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14. In 2016, in her thematic report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, documented illegal adoptions and concluded that “adoptions resulting from crimes such as abduction and sale of and trafficking in children, fraud in the declaration of adaptability, falsification of official documents or coercion, and any illicit activity or practice, such as lack of proper consent by biological parents, improper financial gain by intermediaries and related corruption, constitute illegal adoptions and must be prohibited, criminalised and sanctioned as such”.3 The Report documents demand for children as a major enabling factor for the criminal networks to engage in large scale abduction and sale of children.

15. There is global recognition for the duality of the crime committed during the course of illegal adoption, namely, illegal adoption where the parent has participated in the commercial transaction of transferring custody of the child or cases where the parent does not have any financial gain but the adoption itself is illegal.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/34/55 (Dec. 22, 2016).

(a) The action involving recruitment and transportation;

(b) The means employed such as force, coercion, fraud or deception including abuse of power and bribes; and

(c) The preliminary purpose being of exploitation including prostitution, etc. Internationally, there is a working definition of child trafficking.

The working definition is clear because it incorporates the above three elements. In June 2001, India has adopted the PALERMO Protocol to evolve its working definition of child trafficking. The forms and purposes of child trafficking may be : -

(a) Begging;

(b) Organ trade;

(c) Drug peddling and smuggling.

Trafficking can be for sexual exploitation, i.e.

(a) Forced prostitution;

(b)Socially and religiously sanctified forms of prostitution;

(c) Sex tourism;

(d) Pornography.

Child trafficking can be to aid entertainment in sports : -

(a) Circus/dance troupes;

(b) Camel jockeying.