Draft plan to check human trafficking, August 5, South Asia

Overview of Combating Violence Against Women in India:
http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN020004.pdf

US Also focuses on protection and prosecution: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/fpht05.htm

http://www.hindu.com/2007/08/05/stories/2007080554761200.htm

Draft plan to check human trafficking

Special Correspondent

Focus on protection, prosecution

NEW DELHI: The National Commission for Women (NCW) will spell out a draft integrated plan of action to prevent and combat trafficking in women and children that will call for the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries to come together to deal with the issue.

Briefing reporters at the end of a two-day national consultation on preventing and combating human trafficking with special focus on children and women here over the weekend, NCW chairperson Girija Vyas said the plan of action would focus on prevention, protection, prosecution and providing necessary help to the victims.

She said the participants felt that prevention strategies should be based on existent ground realities and every State should draw up an action plan after mapping the vulnerable areas ‘at risk.’ Involvement of the corporate sector in prevention and rehabilitation and sensitisation of the community are some other salient features of the action plan, the draft of which would be submitted to the Union Women and Child Development Ministry by the month end before the Union Cabinet’s approval is sought.

Ms. Vyas said the draft plan would suggest involving Ministries such as the Panchayati Raj, Health and Family Welfare, Labour, Tourism, Railways, Road Transport, Education, Defence and even the External Affairs to prevent trafficking and ensure rehabilitation of those rescued since the issue had international manifestations. She suggested the setting up of short-term stay home facilities on the international borders from where trafficking was carried out.

Protocols for repatriation

Stressing the need for identifying institutions that would provide safe custody to the victims, the plan of action would also suggest developing procedures, mechanisms and protocols for repatriation with the neighbouring countries, and sensitisation of the law enforcement agencies and the judiciary.

India to strengthen human trafficking laws: Patil, August 3, India

http://www.newkerala.com/july.php?action=fullnews&id=51387

India to strengthen human trafficking laws: Patil

New Delhi, Aug.3 : Home Minister Shivraj Patil on Friday said that the human trafficking problem in country is no bigger than it is in other nations, and added that the government is seriously thinking about tackling the problem by giving more teeth to existing laws.

Admitting that the issue did exist in India, Patil said the problem required thoughtful tackling.

'Yes, there is a problem of this kind in India. There is no denying (this fact). But to think that it is bigger than what it is in other countries is not correct. If you take into consideration the number of human beings in India and compare with the cases that are taking place, even if one case is taking place that should not be acceptable. And yet if you look at this problem from a correct perspective, we will be able to form a correct opinion,' Patil said in his address at a National Consultation on Preventing and Combating Human Trafficking in New Delhi.

According to the US State Department, South Asia accounts for second highest number of victims of trafficking. India was among 32 countries on US' Watch List, 2006 of countries involved in human trafficking.

'We come across many difficulties, many problems, and that is why it becomes necessary for us to examine the existing laws and find out how the amendments have to be made and introduced in the existing statutes. This process should continue and the Government of India will definitely be able to tackle this issue in this manner,' he said.

Travel rackets thrives in India, mainly in the states of Punjab, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, where human smuggling has been described as an organized crime.

The travel agents thrives on the clamour of desperate Indians to go abroad for lifestyles they know can never afford in the villages and small towns back home.

Hundreds of thousands of women and girls in India are kidnapped, sold, coerced or trafficked for sex in a highly organised, yet illicit trade which is the world's third most lucrative after arms and drugs.

Almost 6,000 cases of trafficking were registered in 2005, but activists say the real number is much higher and on the rise.

According to the International Labour Organisation, 2.45 million people worldwide are exploited and treated like slaves every year, and another 1.2 million people are trafficked.

--- ANI

New Delhi An inside story of trafficking in women, August 2

Date:02/08/2007 URL:

http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/02/stories/2007080250520200.htm

New Delhi An inside story of trafficking in women

Smriti Kak Ramachandran

Unmasking reality: National Commission for Women chairperson Girija Vyas (second from right) releasing the book titled ‘Confronting the Demand for Sex-trafficking: A Handbook for law enforcement’ in New Delhi on Wednesday

NEW DELHI: Exploitation of women is not limited to their trafficking for commercial sex market. The criminal justice system, which arrests more women than men, is an equally harrowing experience, claims a book on sex trafficking released in the Capital on Wednesday.
Authors Ruchira Gupta and Ruchi Sinha, in a handbook titled ‘Confronting the Demand for Sex Trafficking: A Handbook for Law Enforcement’ point out that while victims of sex trafficking are put though the criminal justice system, the perpetrators are allowed to go scot-free.
Making a case for more gender-sensitive law enforcement, the authors point out how the existing laws can be used to fix legal responsibility on those who buy trafficked people.
The book also cites examples of countries like Sweden, the Philippines and South Korea, which have addressed the demand for sex trafficking as an effective anti-trafficking measure.
“Demand for trafficked people -- from end-users to those who make profit from the trade -- has become the most immediate cause for expansion of the trafficking industry,” said Ms. Gupta, who is also founder-director of Apne Aap Women Worldwide.

