FROM BONDAGE TO FREEDOM 40 practiced in the territory of a State Party, the Committee may decide to initiate a confidential inquiry of the situation. Such inquiry would be carried out in cooperation with the State Party concerned and would include country visits. The Committee can also consider complaints from individuals who claim to be victims of a violation by a State Party to the Convention. This may be done only if the State Party concerned has declared that it recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and examine such complaints. The monitoring body is the Committee against Torture and the articles relevant to trafficking from the Convention are: • Torture is an act where severe pain or suffering, physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted for purposes: intimidation of coercion; by person acting in official capacity. (Article 1). • No expulsion or return of a person to another state if substantial grounds exist for believing that person would be in danger of torture. (Article 3) • Alleged victims of torture have the right to complain to and have their cases promptly and impartially examined by competent authorities. Complainants and witnesses shall be protected against any consequential ill treatment or intimidation. (Article 13) • Redress and Right to Compensation. (Article 14) vi) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), 1989 CRC79 deals directly with trafficking in children especially girl children, under the age of 18, unless, majority is attained at an earlier age under domestic laws. State Parties are to take all appropriate natural, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction of the sale of or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form. Children are also protected from all forms of economic exploitation, sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. While the language of the CRC on these points is strong, it has been noted that the effect of these provisions is weakened by the conventions failure to require State Parties to criminalize particular forms of conduct such as trafficking or to assume extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction in respect of such conduct. The Convention’s failure to explicitly protect the child from non-State interference is also problematic. 79 Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN.DOC A/RES/44/25, entered into force Sep. 2, 1990.