The Crucial Role of Women Police Officers in Trafficking Investigations and Rescues

Human trafficking is one of the most serious crimes India continues to grapple with. Behind every rescue operation, every FIR filed, and every case that eventually reaches court, there is a critical question that often goes unexamined: who is actually conducting these investigations and interacting with the victims? Indian law does not leave this to chance. The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 – the country’s principal anti-trafficking legislation – specifically mandates the involvement of women police officers in trafficking searches, rescues, and victim interrogations. This is not an optional best practice. It is a legal requirement. Understanding why this mandate exists, what it demands from law enforcement, and why it matters so much for the victims at the centre of these cases is essential for anyone studying anti-trafficking law in India.

The legal mandate under the ITPA 🔗

The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 is India’s cornerstone statute for preventing commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking. Originally enacted as the Suppression of Immoral Traffic in Women and Girls Act and later amended and renamed in 1986, the Act focuses on suppressing organised prostitution, trafficking networks, and exploitation rather than criminalising voluntary adult sex work.

The most directly relevant provision for the involvement of women police officers sits in Section 15(6-A) of the Act. This sub-section states that any search conducted under the Act shall be accompanied by at least two women police officers, and where any woman or girl removed is required to be interrogated it shall be done by a woman police officer. The statute adds a crucial fallback: if no woman police officer is available, the interrogation shall be done only in the presence of a lady member of a recognised welfare institution or organisation. This means the law never permits a situation where a female trafficking victim is searched, removed from a premises, or questioned without a female presence – whether that is a sworn officer or a member of a recognised welfare body.

Section 13(3)(a) further reinforces this approach at the staffing level. It provides that the special police officer of an area shall be assisted by such number of subordinate police officers (including women police officers wherever practicable) as the State Government may think fit. The phrase “wherever practicable” signals legislative intent: the inclusion of women officers is not an afterthought but a structural expectation built into how anti-trafficking units are organised.

Why women officers are essential in trafficking cases 🔗

Victim sensitivity and trust 🔗

Trafficking victims – particularly those exploited for commercial sexual purposes – carry deep psychological trauma. The victims of human trafficking face a range of aftereffects including emotional trauma and physical injuries due to assault, with psychological damage being among the most lasting consequences. For women who have experienced sexual exploitation, the prospect of being searched, questioned, or physically handled by male officers can be deeply re-traumatising. It can also trigger fear, silence, or outright refusal to cooperate – all of which undermine the investigation itself.

Research on women’s interactions with police in India confirms this pattern. When women are subjected to gender-based crimes, they are hesitant to contact the police for fear of retaliation, social stigma, inadequate conviction rates, and maltreatment by male police officers. The presence of women officers does not eliminate these barriers entirely, but it removes one of the most immediate ones: the discomfort and distrust that arise from male-dominated interactions at the point of contact.

Preventing secondary victimisation 🔗

Secondary victimisation – the re-traumatisation of a victim through the very processes meant to help them – is a widely recognised risk in trafficking and sexual exploitation cases. In March 2024, India’s Ministry of Home Affairs advised states to design trainings with the objective of providing relief to survivors and avoiding revictimisation; nonetheless, police sometimes failed to use victim-centred and trauma-informed approaches to trafficking cases. Women police officers, when properly trained, are better positioned to conduct searches and interrogations in ways that avoid this secondary harm. The law’s insistence on their presence is itself a structural safeguard against revictimisation.

Procedural legitimacy and evidentiary integrity 🔗

Beyond victim welfare, the presence of women officers has direct legal consequences for the case. If a search or interrogation is conducted in violation of Section 15(6-A), the entire proceeding can be challenged on procedural grounds. Evidence gathered during an unlawful search may be excluded in court, weakening or collapsing the prosecution. Raids are often carried out in breach of statutory procedure for public witness and female police requirements – and when this happens, the cases built on those raids are vulnerable. Compliance with the women officer mandate is therefore not just a matter of sensitivity; it is essential for building prosecutable cases.

What the SOPs say about rescue teams 🔗

India’s Standard Operating Procedures on investigating trafficking crimes, developed in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), translate the statutory requirements into operational guidelines. The rescue team should have two women officials of any rank as part of its composition. The SOPs also make clear that investigators should not be judgmental or biased toward victims, and that pressure must not be put on a victim to narrate details of sexual trauma at the FIR stage. These guidelines exist because the first hours after a rescue are critical – both for the victim’s mental state and for the integrity of the evidence trail.

