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Why can't I decide how law punishes my trafficker?

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Uma Chatterjee
Uma ChatterjeeAug 24, 2016 | 20:19

Why can't I decide how law punishes my trafficker?

Whenever I have asked victims of sex-trafficking about the punishment their assaulters deserve, and why they want their perpetrators to be punished, very emphatically, they have always come up with two reasons: (1) to make the person suffer or to get the person to take seriously his/her crime and truly understand and realise that what s/he did was wrong (2) to deter the person from repeating the offence and/or to deter others from committing the offence.

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After they go through counselling, sometimes psychiatric care and therapeutic sessions, they also add emotionally:

As a victim of a crime, I feel the choice of punishment should also depend on me, not only the law, the trial. I face the person who raped me, sold me for money and left me almost dead, and then I realise there is absolutely no remorse. Not only at the time of the final trial, but at each court hearing, in the village chowk, at a mela, in my neighbourhood or even in my house... I have been there, standing up to fight to ensure a reasonable/just outcome among all the delays, the corruption; where lawyers somehow get the traffickers close to nil sentences and I am left to deal with the aftermath. And you realise there really was no justice, it was all in vain.

I have been the victim of a crime where what is taken from me cannot be repaid - violence, rape, beating, irreplaceable loss of dignity, defamation of character, et al - it seems that something else must be paid besides money; the guilty should, by some other means, try to make up in some way for what was lost, what I lost forever... But what is that, I don't know?

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Trafficked victims are often punished more than the traffickers who victimised them. Picture for representation. Picture for representation.

Psychological studies and research have shown that traumatic experiences like sexual violence and rape - integral parts of trafficking - are often encoded in fragmented ways in the brain - the victims cannot recall their assault in a clear, linear manner, often focusing on minutiae (such as the perpetrator's smell) that may seem insignificant to law enforcement. This can lead to discrepancies in victims' stories, as they are not able to recall everything perfectly, causing officers to be suspicious about their entire report. Based on these "imperfect reportings", the trafficker wins and the victim loses.

The dialogue of the law enforcement with the victim starts, many a times, with questions like:

"What if you are lying?"

"Didn't you elope with your lover? So now why are you crying?" "It seems clear that you were driven by greed, not any real need… So now why this reporting?"

"Who can give evidence or witness to what you are saying? I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened. Why should I believe you?"

Right now, the one factor that keeps victims silent is the fear that they won't be trusted, that they will be blamed. Virtually every victim of sexual violence and exploitation fears that no one will believe them. Traffickers tell their victims that they won't be trusted because "the victim chose to come away with him/her". If we don't punish the trafficker, WE make their threats come true.

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When you believe the accused and not the victim, you are reinforcing their (perpetrator's) belief that they can behave badly, practise covert abuse and exploitation or sexual assault and rape and human trafficking. You are renewing their social licence to commit atrocities and endorsing that they are free to do with women what they please. We give them a silent yet palpable permission to continue to misuse, mistreat and molest their human counterparts.

When traffickers go unpunished, the clear message to victims is:

1. That, we don't trust your intellect, judgment or basic intelligence.

2. That, if you aren't reporting in a very clear-cut, easy-to-digest and otherwise understandable manner, you weren't violated at all.

3. That our truth is more important than yours.

4. When we don't believe trafficked victims, we create more of them. When we don't punish traffickers, we create more of them.

5. "This wouldn't have happened to you if you hadn't been there, or been willing to go." Dismissive, fault-finding, victim-blaming.

These words have an impact. I have watched girls and young women in West Bengal committing/trying to commit suicide and living with the toll of extreme stigma and shame. Women are literally dying from blame and shame. And as Gender rights activist Gloria Steinem says, "...the 'honour' of some men, families, and cultures is written on the body of a female."

So, as of now, trafficked victims are often punished more than the traffickers who victimised them. These stories go on and on: strangers judge and blame; family members refuse to believe survivors; survivors blame themselves. There is both external stigma and the heavy burden of self-blame along with the system's apathy. And this leaves the victims to deal with the direct impact of powerlessness, a sense of systemic betrayal by the powerful state and internally squashed self-esteem.

Through trafficking, a power inequality has been established by the perpetrator's action against the victim's will - the power of the trafficker to cheat, lure, sell, coerce, exploit. Punishment and reparation is intended to re-equilibrate power. The lack of it once again reiterates powerlessness and hopelessness in the victim.

Second, unpunished crime and the impunity of traffickers also tells the victim that the perpetrator somehow profits from his wrongdoing and emerges stronger than the victim. The victim then fails to understand how she should re-equilibrate the gains and losses caused by the violence and fraud.

Third, punishment for the trafficker and restorative justice are intended to restore the victim's self-esteem, which may have been shattered by the victimisation. Through the disclosure of crime and its reporting, there is some escape from psychological pain and one can present oneself as a strong person who does not tolerate unjust treatment by others. But if the system is somehow not able to serve justice on time and aimed at harm repair, then the survivor's self-esteem is forever trodden. The victim is blamed and effectively silenced.

Many of my lawyer friends say "Innocent until proven guilty is a critical foundation of our legal system and hence law takes time and is cautious. What if an innocent gets punished wrongfully?" I agree.

"But does it have to be the starting point for a successful/ dedicated investigation?" I ask.

What if our public leaders, the police, lawyers and judges trusted survivors more often than not, I ask?

And what if the millions of trafficked survivors stand together and say "I was trafficked, sold and raped"? Would victim blaming and shaming by individuals and the system finally come to an end?

Last updated: August 24, 2016 | 20:19
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