SOUTH 24 PARGANAS DISTRICT MEETING
Human trafficking in India, although illegal under Indian law, remains a significant problem.
Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual
exploitation and forced marriage, especially in those areas where the sex ratio is highly skewed
in favour of men. Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of
commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage, especially in those areas where the sex ratio
is highly skewed in favour of men. Men and boys are trafficked for the purposes of labour, and
may be sexually exploited by traffickers to serve as gigolos, massage experts, escorts, etc A
significant portion of children are subjected to forced labour as factory workers, domestic
servants, beggars, and agriculture workers, and have been used as armed combatants by some
terrorist and insurgent groups.
India is also a destination for women and girls from Nepal and Bangladesh trafficked for the
purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Nepali children are also trafficked to India for forced
labour in circus shows. Indian women are trafficked to the Middle East for commercial sexual
exploitation. Indian migrants who migrate willingly every year to the Middle East
and Europe for work as domestic servants and low-skilled labourers may also end up part of the
human trafficking industry.
Right to Food is inherent to a life with dignity, and Article 21 of the Constitution of India which
guarantees a fundamental right to life and personal liberty should be read with Articles 39(a) and
47 to understand the nature of the obligations of the State in order to ensure the effective
realization of this right.
Article 39(a) of the Constitution, enunciated as one of the Directive Principles, fundamental in
the governance of the country, requires the State to direct its policies towards securing that all its
citizens have the right to an adequate means of livelihood, while Article 47 spells out the duty of
the State to raise the level of nutrition and standard of living of its people as a primary
responsibility. The Constitution thus makes the Right to Food a guaranteed Fundamental Right
which is enforceable by virtue of the constitutional remedy provided under Article 32 of the
Constitution.
Persons living in conditions of poverty and hunger have often been found to be suffering from
prolonged malnutrition. Even when their deaths could not, in strictly clinical terms, be related to
starvation, the tragic reality remained that they often died of prolonged mal-nutrition and the
continuum of distress, which had rendered them unable to withstand common diseases such as
malaria and diarrhea. The Commission considered this situation to be all the more painful in
view of the fact that granaries of the Food Corporation of India were overflowing.
Every mining activity requires environment clearance under several laws. Under Sections
120B read with Section 34 of Indian Penal Code, 1860, extraction of sand without a legal permit
is a punishable offence.