Development Agenda: North East India’s Forced Migration & Human Trafficking Narrative
Author Name
Prapti Adhikari & R P Pradhan
Author Address
Prapti Adhikari & R P Pradhan
BITS Pilani, K.K.Birla Goa Campus,
[email protected]
Keywords
Forced Migration, Development, Human Trafficking, remittances
Abstract
Globally around 73 million people are victims of forced migration. While one third of this population is displaced internally and within the country itself, the rest are forced to cross international borders subjecting them into higher degrees of vulnerability. While forced migrants population is nearly three times the population of Malaysia or Saudi Arab or half the population of Russia, nearly 1/3rd of this constituency consisting of women and children are trafficked for exploitative forced labour, sexual abuse or hazardous and vulnerable work purpose. As per ILO report 2005, human trafficking is the third largest human employer next only to Chinese army and Indian railways. While cruelty, violence, loss of personal assets & politico-economic identity loss are common narratives of forced migration phenomenon, human trafficking facets are the ugliest chapters in the narrative. Trafficked victims economically contribute to GDP growth without monetization of its proceeds to themselves. Human trafficking victims do not largely figure in the economic contribution mapping. Neither their GDP contribution or remittance value is captured nor are they structured into economic sectors. Living on the socio-political and economic margin, they represent a constituency of vulnerability and case studies of socio-political investigation.
Three fundamental motivations guide the framework of this paper. Within India, North East India presents a gory picture in the human trafficking narrative. This paper based on primary and secondary evidence shall provide a sociological perspective of North East India’s human trafficking scenario. Second, based on the available empirical evidence, capture the economic scale, size and relevance of North East India’s trafficked constituency. Finally, based on the socio-political and economic narrative, analyze community and field evidence based affirmative action plan which could be useful for development agenda of the region as well as social reintegration of North East India’s human trafficking victims.
Conference
International Conference on Migration, Diaspora and Development