Tradition and Culture: Subtle Enablers of Human Trafficking

Some of the most insidious enablers of human trafficking don’t look like crime. They look like ritual. They look like religion. They look like something a community has practiced for generations – and accepted without question. Across India, certain deeply rooted traditional and cultural practices have quietly created the conditions under which women and girls are systematically funnelled into sexual exploitation and trafficking. These are not fringe beliefs. They are institutionalised, often religiously sanctioned systems that persist despite being outlawed – and understanding them is critical to dismantling the networks that profit from them.

How culture becomes a trafficking mechanism 🔗

Culture shapes identity, community, and belonging. But certain cultural practices cross a line – they don’t just reflect tradition; they actively enable exploitation. Research published in the International Journal for Equity in Health identifies India as one of the Asian countries where trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation has reached alarming levels, with an estimated 2.8 million persons trafficked for this purpose within the country. What makes this problem particularly difficult to address is that many trafficking pathways are not recognised as exploitation by the communities involved. When a practice carries the weight of religious authority and generational repetition, it becomes almost impossible for victims to identify – or resist – what is being done to them.

The devadasi system: Religiously sanctioned exploitation 🔗

The devadasi system is perhaps the most documented example of how tradition directly feeds into trafficking. The Journal of International Women’s Studies describes it as a practice in which girls as young as four or five are ritually “married” or “dedicated” to a Hindu goddess in a temple ceremony. The term devadasi itself comes from Sanskrit – it literally translates to “female servant of God.”

Historically, devadasis were considered revered temple attendants who performed ritual dances and maintained sacred traditions. That historical reality, however, has fundamentally shifted. The Oxford Human Rights Hub explains that in its modern form, the system functions as follows: once a girl is dedicated, she is ritually forced to offer sexual services upon attaining puberty. Her virginity is often sold, and she receives little to no compensation. With age, devadasis are cast aside as undesirable and are left to survive through begging, manual labour, or trafficking.

Who is most affected? 🔗

The Oxford Human Rights Hub notes that devadasis are overwhelmingly drawn from Dalit communities – those excluded from the caste system and subjected to deep socio-economic marginalisation. Poverty-stricken Dalit families dedicate their daughters for a combination of reasons: to generate income, to avoid paying dowry, or because they believe it will earn divine favour or cure a family member’s illness. According to data compiled through SSRN research, the National Commission for Women recorded over 48,000 devadasis across India, with Andhra Pradesh alone accounting for more than 25,000 – many of them girls as young as 12.

The geographic spread 🔗

The practice is not confined to one region. Academic research in the Journal of International Women’s Studies places the system as largely concentrated in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Orissa. In northern Karnataka alone, thousands of girls are inducted into the system each year. Conservative estimates put the total number of devadasis in India at around 450,000, though the actual figure is likely higher given the practice’s covert nature and the absence of a comprehensive government survey in nearly two decades.

The Jogini and Basavi traditions: Variants of the same exploitation 🔗

The devadasi system does not stand alone. The U.S. State Department’s 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report confirms that Dalit women and girls are also exploited through the Jogini system, in which girls are ceremoniously married to a local temple deity but are in practice used as sex slaves by higher-caste community members. This practice persists in states like Karnataka and Telangana despite being legally banned.

In Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the Jogini system operates much like the devadasi system but under a slightly different cultural framework. A case study published in BMJ Case Reports documents a typical Jogini’s life: dedicated as a child, she begins being sexually exploited at puberty. She has no education, no legal awareness, and no autonomy. The same study found that Joginis are twice as likely to be HIV-positive compared to other exploited women in India, and their HIV-related mortality rate is ten times the national average for women.

The Basavi tradition, prevalent in the border regions of Karnataka and Maharashtra, functions similarly. Girls dedicated under this system – typically married to a male deity – enter the same cycle of normalised sexual exploitation. Research indicates that the system goes by different regional names – Maharis in Kerala, Natis in Assam, Murlis in Maharashtra, and Thevardiyar in Tamil Nadu – but the structure and consequences are consistent across all of them.

Superstition and religious authority as enforcement tools 🔗

One of the reasons these systems persist is that they are sustained not just by poverty, but by fear. Hindu priests in certain communities actively reinforce the practice by playing on superstitions. Families are told that dedicating a daughter will bring divine rewards, cure illness, or prevent misfortune. Documented accounts show that some communities believe that having sex with a young dedicated girl can ward off diseases – a belief that directly fuels demand for the sexual exploitation of minors.

