The human trafficking industry, as we speak, represents approximately forty billion dollars of global trade per year, growing at a more rapid rate than any other industry in the world. Closer home, a non-descript island like Sandeshkhali (Sunderbans), once frequently afflicted by tiger attacks, has adopted the avatar of a trafficking hub, contributing a major share of the fourteen thousand odd individuals who disappeared from West Bengal alone, in 2012. Over the past decade, several countries in the world, with the United States at the fore, have invested hundreds of millions of dollars just to mitigate trafficking only to meet with results which are a far cry from being even remotely commensurate. Such startling statistics are indicative enough that it’s time one re-aligns one’s views towards the problem at large and takes cognition of the fact that human trafficking is a complex and multi-causal phenomenon. Thus, one can only hope to convert rhetoric to reality only if the system they are trying to extirpate is approached with a protocol, underpinned by a holistic understanding of the core ethos of the people afflicted by this malpractice, i.e. by adopting a more “victim-centric” approach.
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The author is a student of IIM Ahmedabad - Class of 2016 and a member of the 2015-16 Student Team at InsideIIM
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