Impoverished Indian women sold into sex trafficking as children want better for their own daughters, but it’s often hard for them to see other paths forward, said a University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor who’s extensively studied the issue.

“Human trafficking is a tragedy, and when children and complex family dynamics are involved, the tragedies are compounded,” said Rochelle Dalla, professor of child, youth and family studies. Dalla was the speaker Wednesday for the spring Nebraska Lecture.

Dalla has spent her career studying family-facilitated child sex trafficking in India, though her research actually began in Omaha in 1998, when she partnered with the Salvation Army to conduct in-depth interviews with 43 women involved in the street-level sex economy. Thirty of those women reported being victims of sex trafficking.

It’s an international tragedy. It’s estimated that there are 49.5 million victims of human trafficking globally at any point in time, a figure that includes both sex trafficking and forced-labor trafficking.

In 2010, Dalla’s interest in the issue took her to India, where the caste system, though officially outlawed, still operates and underpins a far-reaching commercial sex industry fed by both the kidnapping of girls and women and the selling of them into the life by family members.

India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development estimates about 3 million people are involved in the commercial sex industry, 40% of them minors. Many of them work in urban brothels.

Sex-trafficking victims in India occupy the lowest rung on India’s social hierarchy – the Dalits, a group of about 1,100 castes formerly known as “untouchables.” Many of them engage in the sex industry as their only means of income.

“Being born into a Dalit caste often comes with tremendous social, economic challenges – with barriers to education, resources and political power,” Dalla said.

“My first trip to India was in 2012, and my goal was simple enough. I wanted to understand HOW women and girls ended up working in India’s red-light brothel districts,” she said. With the assistance of a nongovernmental organization, Dalla conducted interviews with 30 women working in two infamous red-light brothel districts in Mumbai.

“This trip was pivotal in my understanding of sex trafficking in India. First, none of the participants had been kidnapped by strangers, and only one was there intergenerationally—her mother and grandmother had also worked there, and she did not know how her grandmother got there.”

Most were sold to the brothels by family members or a third party assisted by a family member.

Not all trafficking is the same. For example, some stems from an ancient Indian tradition known as Devadasi, in which one young girl in a family would be dedicated to a deity for life. Her work would include dance and other performances, domestic chores but also sex with older men, considered a “religious duty.” Though officially outlawed in 1988, the practice still continues today. These girls send their earnings home to their villages.

Other castes are equally entrenched in the CSI – but without religious or spiritual associations. For example, the Bedia caste offers females two life options: Marry and perform all family labor or enter the commercial sex industry, prohibited from marrying, with the families entirely financially dependent on their sex work.

There are differences between the commercial sex industry in urban and rural areas, with the former centered on organized brothels and the latter in family homes. The rural-based sex industry is conducted with little violence or police harassment, and its victims tend to experience little shame or stigma.

Also, Dalla hypothesizes that females trafficked into sex because of their caste association might have higher psycho-social well-being than those trafficked by family without any caste-based association. However, she added, caste-associated females’ daughters are at “extremely high risk” of ending up in the same life. Non-caste-associated females involved in sex trafficking seem least at risk of seeing their daughters victimized.

Dalla said the research is emotionally charged. Sometimes, she finds herself crying with victims. But, she said, she often feels “awe and respect” for women desperately trying to keep their own daughters from falling into the life, too. Many of these women cannot see another way to support their families.

Lacking an outlet for publishing her work, Dalla created the Journal of Human Trafficking, published four times a year. Now in its tenth year, the journal covers medical and mental health, social work criminology, economics, tourism, law and policy aspects of human trafficking. The Nebraska Lectures: The Chancellor’s Distinguished Speaker Series are offered once a semester, sponsored by the Office of Research and Innovation, Office of the Chancellor and Research Council, in collaboration with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The lectures bring together the university community with the greater community in Lincoln and beyond to celebrate the intellectual life of the university and showcase faculty excellence

Child Youth and Family Studies