A Review of Health Risks and Medico-Legal Issues Related to Human Trafficking

Human beings are trafficked within the country or across international borders mainly for the purpose of bodily exploitation or slavery. The victims of trafficking remain vulnerable to various adverse situations such as involvement in sex industry, employment in hazardous employment, unhygienic living conditions, and poor nutrition affecting not only to their physical health in form of disease or injuries, but also the mental health. Poor access to health care facilities also adds to their tragic condition. Many countries have constitutional and legal provisions to deal with the issues of trafficking, therefore whenever the victims of trafficking are rescued they are subjected to medical examination for protection of health, management of disease or injuries, documentation, collection of biological or trace evidences of legal importance and also provided with psychiatric support and access to agencies involved in rehabilitation of such victims. In this article we present a review of health risk and medico-legal issues related to human trafficking along with magnitude of problem and various legislative and constitutional provisions in India.