According to the latest report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the conviction rate in human trafficking cases across the country is consistently low. While police filed charge sheets in 84.7 percent of the 2,189 cases registered under Anti-Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) across the country in 2021, convictions resulted in only 16 percent of the cases.
While conviction figures were not available for 11 states, eight states and three union territories did not have any convictions. The top performer was Jharkhand, which saw the conviction in 84.2 percent of the 92 cases registered in 2021.
In 2020, police filed charge sheets in 85.2 percent of the 1,714 trafficking cases registered, but convicted in only 10.6 percent of the total cases. Seven states reported no convictions, while two reported conviction rates of less than 2 percent.
In 2019, a total of 2,260 human trafficking cases were registered, of which police filed charge sheets in 83.7 percent, while convictions were made in 22 percent. Four states did not report convictions at all.
The states and union territories that reported zero convictions in 2021 are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Goa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, Telangana, Delhi, Chandigarh, and Jammu and Kashmir. Of these, the police filed the final charge sheet in more than 90 percent of the cases in Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and Telangana; Goa and Haryana account for more than 80 percent of the cases.
Telangana (347 cases), Maharashtra (320 cases), and Assam (203 cases) reported the maximum number of trafficking cases.
In the last three years, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana have reported the highest number of human trafficking cases, followed by Assam, Jharkhand, Kerala, Odisha, and Rajasthan. Barring Telangana, all states saw a decline in cases in 2020, the first year of the pandemic that saw a lockdown.
