justice Responses to Sex Trafficking in West Bengal, India: A Representative Study from Victims’ Lenses

Known to be the oldest crime on earth, human trafficking has existed as an illegal industry from time immemorial. Statistics reveal that every year, 1–2 million men, women and children are trafficked worldwide, and about 0.22 million (225,000) are from South Asia. Amongst the South-Asian countries, India faces a high-ceilinged rate of sex trafficking and although it made its anti-trafficking interventions quite early, with the inclusion of anti-trafficking provisions in its domestic legislation and signed the United Nations Protocol, yet, the problem persisted and assumed alarming proportions. The principal argument that has been offered for the inept human trafficking responses in India is that the different facets of prevention, protection and prosecution centred on the human rights priorities of the victims are not adequately met. The present article is based on an empirical study conducted by the authors to understand the underpinnings of the working of the Indian criminal justice system (CJS) from the lens of victim’s experiences in West Bengal, India. West Bengal is one of the states located in the eastern part of the country, which shares its borders with Bangladesh and Nepal, and acts as an epicentre of sex trafficking in India. To determine whether the anti-trafficking interventions in India, which are largely based on the rhetoric of raid-to-rescue, are attuned to the specific needs of the sex trafficked survivors; the authors attempted to assess their encounters with and confidence in the CJS. They used cross-sectional surveys to collect qualitative data from 40 victims ( n = 40) across three after-care facilities in West Bengal, namely, Sanlaap, International Justice Mission and Mahima. The purpose of using this phenomenological study was to describe the phenomenon as participant-respondents experience them. In conclusion, the authors pinpointed the necessary interventions required at the legal and procedural levels to make the ICJS more responsive towards the needs of the sex-trafficked victims.