(Image source from: YouTube)

The lower house of India's bicameral parliament - Lok Sabha on Thursday passed Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection, and Rehabilitation) bill, 2018, after a reply by Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi, who had introduced the proposed law in the house.

Some Members of Parliament, including those from the Congress, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), Communist Party of India (the CPI) and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), demanded that it be sent to the Standing Committee.

The Bill lays down a rigorous punishment of 10 years to life imprisonment for intense forms of trafficking, which include buying or selling of persons for the purpose of bonded labour, bearing a child, as well as those where chemical substances or hormones are administered, and a survivor acquires life-threatening illnesses such as AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome)

For coordinating, monitoring and surveillance of trafficking cases, the Bill proposes setting-up a National Anti-Trafficking Bureau (NATB). It also renders for a Relief and Rehabilitation Committee and Rehabilitation Fund with an initial allocation of ₹ 10 crores. It prescribes forfeiture of property used or likely to be used for the commission of an offense.

"Trafficking is a borderless crime but jurisdiction issues come in the way of investigation. This Bill provides for the NATB to effectively address this aspect," Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said while introducing the Bill in the Lok Sabha.

The Minister also sought to allay concerns about the Bill potentially victimizing adult persons voluntarily in sex work and said the Bill was not intended to harass sex workers and that the government was against trafficking and not its victims. However, at the same time, she said, "If the provisions (of this Bill) are implemented, the hellholes of Kamathipura and G.B. Road will be a thing of the past because these will come directly under confiscation of property." Gandhi told Parliament.

The cabinet last year had approved a proposal for making the National Investigation Agency (NIA) - the nodal authority for investigating suits of human trafficking, for which the authorities is hoped-for to bring a separate amendment to the NIA Act.

By Sowmya Sangam