The National Seminar on Anti-Human Trafficking Awareness by National Commission for Women held at Srinagar has highlighted the most neglected Human Rights of most vulnerable young women and infant children going on for a long time now in Jammu and Kashmir. While the number of women and children trafficked into Jammu Kashmir may be lower than the cases in other states, the intensity of their agony and sufferings cannot be undermined on the pretext of numbers. Among the number of cases of human trafficking in J&K, Kashmir valley and a couple of Pir Panchal districts lead the tally.
According to Rekha Sharma, chairperson of the National Commission for Women, quoting NCRB data, human trafficking increased by 15.56 percent in Jammu and Kashmir last year compared to the fiscal year 2021-22, but this is “just the tip of the iceberg.”
This was the first programme of its kind in Kashmir, where all the concerned institutions — state commissions, NGOs joined together to make people aware, especially students, that nobody is immune to this problem.
In J&K too, the young women were trafficked under the guise of being offered well-paying jobs.
The offenders make false promises of jobs here or elsewhere, but they are underpaid and abused. Marriage trafficking has increased in Kashmir for the last few decades. Women are coming from West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand for work, but they are forced to marry someone who sexually abuses them,
Importantly, the event has also highlighted the lapse on the part of Union Territory Administration as it has failed to reinstate Women's Commission in Jammu Kashmir even after more than three and half years of reorganisation of erstwhile Jammu Kashmir state.
What the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu Kashmir has stated on human trafficking as a blot on any society indicates that he was aware of the serious crime of Human Trafficking from which the UT could not escape.
“When compared to other states in the country, trafficking-related cases are far less in J&K.” This does not imply that we will wait until the situation deteriorates and becomes a major challenge for us,” LG said.
According to the LG, 18 people were brought to J&K for labour work in 2021, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). Three women were brought to J&K in the same year for forcible marriages; in 2022, over a dozen persons were rescued in Budgam. According to the LG, the J&K Anti-Human Trafficking Cell was able to bust the gang and safely rescue all of the victims.
He stated that there is a need for law enforcement agencies, stakeholders, and civil society to work together to determine “origin, transit, and destination.”
According to LG, their priority is rescue and rehabilitation and his administration was fully committed to establishing Anti-Human Trafficking Cells in all J&K districts and that 202 women's help desks have been established in all police stations.
It is appreciable that the Administration has proposed hiring 4000 Anganwadi Sangini and Sahayika.
The main issue is a lack of awareness and societal poor concern to save our daughters and children. Let us all unite against the menace in the UT to root out trafficking of women and girls.
