The story so far:
Child trafficking remains a deeply disturbing reality in India. The Supreme Court in its recent decision in K. P. Kiran Kumar versus State has given strict guidelines to prevent such offences, and held that trafficking grossly violates children’s fundamental right to life as guaranteed by the Constitution. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, in 2022, about 3,098 children below 18 years were rescued. Between April 2024 and March 2025, over 53,000 children were rescued from child labour, trafficking and kidnapping across India. However, the conviction rate for such offences between 2018 and 2022 was only 4.8%.
What is child trafficking?
Internationally, the Palermo Protocol (UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children), 2000 defines child trafficking as ‘the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation.’ Presently, Section 143 of Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 provides that “whoever, for the purpose of exploitation, recruits, transports, harbours, transfers, or receives, a person or persons by, using threats; or using force, or any other form of coercion; or by abduction; or by practising fraud, or deception; or by abuse of power; or by inducement, including the giving or receiving of payments or benefits, in order to achieve the consent of any person having control over the person recruited, transported, harboured, transferred or received, commits the offence of trafficking.” The word ‘exploitation’ is wide enough in its scope and includes physical and sexual exploitation as well. It also includes any form of slavery, servitude, or forced removal of organs.
