India recorded 2,135 human trafficking cases in 2024, involving 6,018 victims — a 2.2% decline in case numbers from the previous year. Of those victims, 2,297 were children, and 3,721 were adults. Police rescued 5,839 victims and arrested 5,904 persons for trafficking offences over the year. These figures come from the National Crime Records Bureau’s Crime in India 2024 report, released under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

These are reported numbers. Trafficking researchers and international observers have long noted that documented cases understate actual prevalence, since much of the ecosystem operates through informal, undocumented, and difficult-to-monitor channels.

Where the Numbers Come From

State-level NCRB data shows how unevenly trafficking is distributed. Telangana recorded the highest number of cases in the country in 2024, at 423, followed by Maharashtra with 337 — a rise from 388 in 2023 and 295 in 2022. In Maharashtra, of 892 identified victims, 798 were women and girls, and sexual exploitation was the dominant driver. In the Northeast, Assam logged 108 cases, the region’s highest, with 155 victims including 96 children; Tripura, bordering Bangladesh, recorded 233 victims and rescued 812 people including 232 Bangladeshi nationals — underscoring the cross-border dimension of the trade in that corridor.

Academic research on the spatial patterns of trafficking in India has found that forced labour and sexual exploitation together account for the large majority of cases nationally, with distinct gendered patterns by state.

Why This Sits Inside the Corporate Supply Chain

Trafficking for forced labour intersects with sectors many companies already source from: construction, domestic work, textiles, and agriculture. ESG and supply chain due diligence frameworks increasingly require companies to examine forced labour exposure across these value chains — not as a hypothetical risk, but as a documented feature of how informal labour markets in India operate.

This is where CSR can do more than respond after the fact. Prevention-oriented programming includes:

• Community awareness campaigns in high-source districts. NCRB data has consistently flagged states like Jharkhand, West Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha as disproportionate sources of trafficking victims.
• Livelihood and skilling programmes that reduce the economic desperation traffickers exploit.
• Community-based monitoring networks that can flag early warning signs — recruitment agents making unusual promises, sudden unexplained migration of minors, and similar patterns.
• Safe migration support, including documentation assistance for workers moving into vulnerable sectors like domestic labour and construction.

The Legal Backdrop

Trafficking is criminalised under Sections 143 and 144 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, which replaced Sections 370 and 370A of the old Indian Penal Code. Section 143 criminalises recruiting, transporting, harbouring, transferring, or receiving a person for exploitation through coercion, abduction, fraud, or inducement, and carries a minimum sentence of seven years, extending up to life imprisonment for offences involving multiple victims. Section 144 addresses exploitation of trafficked persons, with the sexual exploitation of trafficked children carrying a minimum five-year sentence extendable to life. The Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 additionally classifies trafficking as a cognizable, non-bailable offence and mandates state-level victim compensation schemes.

The legal architecture is comprehensive. Enforcement is the harder part — a gap the government itself has acknowledged in parliamentary responses, and one that under-resourced prevention infrastructure at the community level does little to close.

Where CSR Budgets Fit

Under Schedule VII of the Companies Act, anti-trafficking prevention work fits squarely within Category (iii) — measures for gender equality, women’s empowerment, and reducing inequalities faced by socially and economically backward groups. It’s a legitimate, measurable, and currently underfunded programme area relative to its scale.

For CSR and compliance teams evaluating where to direct gender-focused CSR spend this year, prevention-stage trafficking programming — awareness, livelihoods, and safe migration support in source districts — offers a concrete, trackable intervention point that most companies’ existing CSR portfolios don’t yet cover.