When Scholarship Shapes Justice: University of Hyderabad Scholars Featured in Landmark Supreme Court Judgment on Human Trafficking in India
The Supreme Court of India’s landmark judgment in Prajwala vs Union of India (29 May 2026) has opened a new chapter in India’s legal understanding of human trafficking, rehabilitation, dignity, and consent. In 2004, Prajwala, a Hyderabad-based anti-trafficking organisation co-founded by Sunitha Krishnan, filed Public Interest Litigation (PIL) No. 56/2004 seeking stronger legal protections, rehabilitation mechanisms, and institutional accountability for victims of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. The 297-page judgment, delivered by Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice R. Mahadevan, is being widely discussed for its emphasis on trafficked survivor dignity, constitutional rights, and the need to move beyond narrow “rescue” frameworks in addressing trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation. The judgment acknowledged/mentioned the Economic and Political Weekly (EPW) “Review of Women’s Studies” special issue (2016) on human trafficking, edited by renowned historian Geraldine Forbes, distinguished Professor emerita, State University of New York, Oswego, USA. The EPW special issue brought together critical feminist and sociological perspectives questioning simplistic binaries of “victimhood,” “rescue,” and “rehabilitation.” The special issue (
epw.in/journal/2016/44-45) include articles of Samita Sen (Impossible Immobility: Marriage, Migration and Trafficking in Bengal), Kimberly Walters (Humanitarian Trafficking: Violence of Rescue and (Mis)calculation of Rehabilitation), Paula Banerjee (Criminalising the Trafficked: Blaming the Victim), Ajailiu Niumai (Unspoken Voices of Trafficked Women and Children in Manipur), Barnali Das (Who Would Like to Live in This Cage?), and Baitali Ganguly (Next Time I Will Go to Dubai’: How Rescue and Rehabilitation Fails Women).
The special issue is an outcome of a panel that was presented at the Women’s World Congress held from 17 to 21 August 2014 at the University of Hyderabad. What makes this Supreme Court judgment more significant is the recognition of scholarly contributions made by researchers associated with the University. Among the academic works cited in the judgment are the writings of Dr. Barnali Das, an alumna of the University of Hyderabad, and Kimberly Walters. Walters argued that humanitarian interventions often construct trafficked women as passive victims in need of saving while ignoring their own survival strategies, aspirations, and voices. The Supreme Court’s observations resonate strongly with the concerns raised in the six articles including the editorial of the EPW special issue nearly a decade earlier. The special issue critically examined how anti-trafficking interventions sometimes reproduce institutional violence through forced rescue, confinement, surveillance, and inadequate rehabilitation practices, even in cross-border trafficking. By highlighting survivor voices and structural inequalities, the articles challenged dominant narratives that portrayed trafficked women merely as passive victims without agency.
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