Ms. Gupta, who has co-authored the book with Ms. Sinha, an assistant professor at the Centre of Criminology and Justice Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, explained: “Providing services and instituting preventive mechanisms has provided protection to vulnerable people but not detracted the traffickers.”

Calling for increased vigilance and new laws to prevent traffickers from sourcing women and children from Nepal to Mumbai and Kolkata, she said: “They simply shifted areas of operation to Bihar, West Bengal, the hill States of the Northeast and Jharkhand in India because a demand for trafficked women and children continued to exist.”

The handbook claims that the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1956, which penalises women for soliciting in public places is used more frequently than the Section 5which penalises traffickers, highlighting that trafficking is not a victimless crime.

The book, which has contributions from several people and a foreword from UN Special Rapporteur for Human Trafficking Sigma Huda, claims that human trafficking is an organised and well-structured crime which is operated through a supply chain.

A panel discussion on the subject moderated by P. M. Nair(IPS)which included Girija Vyas, Chairperson of the National Commission for Women, and Gary Lewis, Representative Regional Office of South Asia United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, and the author Ms. Gupta
followed the book release.

Police told to see prostitutes as victims, New Delhi, August 1

http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-28771420070801?sp=true

Police told to see prostitutes as victims

By Nita Bhalla

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Police must treat prostitutes as victims rather than criminals and crack down instead on clients and human traffickers who force women and children to sell their bodies, activists said on Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of women and girls in India are kidnapped, sold, coerced or trafficked for sex in a highly organised, yet illicit trade which is the world's third most lucrative after arms and drugs.

But activists say that while the children and young women are often trapped in slave-like situations, unable to free themselves from their pimps and brothel owners, police treat them as criminals while the real perpetrators get away.

"Hundreds of thousands of victims are invisible and are kept in captivity and have no access to any justice system whatsoever," said Ruchira Gupta, director of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, a local charity working against human trafficking.

"On the other hand, the perpetrators of this crime -- the profiteers and buyers that constitute the demand for human trafficking -- are visible and work with impunity."
In India, trafficking and profiting by selling a person for sex is illegal, but paying for sex with a prostitute is not unless she is under 18-years-old.

Almost 6,000 cases of trafficking were registered in 2005, but activists say the real number is much higher and on the rise.

Activists say that women are easy targets for police to arrest and round up in brothel raids and on street corners and police rarely investigate or arrest brothel owners or pimps.
Experts, speaking at the launch of a handbook to help police better enforce human trafficking laws, said police needed to understand the issue better.

"The real problem is not the absence of a legal infrastructure, but the importance of those that are empowered to impose the law to know what to do," said Gary Lewis, South Asia representative of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.
According to the International Labour Organisation, 2.45 million people worldwide are exploited and treated like slaves every year, and another 1.2 million people are trafficked.
Lewis said that, according to some estimates, the global trade in human trafficking generated around $32 billion a year.

Placement agencies in trafficking case

20 Jul 2007, 0339 hrs IST , Abhinav Garg , TNN


NEW DELHI: Almost half a dozen placement agencies of south Delhi, responsible for supplying everything from a domestic help to a guard, are under the scanner of Delhi High Court for allegedly indulging in human trafficking.

The court was alerted to such a possibility through a petition which says these placement agencies lured 298 women and children to the Capital from West Bengal on the pretext of providing them job as domestic servants but instead forced them into ‘‘slavery and sex’’.

On Friday the Delhi Police and the placement agencies are likely to place before a division Bench of justice R S Sodhi and justice P K Bhasin, their response to the allegations levelled against them. The police has been blamed of complete inaction by the petitioners.

According to the petition filed by an NGO called Shramjivi Mahila Samiti, these 298 women and children from indigent families in rural West Bengal were shipped to Delhi by local agents at the prodding of various placement agencies in Saket, Malviya Nagar and Lado Sarai areas of the Capital.

The NGO through its counsel Colin Gonsalves claimed before HC that distraught relatives of these 298 missing persons were forced to approach the court for relief because they were unable to contact their kin, who had come to Delhi for household jobs as the placement agencies fobbed them off, even threatening them with dire consequences if they persisted with inquiries about these 298 people.

Relying on the testimony of one who managed to escape back to Bengal, the petition says this man apprised other villagers about the appalling conditions in which the untraceable children and women were kept with some doing unpaid labour, others being forced into sex and slavery.

He said the promised wages were never paid by the agencies which frequently rotated the servants from one household to another to avoid their being traced. The elation of those who managed to get paid through cheque was shortlived as these bounced soon after.

Even the police, the petition complains, was in collusion with the placement agencies which got wind of the fact that relatives from Bengal were coming to question them about the missing persons. ‘‘Police tipped off these agencies,’’ the counsel had informed HC on the last date of hearing.

In Plain Sight but Invisible

Shelley Seale

July 19, 2007
http://www.worldpress.org/Asia/2868.cfm



Indian street children play beside a parked hand rickshaw on a street in Kolkata. (Photo: Deshakalyan Chowdhury / AFP-Getty Images)

Sitting on my backpack in the Rourkela railway station at 10 p.m., I am waiting with a group of four other volunteers for our train. We hover around our amassed baggage, far more than the five of us need because many of the bags contain art supplies, games and treats for the children at the Miracle Foundation orphanage in Choudwar, India that we are on our way to spend a week with.

From nowhere it seems, two boys suddenly appear beside us. They look about seven or eight years old and are alone. Silently they hold out their hands, then bring them to their mouths, then hold them out again in the universal language of begging. I am acutely aware of the mountain of belongings surrounding the five of us ­ the suitcases containing toys and treats for other children, the plastic bags of food and drinks for the overnight train journey at my feet.

When brought face to face with such children ­ an all-too-common occurrence virtually everywhere in India ­ it becomes almost impossible to ignore them; to say no. A struggle invariably begins inside my soul and no matter how many times the situation occurs, that struggle never lessens and is never resolved. The truth of the matter is that giving money to these children will not have any significant impact on their lives beyond a few moments. It might even worsen their circumstances; many of these children turn the money directly over to parents or other adults who are either exploiting them or simply trying to stay a step above starvation.

Reinforcing the tactic of children begging as a successful strategy merely continues the cycle. Activists and non-governmental organization (NGO) workers will tell you over and over that if you really want to make a difference for children like this, or in fact anyone in desperate need, then supporting legitimate holistic programs that address the root issues and long-term solutions is the only way to make a lasting impact.

I agree with this. In my head, I know it is true. I donate thousands of dollars and volunteer hundreds of hours every year to NGOs that work with vulnerable children. It's the reason I'm in India in the first place, volunteering in an orphanage. But in my heart it is another story every time I'm approached, every time children like these boys look up at me with their haunted or, even worse, vacant eyes. It's so hard to look away, to wave them off, to pretend not to see them.

A few minutes later, the station alert sounds as our train approaches the platform. I grab my backpack and a team suitcase. But I can't help it. Just before we start down the platform to where our car will board, I pull several candy bars and two bottles of soda from a plastic bag and set them on the ground. We begin to walk away and I look toward the boys. Amazingly, they do not grab the snacks and run. They just stand there, not taking their eyes off us. I look at the candy, then at the boys, and nod my head. Hesitantly the older one questions me with his eyes and looks at the pile on the floor for the first time. I nod again and like a shot, the boys quickly snatch it up and dart off at a blazing run.

After we board the train and find our seats, I stow my backpack under a side bench and sit down. Within moments, there is a knock on the window. I look out and the two boys are standing on the platform, now with several other boys. They're all grinning from ear to ear. "One more, auntie!" they shout. I smile and wave at them, but the train is already pulling out of the station. As little as it seems, I'm glad we left the candy and I hope it makes them happy even if it is only for a moment. They stay with me long after I'm gone and I wonder how they ended up there, what their life is like, where they will go next.

There are millions of such children in India; waves of people step over and around them every day without ever really seeing them. Of all the vulnerable children they are the least hidden, in plain sight right out on the pavement or the train stations ­ yet they are perhaps the most invisible of all.

The figures quoted by various agencies are so varied they are almost meaningless. One 1994 report by UNICEF estimated 11 million street children; the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights quotes 18 million. Some NGOs put the figure as high as 100 million. Such statistics are hard to pin down because their lives are never constant and their mobility is as much as 70 percent. Many of them right on the sidewalks or in slums of extreme deprivation. Although I don't know the specific circumstances of the boys in the Rourkela station that night, uncounted numbers of children live in railway stations all over the country scratching out whatever meager existence they can, living on the constant edge of disaster. Current estimates suggest that as many as 125,000 street children live in each of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata.

