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
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
-
Discuss B.R. Ambedkar as a wise democrat.
Next question in the 2015 paper (Q7). View answer →
-
Is this mainly a border issue?
Borders matter. Most victims also move inside India from poor to richer districts.
-
Does rescue end the problem?
Without livelihood and non-stigmatising return, rescue can be a revolving door.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2020 · Q5(d) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
How does the New Education Policy, 2020 aim to eradicate disparities in the system of education in India? -
2019 · Q1(d) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Write a note on Ghurye's conception of caste in India -
2019 · Q8(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
What is POSH Act? "Identification of tormentor by women at workplace does not come easily even today". Examine the statement with substantive examples from India -
2018 · Q3(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss development induced displacement in the context of tribal uprising in India. Substantiate your answer with any one detailed illustration from India. -
2017 · Q5(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
What are the reason for the escalation of violence against women in the public domain ? -
2016 · Q4(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Privatization of education and increasing inequalities -
2016 · Q5(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the emerging forms of 'inequalities' and 'acute poverty' as major challenges of social transformation in India. -
2015 · Q6(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 15 marks
What are the major concerns of ethnic identity and religious identity in India?
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2015 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Verrier Elwin's views on freedom for the tribals
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Elwin defined tribal freedom as protection of land, language, and self-rule. He rejected Ghurye’s assimilation of tribe into Hindu society. Isolation was a shield, not a museum, until contact was fair. Nehruvian Panchsheel borrowed this caution. Law now tries to keep that freedom as rights inside the state.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2015 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Jyotirao Phule as an agrarian radical
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Phule linked caste domination to the robbery of the peasant. Gulamgiri and the cultivator’s whip made tillers the centre of critique. Satyashodhak schools attacked the knowledge monopoly that kept the field unfree. He is closer to anti-caste agrarian politics than to mild temple reform. Class language came later; the landlord-priest pair was already his target.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2015 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Louis Dumont's perspective on Indian caste system
Caste System
Dumont treats caste as a hierarchical ideology of purity and impurity. Power and wealth are real but encompassed by ritual rank. Homo hierarchicus contrasts with Western equality as a value. Sripuram and Rampura show class and dominant caste that the ideology does not fix. The perspective is necessary for values, insufficient for land and politics.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.