Considering The Intricacies Of Cross Border Trafficking Criminology
Considering the intricacies of cross border trafficking and its multi-faceted dimensions it seems a daunting task to prevent it. There is no foolproof mechanism in place to deal with the challenge but Government agencies and NGOs, together with the international community, have adopted a variety of strategies to combat trafficking in women and children. These include:
Prevention of trafficking through the legal and criminal system, including capacity building of law enforcement officers.
Control and suppression of prostitution through the legal system.
Rescue and rehabilitation of women and girl victims of trafficking.
Protection for women and girls to reduce risk of being trafficked.
Concentrating on education of girls and building capacities.
The provision of alternative employment and income-earning opportunities for women and girls.
Raise public awareness through intensive advocacy campaigns to reduce supply and demand particularly by raising among parents and guardians.
Strengthening border and immigration control
Among the non-traditional security threats the issue of trafficking of women and children across borders is of deep concern. Issues relating to border and immigration control challenges have to be addressed. It is not a problem that can be resolved unilaterally.
Police collaboration among police chiefs of all bordering countries should be established under a possible SAARCPOL as under ASEANPOL. This will enhance the sharing of information on the identities, movements and activities of transnational criminal organisations involved in human trafficking. Contact points in each country should be identified for the purpose of liaison and exchange of information to promote cooperation on border control and against human trafficking by information exchanges, joint research and practical initiatives. Also common policing and immigration models should be developed to prevent expensive overlap and even joint capacity building programme can be undertaken for better cooperation and understanding.
Alleviating socioeconomic disparity
The greater the disparity between source and destination locales the greater the potential for trafficking therefore greater has to be the commitment to support development projects that aim at reducing poverty and injustices among the underprivileged. Therefore at a regional level the issue of disparity has to be addressed particularly by regional funding and support of gender-sensitive economic development and education programmes across the region.
Listening to the voice of the victims
The voices of the victims of trafficking are often ignored. Often in addressing issues of protection and rehabilitation the agencies concerned in forget that the victim is the biggest stakeholder and that their experiences can be empowering. Their stories can be transformed into statements of positive value that benefits the community and the policy makers and allows them to feel more worthwhile than mere recipients of sympathy.
Applying the model of security and development governance
The anti-trafficking security governance system consists of five approaches: legal measures, prevention in countries of origin, prevention in countries of destination, legal measures, prosecution and protection. These in turn are dependant on three criteria :- First, for crimes transgressing national borders transnational cooperation is imperative with states intensively cooperating with one another. Second, the governance arrangements have to be well balanced reflecting the nature of the problem to be addressed. If a problem is caused not only by greed of the trafficker but also by poverty, the success of governance depends on poverty reduction. Third, pertains to networks among various actors involved sharing an interest in anti trafficking.
Hence successful governance against cross border trafficking depends on intense transnational cooperation amongst states, participation of international organistions, NGOs and others in policy making and implementation. It has to be multifaceted, balancing different policy approaches in order to address the various causes and consequences of trafficking. Above all networks are needed among them all to facilitate cooperation and converegence for effective outcomes.
The five approaches above imply anti-trafficking efforts in transit countries and there is significant overlap. For instance in the case of protection and prevention the reintegration of trafficked persons into their home communities reduces the likelihood of re-trafficking and thus has a preventive effect.
However as has emerged in the previous chapters the anti trafficking measures have not measured upto the mark all over the world as also in South Asia and India. The shortcomings is described in the table 2 below.
Table2: Pathologies of Governance Against Cross Border Trafficking
Governance Approach
Pathologies
Legal Measures
Lack of specific and adequate legislation in some countries
Guidelines non-binding
Prosecution
Arrest and deportation of trafficked persons
Lenient sentence for traffickers
Trafficking driven underground
Red tape and corruption
Protection
Short term funding priorities
Deficient witness protection programmes
Deficient reintegration programmes
Lack of networked cooperation
Prevention in Countries of Origin
Development decoupled from anti-trafficking
Deficient awareness raising campaigns
Lessons learnt not documented or shared
Prevention in Countries of Destination
Few job oppurtunities
Reinforced borders benefit traffickers
Insufficient demand -reduction measures
No perfect prostitution policy.
Legal responses are by far at an advanced stage but loopholes remain. Some regulatory efforts suffer due to non-binding nature of certain international conventions or delay in ratification by countries. This needs to be addressed immediately.
Prosecution is a relatively weak area. Often the trafficked women are m fearful of testifying for fear of being deported without any support system and the trafficker goes scot free. The enforcement system needs to be reoriented in a discriminatory fashion to be of greater pressure on the traffickers and not the trafficked. When police do act they push the industry underground. They quickly adapt to different modus operandi like from brothels to apartments, from landlines to cell phones, from transborder to internal trafficking etc reflecting a fall in reported cases. Such drop more than a success of policy is result of transformation in nature of operations. Therefore capacity building of all players involved in the business of ensuring prosecution from civil society, to police to government machinery is essential for proper orientation and approach.
The protection of victims is relatively advanced all over there are certain deficiencies too. Though several steps like shelter homes, schemes for empowerment etc have been put in place the
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