Campaign Against Child Trafficking (CACT), an umbrella organization of various groups working on the issue of child rights protested against the Karnataka government's lack of focus to stem trafficking in women and children. They say that an action was created two years ago, but that document has not been approved by the Cabinet because it does not see political value in enacting the law.

Despite many news reports regarding sexual exploitation of children and India being used as a base to trade in children, there is no special law that limits or criminalizes this activity. Currently, the authorities take action only if the trafficking cases are sexual in nature and do not handle issues such as using children for labor, begging, drug peddling, human organs, gun running, or terrorism. Even existing laws are not applied because of administrative apathy and lack of resources though when children are rescued from abusive shelters, they generate a lot of press coverage leading people to believe that the authorities are breathing down hard on such crimes. When children are rescued, they are not properly rehabilitated and hence return to older forms of living such as begging or into flesh trade. Those working to liberate these children are targeted by the powerful mafias that are often well connected politically or with senior bureaucrats.

CACT is demanding that new laws that criminalizes trafficking and can effectively stem such trade. The organization says that over 44,000 children are reported missing in India annually and only 22% of them are eventually traced. However, the number is probably several times more since an over-worked police tend to take lightly cases of missing children and local panchayats do not have any data on numbers or location of children.

Despite a recent law, over 100 million children in India (or nearly a third of the country's child population) are still being used for labor and are not free because of a lack of rehabilitation or process for elimination of this practice.