MANISH GUPTA
Ranchi, Sept 6: Amid all the wrong reasons for which Jharkhand has been in news, the tribal-state has shown the best conviction rate in human trafficking in the country. While the all-India rate was 16 per cent, Jharkhand was five times better at 84.2 per cent.
The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), in its latest report, revealed a sorry state of affairs in court conviction of human trafficking cases in India. The conviction rate was 16 per cent despite police filing charge sheets in 84.7 per cent of the total 2,189 cases.
Notably, Jharkhand had 92 cases of human trafficking in 2021, 52 cases were charge-sheeted, 16 cases were convicted and three were acquitted or discharged by the court. With 16 convictions of the 19 cases with completed trials, the conviction rate was 84.2 per cent. For all India, 32 cases were convicted and 169 cases were acquitted or discharged.
While the total number of victims trafficked in Jharkhand in 2021 was 250 including 136 women, the all India number of victims was 6,533 including 4,062 females. The number of victims rescued was 247 in Jharkhand and 6,213 in India, the data showed.
Moreover, about 60% of the human trafficking victims in Jharkhand are below 18 years with boys being 58 and girl victims 88. The major reasons for human trafficking in Jharkhand were forced labour (123), domestic servitude (108), forced marriage (9) and prostitution (4).
The highest numbers of human trafficking cases were in Telangana (347), Maharashtra (320), Assam (203), Kerala (201) and Andhra Pradesh (168). However, their conviction rates in human trafficking were 0%, 25%, 0%, 5% and 9.4%, respectively. Several other states and Union Territories had zero per cent conviction rate, the report said.
The data related to human trafficking were provided by the Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) through their State Crime Records Bureau. The AHTUs, funded by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, have been set up in all the 24 districts to investigate human trafficking cases and build up database, the Crime in India 2021 report said.
