Dilemmas in Rescue and Reintegration: A critical assessment of India’s policies for children trafficked for labour exploitation

Authors

  • Elizabeth Donger
  • Jacqueline Bhabha

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.201218104

Keywords:

prevention, rescue, reintegration, trafficking, child labour, India, exploitation

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the Indian government’s efforts to combat pervasive child trafficking for labour exploitation through rescue and reintegration of affected children. It evaluates the extensive policy and legal frameworks against on-the-ground realities in the states of Bihar and Rajasthan, using empirical findings from a qualitative study carried out by the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights at Harvard University. The results demonstrate that current practices fail to adhere to human rights norms or protect rescued children from risk of future exploitation. They underscore important challenges in the rescue and reintegration of trafficked children, and call into question the singular focus on this category of post-harm response over preventative interventions. The findings point to a critical need for future research, sustained multi-stakeholder discussion and concrete reforms.

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Author Biographies

Elizabeth Donger

Elizabeth Donger is a Research Associate at the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights at Harvard University. Her work focuses on distress migration and child protection, with a focus on partnerships between the state and civil society, identity and access to justice. She is currently working with Professor Bhabha on a study of three Indian non-profit organisations’ community-level harm prevention strategies to build child protection and rights. She holds a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Jacqueline Bhabha

Jacqueline Bhabha is Director of Research at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, a Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and the Jeremiah Smith Jnr. Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School. She has published extensively on issues of transnational child migration, refugee protection, children’s rights, and citizenship. She is currently leading several research projects on distress youth migration in the Mediterranean basin and on harm prevention and capacity building in the child protection field.

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Published

29-04-2018

How to Cite

Donger, E., & Bhabha, J. (2018). Dilemmas in Rescue and Reintegration: A critical assessment of India’s policies for children trafficked for labour exploitation. Anti-Trafficking Review, (10). https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.201218104