Mental health, heart of India’s anti-trafficking response

India has made significant progress in identifying, rescuing, and supporting survivors of human trafficking. But the journey toward healing is long, deeply personal, and shaped by the systems around survivors — systems that remain ill-equipped to prioritise mental health.

Trafficking survivors consistently describe the experience of being handed vocational training forms or legal aid referrals while grappling with fear, confusion, shame, and numbness. This truth, often overlooked, lies at the heart of India’s rehabilitation gap.