The SOPs also acknowledge a practical reality: since trafficking in persons is usually an “underground” crime, law enforcement personnel may find it difficult to readily identify a trafficked victim and/or a trafficking scenario. Women officers who are trained in victim identification are better equipped to recognise the signs of coercion, fear, and exploitation during initial contact – signs that male officers without specific sensitisation training may miss or misinterpret.

Women help desks and anti-trafficking units 🔗

The legal mandate for women officers does not exist in isolation. It is part of a broader institutional framework designed to make anti-trafficking policing gender-responsive. State and union territory law enforcement agencies operated “women help desks” for victims of crime, including trafficking, in local police stations across the country. These desks, staffed by police and in coordination with lawyers, psychologists, and NGOs, facilitated legal aid, counselling, shelter, rehabilitation, and other related services for victims of crime, including human trafficking.

The Government of India has provided financial assistance to the States for setting up Anti-Human Trafficking Units at district level , and a significant portion of this funding has come through the Nirbhaya Fund. These units are meant to bring specialised, sustained focus to trafficking cases – but their effectiveness depends on having officers who understand the sensitivities involved. The inclusion of women officers in these units is not incidental; it is integral to making them functional for the majority of trafficking victims they will encounter.

The gap between law and practice 🔗

Despite the clear legal requirements, enforcement on the ground remains uneven. The U.S. State Department’s 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report noted that officials did not consistently use all relevant legal provisions in human trafficking cases, possessed a limited understanding of the human trafficking legal framework, and lacked adequate training, all of which hindered trafficking prosecutions and convictions. Training gaps and understaffing mean that in many districts, the mandate for women officers is either not followed or followed only partially.

A documented example of this failure comes from a PBS report on a rescue operation in India, where an NGO team coordinated with police to conduct a raid on a suspected trafficking site. The team was asked to wait because the female officers who were to accompany them had been delayed. When the women still hadn’t arrived two hours later, the raid proceeded anyway – and the female police officers finally did arrive, too late to have any effective role in the attempted rescue. This single incident captures the broader problem: the law requires women officers, but logistical failures, delayed deployment, and institutional inertia can render that requirement meaningless in practice.

Training as the missing link 🔗

Having women officers present is necessary, but it is not sufficient on its own. Those officers must also be trained to handle trafficking cases with the appropriate sensitivity, legal knowledge, and investigative skill. The Central Academy for Police Training provided human trafficking-related training to instructors at state police institutes, and police and judicial academies included trafficking in their curricula. Some states have gone further, partnering with civil society organisations to build this capacity at the grassroots level.

Gender sensitisation training for all officers involved in trafficking cases – not just women – remains critical. Training introduced concepts related to human trafficking, laws and procedures under the Indian Penal Code and the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, community policing, and different investigating techniques, as well as post-rescue care including health care, psycho-social counselling, and mental health intervention. Without this kind of comprehensive, victim-centred training, the presence of women officers risks becoming a procedural checkbox rather than a genuine safeguard for victims.

Why this matters beyond compliance 🔗

The mandate for women police officers in trafficking investigations is ultimately about more than legal compliance. It reflects a fundamental principle: that the criminal justice system’s response to trafficking must centre the dignity and wellbeing of the victim, not just the mechanics of building a case. Seeing women in charge of police stations and investigating potential crimes that most affect women reinforces positive attitudinal shifts toward women in society at large. In a country where trafficking disproportionately affects women and girls, embedding women officers at every stage of the investigative and rescue process is not just good policy – it is a structural commitment to treating victims as human beings rather than as evidence in a file.

India’s legal framework on this point is clear. The challenge now lies in closing the gap between what the law demands and what actually happens on the ground – through consistent deployment, robust training, and institutional accountability.

What do you think? Given that the law already mandates women police officers in trafficking searches and interrogations, what systemic changes – beyond training – would be most effective in ensuring this requirement is followed consistently across all Indian states? And does the presence of women officers alone address the deeper trust deficit that trafficking victims often feel toward the police?

References

1. https://www.indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/15100/1/immoral_traffic_prevention_act_(itpa)_1956.pdf
2. https://www.unodc.org/southasia/frontpage/2010/January/community-policing.html
3. https://www.mha.gov.in/en/divisionofmha/Women_Safety_Division/anti-trafficking-cell
4. https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-trafficking-in-persons-report/india/
5. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/police-inaction-hampers-human-trafficking-crackdown-india