A Battle Half-Won: India’s New Anti-Trafficking Law
The Indian Parliament recently enacted the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (CLA). Although primarily concerned with targeting rape and sexual assault, the Bill incorporates a range of other offences dealing with violence against women many of which the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) did not envisage. Two such offences relate to trafficking, an area of considerable policy and legal reform internationally. Specifically, the new Section 370 defines the offence of trafficking thus replacing the...
Read MorePrabha Kotiswaran Reviews the UNODC Report on South Asia
Responses to Human Trafficking in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka Legal and Policy Review UNODC, Regional Office for South Asia Principal Author Dr. Sarasu Esther Thomas International law has witnessed considerable activity around the issue of trafficking in the past decade. Particularly significant is the adoption by the UN of the 2000 United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking Against Persons, Especially Women and Children (“UN Protocol”)[1] supplementing...
Read MoreCoerced Victims or Exploited Workers? Prabha Kotiswaran
Prabha Kotiswaran, Coerced Victims or Exploited Workers? Rightswork.org (February 20, 2012) This article originally appeared on Rightswork.org. To view the original, click here. Mahdavi’s book Gridlock offers a fascinating report of the negative consequences in the Middle-East, specifically in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Dubai as a result of the impact of the UN Trafficking Protocol[i] and the U.S. anti-trafficking law[ii]. Mahdavi focuses an invisible group of the Emirates’...
Read MoreIndia has to Rethink Human Trafficking, Prabha Kotiswaran
Prabha Kotiswaran, The Hindu (March 27, 2012) This article originally appeared in The Hindu. To read the original article, click here. Human trafficking is in the news these days. Many of these reports follow the predictable storyline of women enslaved in developing countries. India often features prominently in these narratives. For instance, Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist and author of more than 46 op-eds on the subject of sex trafficking, recently conducted undercover raids...
Read MorePreparing for Civil Disobedience: Indian Sex Workers and the Law by Prabha Kotiswaran
This article deals with the reform of prostitution laws in India. It begins with an outline of the current legislative framework available in this regard and then critically evaluates the various alternatives to the framework that have been proposed through the 1990s by the Indian government, universities and research institutions, the Indian women’s movement and sex-worker organizations. Mter undertaking an historical examination of prostitution laws in India from colonial times up to...
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