Annual Report - National Human Rights Commission

Annexure 12
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has been trafficked to India across borders, she/he should not be held to be an illegal immigrant.
Temporary residential permits should be provided in such cases.
Timeframe for Justice Delivery
As per the existing procedural law (Section 167 Cr.PC), there is a restriction on the time that the
police can avail for investigation after the arrest of the person. Similar timeframe should be set
for the trial of the cases in the courts of law also, without any prejudice in the delivery of justice
to the victim. The available literature shows that a similar provision is available in Bangladesh
for ensuring time-bound judicial trial of trafficking cases, and that this arrangement is working
quite well, especially with regard to expediting justice delivery.
Punishments
There is a need to enhance the punishments for traffickers and other exploiters. The provisions
have to be made more stringent. Minimum punishment should be prescribed for all penal sections.
Enhanced punishment is called for when the victim is a child.
National Nodal Agency to Monitor Human Trafficking
The rationale for setting up a National Nodal Agency to counter trafficking has been discussed
earlier. It would be appropriate if the provision is incorporated in the law itself by providing a
separate section/subsection in ITPA.
Rehabilitation
Rehabilitation is the creative essence of the preventive process and essential to the healing process.
Therefore, there should be one exclusive chapter in the ITPA on correctional justice and
rehabilitation, dealing with the ‘drills, process, medical treatment, monitoring, follow-up action,
and other distressing and mainstreaming techniques’. Social activists and NGOs should be
statutorily encouraged to involve themselves in rehabilitation.
Prevention
This should be the summum bonum in a social legislation like ITPA. Justice Iyer says, “Today
we should not put all our eggs in the Macaulay basket, but in the Mahatma pharmacopoeia.”
Accordingly, there should be a separate chapter in the ITPA on Prevention, specifically bringing
out the human rights perspective required in the policies, programmes and implementation. The
chapter should spell out the procedures and role of agencies — governmental and nongovernmental
— in this regard. Preventive strategies should be oriented not only to the source
of supply, but also to the demand site as well as trafficking routes and transit points. The present
legislation (ITPA), which is more focused on the crime-criminal perspective, needs to be given
a human rights perspective and make it fully oriented towards prevention.
Provision for the Handicapped
There should be a specific provision in the law for offences against women and children who
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