Village elders and temple authorities lend cultural legitimacy to the process. The dedication ceremony itself is often a public event – the girl is dressed as a bride, the community gathers, and the ritual is performed openly. This public endorsement makes it extraordinarily difficult for victims to challenge or escape the system, because doing so would mean opposing the collective authority of the community and its religious beliefs.

From dedication to trafficking: The pathway 🔗

The dedication ritual is rarely the end of the story. It is, in many cases, the beginning of a trafficking pathway. Research on commercial sexual exploitation in India documents that once women and girls are embedded in these systems, they are frequently trafficked to brothels in major urban centres. Cities like Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, and Delhi have been identified as key destinations. The transition from temple-based exploitation to commercial sex trafficking is well-documented, and traffickers often rely on the existing networks and power structures of these cultural practices to move victims.

The girls who are trafficked rarely have any realistic option to resist. They have no education, no financial independence, and no support system outside the community that exploited them. Their children – often unacknowledged by their biological fathers – grow up stigmatised, and girl children of devadasis and Joginis face the particular risk of being trafficked themselves or forcibly dedicated in their mother’s place.

Caste hierarchy: The structural backbone 🔗

These cultural practices do not exist in isolation. They are deeply intertwined with the caste system. The Oxford Human Rights Hub highlights that the devadasi system continues precisely because it gives upper-caste men control over the bodies and sexualities of Dalit women. It is a system that reinforces caste hierarchy while generating economic benefit for those at the top. Communities at the bottom of the caste ladder – already marginalised, landless, and impoverished – are the ones whose daughters are disproportionately drawn into these systems.

This intergenerational dimension is critical. Trafficking through traditional practices is not a one-time event for these communities. It repeats across generations, with each cycle deepening poverty, stigma, and vulnerability. As documented in peer-reviewed research, recruitment strategies in these contexts often involve approaching debt-bonded families and persuading them to surrender their daughters – sometimes to clear financial obligations, sometimes under the promise of a better life.

The legal gap between prohibition and reality 🔗

India’s legal framework does address these practices – at least on paper. Article 23 of the Indian Constitution explicitly prohibits human trafficking and forced labour. Various state-level laws – including the Karnataka Devadasis (Prohibition of Dedication) Act, the Andhra Pradesh Devadasis (Prohibition of Dedication) Act, and Maharashtra’s equivalent legislation – criminalise the act of dedicating girls. However, the Oxford Human Rights Hub points out that these laws are unevenly enforced. Only Karnataka has a statutory requirement for a rehabilitation programme for rescued devadasis – and even that programme suffers from low awareness and inadequate support.

A significant structural problem is that the Indian central government classifies the devadasi system as a matter of policing and public order – placing enforcement responsibility squarely on individual states. The result is no uniform national law, no consistent welfare policy, and no standardised rehabilitation framework. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department’s annual report on India continues to flag the persistence of the Jogini and devadasi systems as active trafficking mechanisms.

What meaningful change looks like 🔗

Eradicating tradition-enabled trafficking requires more than policing. It requires a simultaneous intervention across education, economics, and community engagement. The most effective interventions documented so far share common features: they do not attack cultural identity head-on, but they disrupt the exploitation within it.

Ensuring that vulnerable girls have access to quality education is the single most powerful protective factor. When girls are in school, they are not available for dedication, and they develop the awareness and agency to recognise and resist exploitation. Economic alternatives – including microfinance programmes, self-help groups, and skill development for women already in the system – address the poverty that makes families susceptible to dedicating their daughters in the first place. Community-level monitoring, led by sensitised local members, has proven effective in flagging and preventing planned dedications before they occur.

None of this is simple. These practices are sustained by centuries of religious belief, economic desperation, and caste-based power. But they are not unchangeable. As the BMJ case study documents, organisations working directly with former Joginis have helped women access their legal entitlements – including pensions and housing – while simultaneously advocating for systemic policy change. That combination of individual empowerment and structural reform is where real progress begins.

What do you think? If cultural practices carry deep religious significance for a community, how do we balance the need to preserve cultural identity with the imperative to end exploitation rooted in those same traditions? And given that enforcement responsibility currently falls unevenly on individual states, what would a truly effective national-level response to tradition-enabled trafficking look like in India?

References

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2569945/
2. https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol24/iss1/8/
3. https://ohrh.law.ox.ac.uk/tackling-indias-devadasi-system-a-matter-of-policing-and-public-order/
4. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4887242
5. https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-trafficking-in-persons-report/india/
6. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4112301/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_trafficking_in_India