FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM
16
which reinforces gender biases – quite specifically, that
women and girls need constant male protection from harm
and therefore must not be allowed their right to movement
or right to live in any manner they choose36.
ii)
Curbing migration makes trafficking go more invisible and
leads to exacerbation of the conditions of the victims of
trafficking.
iii)
Equating migration with trafficking, also rules outs voluntary
migration. This logic results in viewing all consensual
migrating females as trafficked37.
iv)
Strict adherence to above policy leads to “presumptive
refoulement” of smuggled and renders their right to asylum
null and void.
Therefore, while viewing trafficking one must bear in mind that it
does not become an offence because of movement per se but because of
brokering, fraud, coercion and exploitative conditions of work38. At the
same time while dealing with irregular migration and trafficking, rights
of refugees, who may take recourse to irregular migration or who may
become victim of trafficking, need to be protected. Also one needs to
make a clear distinction between trafficking and smuggling.
Human trafficking involves deceiving or coercing someone to move
either within a country or abroad, through legal or illegal channels and
enslaving him or her. Smuggling is about assisting some one for a fee to
cross a border illegally.
F.
Factors Contributing to Vulnerability to Trafficking
In order to tackle the problem of trafficking holistically, it is
important to have a complete understanding of the factors responsible
for trafficking. These factors need to be seen at global, regional and local
levels also as pull or push factors. Some of these factors have been
generalized below:
36
Supra note 25, pp. 2-3.
37
Ibid.
38
Ibid.