Revision summary
Trafficking in women and children is organised and undercounted. Sexual, domestic, marital, and labour forms all operate. Poverty, daughter devaluation, and missing girls feed demand and supply. Informal homes and workshops hide victims. Law exists; source-area rights and convictions do not match the scale.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Trafficking of women and children in India is serious because it is organised, cross-border and internal, and rooted in poverty, caste, and missing girls. It is not a rare crime at the edge of society.
Body
Scale and forms
- Sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced marriage, and child labour are the main forms, along routes from Nepal, Bangladesh, and poorer Indian districts.
- NCRB undercounts. Shelter and NGO data still show a standing industry, not episodes.
Why it is structurally serious
- Feminization of poverty and landlessness supply the catch. Seed and Earth plus dowry make daughters disposable.
- Adverse sex ratio in prosperous belts creates a market in brides, a trafficking neighbour of PCPNDT failure.
- Informal urban labour hides child and woman workers in homes and small units.
Response gap
- ITPA and anti-trafficking units exist. Conviction, victim citizenship, and source-area land rights remain weak.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD PV[Poverty caste] --> TR[Trafficking] SR[Skewed sex ratio] --> TR IF[Informal city] --> TR
Conclusion
The problem is grave because it is a market sitting on kinship inequality and informal work. Policing without title, school, and sex-ratio repair will not end it.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Is this mainly a border issue?
Borders matter. Most victims also move inside India from poor to richer districts.
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Does rescue end the problem?
Without livelihood and non-stigmatising return, rescue can be a revolving door.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2017 · Q3(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Indebtedness is one of the serious issues leading to farmers suicides Discuss reasons and suggest solutions
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