Caritas India joined with Plan India to sensitize the law enforcement agencies and Border forces Deployed at Indo-Nepal Border on Anti-Human Trafficking. In this regard, a collaboration was made to organize two day’s workshops for the Anti Human Trafficking units of Police and Shastra Seema Bal responsible to curb cross-border Human Trafficking. In this initiative of these two Organizations, Women and Child Safety Organization, Uttar Pradesh and Women Power line 1090, UP Police along with SSB came forwarded and took the lead to invite the AHTU Police and SSB team from seven districts sharing the Indo-Nepal border i.e. Balarampur, Baharaich, Lakhimpur, Maharajganj, Pilibhit, Shravasti, and Siddarthnagar.

The Chief Guests of the workshop, Prashant Kumar, ADG, Law and Order Uttar Pradesh, Neera Rawat, ADG, Women and Child Security Organization; Ratn Sanjay, Inspector General, SSB Frontier HQ; and Alankrita Singh, SP, Women and Child Security Organization actively participated in the workshop.

The Resource Person for the day, Shri Ravi Kant, Advocate Supreme Court and Founder of Shakti Vahini set the context of Human Trafficking with a special focus on the routes which are used by the traffickers in relation to the source, transit and destination countries. He explained that India has become a transit country in the routes of international trafficking between the Middle-East and South-East Asian countries, with a special focus on Nepal as a source country, and the Uttar Pradesh India-Nepal border being a key transit route.

The workshop discussed on lack of coordinated sharing of information between agencies, language barrier, absence of proper counsellors, no availability of shelter homes for victims, various discrepancies in fact-finding across the border, lack of documentation/identifications of victim and trafficker, reluctance and resistance from to-be-victims. The discussion regarding jurisdictions of AHTU and SSB were raised to establish better ways of coordination between the two agencies along with NGOs/Civil societies working at the border.

SSB Commandants of the 22nd and 42nd Battalions shared a detailed presentation of their work including the establishment of SSB, their roles and responsibilities, case studies of trafficking interception, successful convictions through intense coordination with other agencies and civil society organizations.

Human Trafficking was identified as an organized crime, and the subsequent IPC sections were discussed that could be used during investigation and prosecution. It was mentioned that AHTUs have been created in all districts and had been given the status of Police Station to facilitate more convictions through FIRs in cases of Human Trafficking. The importance of counselling of the victim, and the unedited documentation of the victim’s statement is essential to enable the highest conviction of the traffickers. The discussion went onto the different Modus Operandi used by the traffickers and how to identify them at various stages. The emphasis was given that very few convictions were done under section 370 of the IPC, which should be included more while booking trafficking cases. In the end, the responses to the pre-test questionnaire were discussed, and the participants used the information gained through the workshop to analyze their answers.

The resource person for the second day was Shri Arun Pandey, Founder of Arz, Goa focused mainly on rescue and repatriation, restoration of human trafficking, sex trafficking victims. Once again, the trafficking route was discussed – where a 5-year study done in Goa showed that 6% of the rescued children and women were from Nepal. This further realigned UP’s Indo-Nepal border as a key trafficking route used by traffickers from source countries like Russia, Uzbekistan, Myanmar to the Middle-East countries via the “Black Route”.

The speaker focused on the three aspects of a Rescue operation – Pre, During, and Post. An extensive discussion took place regarding the treatment that any law enforcement official should give to a sex worker or prostitute. He discussed the two schools of thought – one which looked at the sex worker as an offender and a convict. He pointed out how through such convictions, the victim continues to be exploited and she is unable to exit from the vicious cycle of human trafficking. The second school of thought tries to look deeper into trafficking as an organized crime and understands that the woman/child has been exploited and is thus a victim itself. Instead of convicting and prosecuting her, the law enforcement officials should treat her as a victim, even if she is in denial, and through counseling and rehabilitation, try to find the traffickers and handlers who are exploiting women and children from vulnerable communities.

Participants were also given the emotional and psychological aspects of a human trafficking victim. The stages of Resistance, Adaptation, and Acceptance were explained. The resources person shared that the resistance stage is the easiest stage to receive coordination from a victim, as she has not yet adapted to the exploitation. In the adaptation and acceptance stages, the victim might be uncooperative and be in denial. She/he no longer trusts the State or police to support her, and thus might conceal information or take the side of the trafficker/handler who can complicate the investigation. He further told the participants that it should not deter them from considering her as a victim. He explained that the rescuers have a preconceived notion of how a victim should look like or behave when rescued, and when the victim behaves differently, i.e., uncooperatively or defensively, the law enforcement officials often look at her as the offender, which should not be the case.

This theory was further linked with sections 7, 8 of the IPC, along with the Advisory which exempts the sex worker from being an offender. The screening of a series of short films – Mandi, further showed the differences between the two schools of thought.

A group activity was conducted through case studies to share the detailed inquiry, investigation, and restoration of a group of girls who were victims of human trafficking. The participants were asked to analyze the procedures in the case study and mark out what they would do differently in the same scenario. Through presentation, both case studies were discussed where all participants responded on what they would do differently, correctly.

An open discussion also took place where members from AHTU and SSB raised various questions regarding challenges face in the field, which was followed by discussion.

The workshop was closed by speeches from the Chief guests of Honor, and a ceremony where all participants received certificates of participation from the ADG Law and Order, and other esteemed guest’s of the workshop.