Family and Child Welfare

Family and Child Welfare 3 (3+0)

Lesson 37 : Women Trafficking

Definition

The countries of SAARC have a definition in their Convention for Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children, "Trafficking in women consists of all acts involved in the procurement, transportation, forced movement and/or selling and buying of women within and/or across border by fraudulent means, deception, coercion, direct and/or indirect threats, abuse of authority. For the purpose of placing a woman against her will without her consent in exploitative and adhesive situations such as forced prostitution, forced marriage, bonded and forced labour, begging, organ trade, etc".

Sex trafficking: Recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act.

Commercial sex act: any sex act on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.

Coercion:

1. Threats of serious harm to or physical restraint against any person;
2. Any scheme, plan or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that to perform an act would result in serious harm to or physical restraint against any person; or
3. The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.

Involuntary servitude:

1. Any scheme, plan, or pattern intended to cause a person to believe that, if the person did not enter into or continue in such condition, that person or another person would suffer serious harm or physical restraint or
2. The abuse or threatened abuse of the legal process.

Debt bondage: The status or condition of a debtor arising from a pledge by the debtor of his or her personal services or of those of a person under his or her control as a security for debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt, or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined.