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.

Child marriages, trafficking on the rise in West Bengal

Antara Das
The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/19/stories/2007071956291300.htm

A rising awareness against dowry is fuelling the incidence

KOLKATA: A survey conducted across several districts in West Bengal has indicated that a rising awareness against dowry is fuelling the incidence of child marriage and trafficking.

The survey was conducted by Women’s Studies Research Centre (WSRC); the Department of Sociology, Burdwan University; and Centre for Women’s Studies, University of North Bengal, supported by the West Bengal Government’s Department of Women and Child Development and Social Welfare and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“We found that the traffickers approach the villagers in the guise of grooms without any dowry demand and lure them into marrying off even minor girls,” said Ishita Mukhopadhyay, Director, WSRC, Calcutta University. “The girls are then sold and sent to other places like Mumbai, Dubai or Kashmir,” she added.

“The problem is compounded by the fact that West Bengal lies on the vulnerable international trafficking route, a fact acknowledged by the United Nations, with Kolkata itself becoming a significant source and destination for traffickers,” Dr. Mukhopadyay said.

“The elderly women in the villages acknowledge that child marriages were not so prevalent earlier.” She said that once married, even minor girls were treated as women and they did not enjoy child rights any more.The data quoted in the report (sourced from the 2001Census and the National Family Health Survey) shows a high incidence of child marriage in the State ­ 39.16 per cent compared to the national average of 32.10 per cent. “Though the Social Welfare Department has been organising awareness campaigns at the block and anganwadi levels, it is hard to eradicate the problem,” the department’s Principal Secretary S.N. Haque said.

While the Government’s focus is on economic empowerment of women through vocational training, and providing financial incentives to prevent girls from dropping out of high school, Dr. Mukhopadhyay felt that police action was needed to reign in traffickers. “There are, after all, hardly any trafficking cases that are registered with the police,” she said.