From Villages to Metro Homes: Placement Agencies and the Child Trafficking Nexus

Every year, July 30 is observed as the World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. But for thousands of children across India, this day passes unnoticed, just like their existence or even disappearance.

Trafficking is the third largest organized crime in the world, and India remains one of its busiest transit and destination hubs. Children, especially from marginalised and impoverished families, are routinely trafficked across state borders for labour, forced marriage, prostitution, and exploitation in brothels. Each of these industries thrives on vulnerability, preying on families for whom every additional child is one more mouth they struggle to feed.

Another silent but widespread form of trafficking is the placement of minor girls and boys as domestic workers in urban homes. Behind this lies a booming network of placement agencies, some registered, most illegal, that act as the middlemen in a thriving source-to-destination racket. These children are promised a better future. What they find instead is abuse, invisibility, and stolen childhoods.

Where Do These Children Come From and Where do They Go?

The tribal belts of Assam, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, and Odisha have long been trafficking hotspots. These are regions where poverty, lack of education, and limited awareness leave families especially vulnerable. In such places, traffickers find easy prey. A promise of a better life, the lure of a steady trickle of a few thousand rupees, or even just a hundred rupees a month is often enough to convince parents to let their children go. Many are told their sons and daughters will work in clean, safe homes in the big cities, that they will be looked after, earn money, and even go to school. But that illusion quickly shatters. What follows is harsh labour, abuse, and a childhood lost in silence.

Association For Voluntary Action, a partner of Just Rights for Children, has been working with law enforcement agencies to rescue children from such situations. AVA even has an MoU with the Railway Protection Force for the last three years to rescue children who are often trafficked through the railway route.

“During the rescue of these children and further investigation of these placement agencies, we found that all of these so-called agencies were unregistered, operating illegally out of homes and flats. During raids, no documentation of legal status or registration was ever found. Yet they flourished in plain sight, sustained by a steady supply of trafficked girls and a rising demand from households that prefer children who are too young to know their rights, too afraid to speak up, and too isolated to escape,” says Manish Sharma, Senior Director, Association for Voluntary Action throwing further light on the deeply embedded connection between child trafficking and placement agencies.

Notably, Just Rights for Children, of which AVA is a partner, works with over 250 NGO partners in 418 districts across the country for child rights and child protection.

Why Delhi-NCR Mushrooming Such Placement Agencies

What makes Delhi-NCR a fertile ground for such crimes is the silent demand for cheap, docile labour. Employers often ask for younger girls. They believe children are easier to control, won’t complain, and are available at lower costs, say the experts in the child protection field. It’s this demand that sustains a deeply exploitative nexus between traffickers, placement agencies, and employers, and this nexus remains unchecked in the absence of accountability and legal reform.

Accurate data on how many placement agencies operate in Delhi-NCR remains elusive. But media reports suggest that while there are over 10,000 illegal and unregistered firms are thriving with impunity, only around 1,650 placement agencies were registered till 2017. This despite the executive order passed by the Delhi High Court in 2014, which mandated the registration of private placement agencies providing domestic helps in the Capital.

What Needs to Change Urgently

Even as India has laws against trafficking, the country needs a comprehensive anti-trafficking law, demands activists.

“India still lacks a comprehensive anti-trafficking law. The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill has yet to be passed. Without it, traffickers continue to slip through the cracks, and survivors rarely receive the long-term rehabilitation they deserve. Rescuing alone is not enough. Rescuing is the first step but unless our laws are such that the conviction of the culprits become a rule instead of an exception, this heinous crime against children will continue to thrive,” says Manish Sharma.