Corporate Influence and the Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Combating Trafficking in Persons—The India Story

Trafficking in persons (TIP) has become ‘an issue without borders’, where worldwide, 24.9 million people are prey to this act of human rights violation. India has been combatting this issue as a source, transit and destination country for both sex-based and non-sex-based exploitation. This is because, India, despite much development in the socio-economic sector in recent times, remains an emerging nation with dismal social indicators and porous international borders that nurtures unsafe migration. To make matters worse, the COVID-19 pandemic has further increased the vulnerability of certain sections of the people to trafficking. While the government has taken certain steps to tackle the issue of trafficking in persons, but the business sector, has remained oblivious to such pressing social matters. However, only recently, the Companies Act, 2013 was passed and the new statute incorporated Section 135 and Schedule VII within its purview that deals with mandated Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for certain large, stable companies. Section 135 lays down the requirement of the law for conducting CSR and Section VII lays down a list of broad areas in which the CSR resources need to be spent. Interestingly, much of the Schedule VII corresponds to the 17 broader goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as laid down by the United Nations in the year 2015, that became effective from 2016. This paper aims to document some of the causes of trafficking in persons in India as well as map the various ways in which the corporate sector can do its part in combatting such a social problem through its CSR interventions.