HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN INDIA
Nepal is one of the world’s most lucrative markets for human trafficking. Traffickers use Nepal’s open border with India to transport women and children to India for sexual abuse. Many are trafficked for sex work, domestic labor, and for illegal organ trade in India, Southeast Asia, and the Gulf region. Indians are deliberately planning through their intelligence infrastructure in Nepal to undertake human trafficking from Pakistan through Nepal into India as witnessed in the case of Col Zahir Habib. They keep them under custody and lately utilized them against the interest of Pakistan to malign/implicate and blackmail Pakistan. Recently, cases have been reported in which hostile intelligence agencies trapped Pakistani women with the allurement of some highly paid jobs and moved them to India via Nepal. It is likely possible those hostile agencies may use these women in terrorism or espionage-related cases through sting operations and blame them as Pakistani agents. There is a likely threat of selling people to ISIS, which threatens regional peace and security. Human trafficking is a thriving global business that accounts for US$150 billion a year worldwide. UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) defines human trafficking as “the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, intending to exploit them.”US State Department in its ‘2021 Trafficking in Persons Report: India’ highlighted that the Indian government did not meet universal standards to curb human trafficking in different forms. Moreover, it is also a grave violation of the Vienna Convention on Consular Access as well as the 2008 bilateral agreement on consular access between Pakistan and India.
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