In other cases, children are tricked into the hands of traffickers by being presented an opportunity for a job, when in reality, upon arrival they become enslaved.
[3] There are many different causes that lead to child trafficking, with the primary reasons being poverty, weak law enforcement, and a lack of good quality public education.
[5] The unemployment rate in India is considerably low with the United Nations Development Programme estimating it to be at 3.5%.
[8] The lack of educational opportunities is exploited by traffickers who often sell parents and children alike on the promise of steady, high paying jobs to lure them away from their homes.
[8] In addition to institutional challenges in India, traditional religious and cultural practices also pose a threat to vulnerable children.
Often children are told that they will be offered excellent wages to work as a domestic helper in middle-class homes, but they usually end up being severely underpaid, abused, and sometimes sexually assaulted.
[10] This particular type of trafficking is hard to detect because it takes place inside private homes where there is no public enforcement.
Every year hundreds of thousands of girls are trafficked from rural India to work as domestic helpers in the urban areas.
Children are also forced to work as bonded labourers in brick and stone quarries to pay off family debts owed to moneylenders and employers.
Not only are these children being forced to beg for money, but a significant number of those on the streets have had limbs forcibly amputated, or even acid poured into their eyes to blind them by gang masters.
The Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE) of women and children generates approximately 400 million US Dollars annually in the city of Mumbai alone.
[18] Although it is hard to find accurate numbers for exactly how many children are trafficked, studies and surveys sponsored by the Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) estimates that there are about three million prostitutes in the country, of which an estimated 40 percent are children, as there is a growing demand for very young girls to be inducted into prostitution on account of customer preferences.
They found that India was fast becoming a source, transit point and destination for traffickers of women and children for sexual and non-sexual purposes.
It is difficult to find exact numbers on the issue of child trafficking due to the fact that it is illegal, so the process is very secretive.
State governments have also been noted to take action to address child trafficking by making an effort to implement schemes and laws at the state-level.
Any gaps in the implementation of schemes and laws are largely filled in by non-governmental organizations that work to address different aspects of this issue.
"[33] In India- Tamil Nadu is the only State constituted Anti- Child Trafficking Unit, which is an outcome Habeas corpus petition (HCP 881/2016) filed by Advocate Natarajan V, the Landmark Judgement has been Passed by Justice Nagamuthu and Justice Bharathidhasan of Madras High Court.
On the international stage, intergovernmental organisations, like the United Nations, have been introducing measures to address child trafficking since the early 1900s with varying degrees of success.
[36] Some of their more notable measures include the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the United Nations, and the adoption of the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children in 2000.
[38] The Government of India has also passed other acts and amended the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to address the challenge of child trafficking.
[43] Such a situation often pushes children to seek employment in informal sectors, such as the service and handicraft industries, which more often than not also require them to migrate to urban centres.
[43] Although there are no clear responses to this challenge yet, scholars have proposed certain possible solutions such as changing the education system to include skills training, creating employment opportunities for rural populations, and better training for law enforcement officials working to address child trafficking.