Trafficking victims: a growing trend of younger target groups

On the occasion of The World Day Against Trafficking in Persons—observed today, July 30—Mumbai Smiles highlights that hundreds of women fall victim to trafficking and sexual exploitation networks in South Asia every year. Data from the “Crime in India” report, published by the National Crime Records Bureau (an agency of the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs), reveal that 40% of human trafficking cases in the country involve sexual exploitation.

The rise in the number of underage victims is particularly concerning. According to the same report, this figure approaches 50% of the total in several Indian states. Children—some as young as five—are recruited into prostitution and other forms of dangerous, precarious, or illegal labor. This was the case for a boy rescued last June during an operation coordinated by the police and the Mumbai Smiles rescue team; he had been subjected to exploitative domestic labor for a middle-class family.

A confirmed trend

Varsha Kamble, Head of Gender Equality at Mumbai Smiles, confirms the trend of a progressive drop in the age of trafficking victims. “Two years ago, we rescued a 14-year-old girl. Her uncles were forcing her into prostitution. Her father had passed away, and her mother begged on the street to support the family. She would tell them it hurt and that she couldn’t do it, but her family would reply that this was what everyone in the neighborhood did to earn a living.”

Our commitment: prevention, rescue, and survivor rehabilitation

Access to school and staying within the education system are two factors that drastically reduce the risk of falling victim to early labor exploitation. That is why Mumbai Smiles is committed to facilitating educational access for children facing social exclusion. Through a scholarship program, we have made education accessible to more than 1,300 children aged 6 to 14 since 2010. Alongside this project, we participated in the rescue of 36 trafficking survivors across 15 operations last year. In total, since 2020, Mumbai Smiles has rescued 166 people from trafficking; nearly 20% of them were minors, the majority being girls.