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Proposed Anti Trafficking Law 2018 based on foundation of deceit: Pravin Patkar

He also strongly rubbished claims that the Bill “creates a Rehabilitation Fund for the victims,” and asked “How were the earlier rehabilitation programmes or existing rehabilitation programmes run if not with funds?”

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The furor over the hush-hush manner in which the Bill of the proposed Anti Trafficking Law 2018, introduced in the monsoon session of Parliament that began on Wednesday, July 18 refuses to abate. One of the country's leading anti trafficking expert Dr Pravin Patkar who runs Prerana, an organisation which has worked in this field for several decades said the current Bill is based “on a foundation of deceit.” on which the is being promoted

He scoffed at claims that the Bill makes “rehabilitation a constitutional right of the victim” and pointed out: “There is no line or section that ‘makes’ rehabilitation as a constitutional right of the victim. Even if it had stated so a law is a law and is lower in status to the Constitution of India and hence cannot declare on behalf of the constitution unless the Constitution has already stated it unambiguously.” He further emphasised: “In our knowledge, the Constitution of India has not been recently amended to newly declared rehabilitation as the right of the victim. So why is this claim being made about the Bill?”

He also wondered why the Ministry of Women & Child Development was saying the Bill addresses “all forms of trafficking.” According to him: “The Bill is silent on trafficking in supply chain which is a major type of labour trafficking and labour exploitation, trafficking for commercial surrogacy, trafficking for illegal clinical trials, trafficking for mail bride/ contract marriages. Provisions against these forms have been in demand for two decades, however, the Bill fails to address them.”

He also strongly rubbished claims that the Bill “creates a Rehabilitation Fund for the victims,” and asked “How were the earlier rehabilitation programmes or existing rehabilitation programmes run if not with funds?”

According to him the Bill wrongly puts claim on the compensation money rightfully due to a victim under Sec 357-A CrPC and the state level schemes made in the last five years and gives it away to the bureaucracy. “The people who worked on the Bill do not seem to have any understanding of ‘rehabilitation’ as different from prevention, protection and prosecution - a distinction that even a beginner in the anti-trafficking field understands. It makes provision to use the rehabilitation fund for prevention protection and prosecution (Sec 30-5).”

He also called the claims made in the Bill of provisions for “punishment for omission of duty by the duty bearers of the state” laughable. “This is false publicity by the promoters of the Bill who claim it provides for punishment to the officers of the state if they fail in their duty. It gives a false impression that the police will be out cracking crime, arresting offenders and rescuing victims failing which they will be punished.”

It must be pointed out that Sec 38 of the AHT Bill 2018 says: “Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, whoever knowingly or having reason to believe that a person has been trafficked, fails to perform a duty, which he is entrusted under this Act for providing care, protection and rehabilitation to a victim or performs duty but knowingly causes physical or mental injury or hardship or trauma to the victim shall be punished with fine which shall not be less than fifty thousand rupees and in the event of a second or subsequent offence with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year and with fine which shall not be less than one lakh rupees.”

Dr Patkar points out: “Anyone who reads the section should try to locate where the proposed provision states that the officers of the state will be held responsible for omission of their duty. On the contrary it skips talking about the key duties performed by the duty bearers of the state and focuses on care giving and rehabilitation which in fact are duties performed by the service providers belonging to the civil society sector.”

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