India-centric Review of Disaster,Gender and Human Trafficking

Abstract

Disasters, gender and human trafficking, while viewed together, present a complex challenge that disproportionately affects the vulnerable and marginalised. Natural and man-made disasters create conditions that worsen socio-economic vulnerabilities and increase the risk of trafficking. While exogenous factors such as natural or man-made disasters do not discriminate based on gender, endogenous factors such as people’s vulnerability, arising from poor socio-economic conditions and cultural constructs, do inhibit the female gender more. This often places women and children at greater risk of crimes of human trafficking. Over 90% of those trafficked for sexual exploitation are women and girls. The study attempts to see this gender-linked trafficking dimension in various phases of disasters—whether before, during and after—with particular attention to gender-based vulnerabilities. Engaging a calibrated view of secondary data sets coupled with proxy indicators used in some countries in this region, this article attempts to provide insights into the indirect—if not unicausal or direct—impacting nexus between the triad, namely gender, disasters and human trafficking, influencing the probability of trafficking. Harnessing the documented experiences of both natural disasters and man-made disasters, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the article reiterates the criticality of the gender component in shaping and navigating the differential influence of such events on the gendered experiences as well as the engendering of resilience to overcome the negative impacts of disasters, including human trafficking. The emerging trend is increased online trafficking, including in disasters, adding to the existing complexity of making the three Ps—prevention, protection and prosecution—of women subjected to human trafficking even more challenging. However, the article positions the actor perspective of women, namely women’s critical negotiating role in the interplay of disaster and human trafficking to women’s and thereby society’s advantage. The hybrid approach to physical and virtual trafficking in mitigating the disaster-driven trafficking of women and girls is the central theme of this article. It argues for the prioritisation and embedding of anti-human trafficking initiatives into disaster relief efforts, both short and medium terms, for sustainable impact in the long term. Consequently, with women-centred community participation as an essential stakeholder in all phases of disasters, anti-human trafficking initiatives can be sown, nurtured and promoted, and its adverse gender impact, including trafficking, can be offset. This requires gender mainstreaming policies and programmes based on risk assessments within the overarching approach to disaster management.