INDIA: Human Trafficking in India’s Assam

Pallabi Ghosh Challenges the Status Quo through Outreach and Awareness

“I want the government to support me in scaling up this work with resources, networking, and funding.”

In 2005, I visited West Bengal, an eastern state in India, during my holidays. As I roamed the village one evening, a man ran around and pleaded for help. People circled him as he cried in desperation. I was 16 at the time and debated whether I should intervene. Despite my worries, I gathered the courage to ask him what was the matter. I was stunned to hear his daughter had gone missing the night before.

I asked if he had checked everywhere, but he said there was no place left for him to look. He had gone to the local police station, where the constable scoffed at him, saying his daughter could be visiting her boyfriend or off enjoying herself. This insensitive, blasé response surprised me. The girl was just a teenager like me. I didn't know where the girl was but understood something terrible might have happened to her. 

That incident altered my life. I kept thinking of the man, unable to forget his teary eyes. I sadly learned that his story wasn’t uncommon. That's how I started researching missing children and came to understand human trafficking. My research taught me how organized trafficking rackets function around the world. I started visiting police stations, meeting NGOs around my area, and taking in as much information as possible. Finally, after completing my degree in 2012, I started exploring villages around India. I realized this heinous crime happens openly, as many influential people are involved. 

I decided to do something about this and became an anti-trafficking advocate. Over the past decade, I have helped rescue more than 5,000 trafficked children and adults. Today I train rural communities on how to prevent trafficking through my organization, Impact and Dialogue Foundation. I work in remote northeast India, where people tend to be illiterate and migrate to different countries, quickly falling prey to traffickers and pimps. 

I often spend 25 days of the month traveling to remote areas of Assam by bus, convening community leaders to engage in intergenerational dialogues. Our training sessions address patriarchy, family life, and poverty to help women overcome barriers and access economic opportunities. 

At the same time, we reach out to advocacy groups, educational institutions, and government bodies at district, block, and taluka levels to initiate conversations around human trafficking. The goal is to empower individuals and communities, ensuring they remain vigilant and not get trapped in this menace.

Through my organization, I have reached more than 35,000 people, and I want the government to support me in scaling up this work with resources, networking, and funding. 

Traffickers lure individuals with the possibility of a better life, job prospects, and marriage, trafficking them from the remote villages of India. Unfortunately, most of it goes unreported as they are mistaken as missing cases.

Labor and sex trafficking are the most common trends in human trafficking, with children from poverty-stricken eastern states in India most commonly trafficked. West Bengal ranks first among the number of cases reported in human trafficking. Being a state with so much poverty, illiteracy, and disaster, it's vulnerable to all kinds of crime.

Notable NGOs work in India. Yet, their work never trickles down to where the trafficking originates. That’s where my organization’s outreach and awareness work comes in and where you can make a difference. I want to spread awareness and empower people on the ground so that they can stand for their rights and uplift other people in their communities.

I request everyone reading this story share it as much as possible, talk to people, and create anti-trafficking clubs in schools, colleges, and communities, as I did. I have also created village vigilante committees to monitor the number of people going outside a village for work, with a mandate to do regular follow-ups.

As a crusader against anti-trafficking, I ask that you report child labor, volunteer with organizations working in trafficking, stay informed and keep an eye on your children, register for training sessions to understand how trafficking occurs, and educate people around you about trafficking.

Together, we can help prevent the heartache and suffering of people like the distraught father I met in 2005. Together we can help put an end to human trafficking.

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