New York: Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Ajay Kumar Mishra on Tuesday (local time) said that India accords high priority to combating human trafficking and that the Indian government is making continuous efforts to prevent and counter-trafficking in persons.
Delivering India’s statement at a high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the appraisal of the UN Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons, MoS Mishra said, “India recognizes that human trafficking is a serious crime and accords high priority to combating trafficking. The Government of India is making continuous and concerted efforts to prevent and counter-trafficking in persons.”
He said that India’s anti-trafficking legislative framework is based on the bedrock of Article 23 of the Constitution of India. “With the amendment of our Criminal Law in 2013, trafficking has been defined comprehensively and provisions have been made for stringent punishment for traffickers.”
Explaining how the central government in India supports State Governments to strengthen the institutional mechanism to combat Human Trafficking, the minister said that a national level communication platform – Crime Multi-Agency Centre (Cri-MAC) has been launched by the Indian government to facilitate the dissemination of information about significant crimes, including human trafficking cases across the country.
“Apart from having ratified the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organised Crime and its protocols, India has signed the SAARC Convention on Prevention and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution and has also signed bilateral Memoranda of Understanding for Prevention of Human Trafficking with several countries,” MoS Mishra added.
