In response to a parliamentary question, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) stated that the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which falls under the Ministry, does not maintain any specific data regarding the number of cyber trafficking cases. Cyber trafficking is a form of human trafficking but does not require the geographic dislocation of the victim. This definition gap causes confusion as to whether this specific crime falls under human trafficking or cyber crimes against women and children, both of which are covered by NCRB in its 2019 report as well as the 2017 report. According to the 2019 report, there were 2260 cases of human trafficking, 8379 cases of cybercrimes against woman, and 305 cases of cybercrimes against children. In its response, MHA also added that States/UTs are primarily responsible for dealing with crimes, including cyber trafficking, but outlined some initiatives that the Ministry is working on to prevent crimes against woman and children: The Ministry is implementing the Cyber Crime Prevention against Women & Children (CCPWC) scheme to deal directly with the various issues related to cybercrime against women and children MHA has also set up the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) to deal with cybercrimes in a coordinated manner. I4C is engaged in training police and judicial officers to better deal with cyber crimes through its online CyTrain portal, a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform. The government has also launched the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal, www.cybercrime.gov.in, which allows citizens to directly report crimes. The…
