How govt's bill for trafficking victims will make sex workers less safe
Hoping to protect women from sexual exploitation , Indian lawmakers are pushing a bill that amends the criminal code to harden legal and financial penalties for sex trafficking. The “Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill,” which passed the lower house of India’s parliament in July 2018 and may become law in 2019, seeks to make combat this lucrative, illicit trade. Not everyone thinks harsh deterrence will work. Days after it passed in the lower house of India’s Parliament in July, two United Nations experts said the bill leans too heavily on the criminal justice system. Without more of a “human-rights based and victim-centred approach,” the UN special rapporteurs on human trafficking and modern slavery warned, India “risks further harming already vulnerable individuals.” India’s sex trade According to the Indian government, 4,980 victims of sex trafficking were rescued in the country in 2016. Sex workers in India oppose th