With the second largest rail network in the world carrying 11 million passengers each day, India's train stations play a major role in street children's lives. Many of those who run away take a train, often without even knowing where it is headed, and usually remain in the stations where they arrive because of access to toilet facilities and the ability to eke out a meager existence from industry that springs up around rail travel: luggage porters, shoe shiners, food or tea servers, rag pickers, or beggars if they must.

They sleep on the platforms, sometimes mere feet from where the trains race by, or on the footpaths or under bridges. They are at high risk for malnutrition, health problems, substance abuse, and violence. Glue sniffing is the most common drug problem for many of these children without a childhood, who often yearn for an escape from the brutality of their lives.

With no supervision of any kind and largely unprotected by adults, they are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, especially within the first days and weeks of leaving home. A child arriving alone at a railway station will only be approached by a predator, maybe a factory representative seeking cheap child labor or a brothel owner, within 20 minutes. Employers of kids who perform jobs such as rag and bottle collecting keep the children indebted to them. These victimizers know where to find the children who won't be missed.

I met some of these kids myself one sunny morning shortly after arriving in Mumbai. An estimated 30 unaccompanied children arrive at the city's 125 train stations every day. As thousands of people disembark from the trains ­ commuters, businessmen, families, university students, mothers and babies, young trendy urbanites with their iPods ­ they leave the platforms and swarm to the exits. But some remain behind ­ the small and permanent residents, the ones for whom the railway station is their only home.

Gyan, a social worker with the NGO Oasis India, escorted me to their Ashadeep project at the Kurla train station. After winding through a maze I would never find my way back out of alone, Gyan knocked at a locked door and another Ashadeep worker let us in. The tiny room was filled with nine boys, ranging in age from about eight to fourteen, playing games on the floor with two other male workers while they took turns washing in the one bathroom. The boys all live in the Kurla station by night.

Ashadeep social workers spend much of each workday doing outreach in the train stations, searching for new children and befriending them in a non-threatening manner. They offer the kids food, a bath, clothing and the chance to regularly participate in Ashadeep activities such as games, movies and sports. The caseworkers try to protect them as much as possible from the dangers of the station.

"These boys lose their right to a childhood, education, and family. They even lose their humanity," Gyan said. "Then the cycle continues into the next generation."

The program also provides medical care and learning activities. Half an hour into my visit the games were put away and a math lesson began. The boys grew serious as they carefully wrote out the numbers and did their sums. The interesting foreigner in their midst was quickly forgotten as they concentrated on their assignment, each of them soaking up the learning like a sponge and eager to show off their skills. I watched these eight, ten, twelve year olds who should be in school every day and thought about most children who take it for granted. This was the only schooling these boys had, and it made me very fearful for their futures.

Once a boy has been coming to Ashadeep regularly and wants to leave the railway life, the caseworkers will contact any family he has to try and work with them for reunification and to get the child into school. But because many of them fled abusive homes or were forced to leave, this is not always an option. Some have been so abused and are so frightened of their parents that they do not want to return home, even with an Ashadeep representative at their side.

"We tell the boys that as long as we are with them, no one can raise hands against them any longer," Gyan said. "But still, they are sometimes very afraid."

The workers try to place such children, if they are younger, into boarding schools or residential homes. For the older boys, Oasis will rent a house for several of them together and help with job training and life skills.

Before I left the Ashadeep railway center I asked Gyan why it was only boys in the program. He replied that the majority of kids living in the train stations are in fact boys, and this seems to be attributed to two reasons. First, boys are more likely than girls to actually run away from home and leave their villages. Second, for the females who do arrive, Gyan said they are the first to disappear. The sex trade swallows up the girls immediately.

When Ashadeep workers do occasionally find girls in the stations, they refer them to other NGOs such as Salaam Baalak Trust that have programs for girls. Oasis communications manager Divya Kottadiel echoed how difficult the challenge is for girls.

"Once they've been in the sex trade very long, no matter how abusive, it becomes more difficult to get them out of it. Many children on the streets continue to live on the streets, despite safer options," she said. "The thought of being confined to four walls frightens them and they prefer to live in 'freedom' out on the streets."

But for these children, the price of freedom is very high. They pay with their childhood, their innocence, their health, and sometimes their very lives.

View the Worldpress Desk’s profile for Shelley Seale.