Vulnerability of Refugee Children to Human Trafficking in the Context of India

Abstract

India hosts a diverse set of refugee and asylum-seeking communities, but continues to govern refugees through a fragmented, largely ad hoc architecture: it is not party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol, and it lacks a dedicated national refugee law. This paper examines how that legal and administrative gap interacts with socio-economic precarity to heighten the risk of trafficking of refugee children for labour and sexual exploitation. Drawing on doctrinal analysis of international child-rights and anti-trafficking norms, Indian constitutional protections, and key domestic statutes, it maps the pathways through which documentation deficits, barriers to schooling, language exclusion, family separation, and informal labour markets compound vulnerability. It then identifies points where India’s existing child-protection and criminal-law frameworks can be leveraged more effectively, while also outlining reforms needed to close protection gaps. The paper concludes with recommendations for a rights-based refugee framework, child-sensitive identification and guardianship procedures, strengthened access to education and legal aid, and improved data collection and coordination between state authorities and humanitarian actors.