Category Archives: labour trafficking

Apr29

Delhi govt drags its feet on draft bill on placement agencies

Posted on by
Standard

Delhi govt drags its feet on draft bill on placement agencies

AMBIKA PANDIT IN THE TIMES OF INDIA

NEW DELHI: The death of two girls allegedly trafficked from Jharkhand for domestic work in Delhi only underlines the harsh truth that there are no laws that govern domestic work. While the demand for a national legislation gets louder, the fact remains that Delhi government’s draft bill limited to placement agencies – that was put up for objections and suggestions last August – is nowhere close to becoming a law. The much announced and often cited panacea for the many ills surrounding domestic work, the draft bill may not become a law if it’s not finalized for approval of Delhi assembly before the monsoon session. The tenure of the current Congress-led government is coming to a close with the assembly polls scheduled for later this year.

The final contours of the draft which has drawn a lot of criticism from human rights and activist groups working with domestic workers are yet to be fixed. Top sources in the labour department pointed out that the latest delay was due to a debate over whether the ambit of the proposed legislation should be expanded to include workers beyond domestic workers engaged by placement agencies.

This issue was discussed at a recent meeting chaired by chief secretary DM Spolia. A consensus has been arrived at for now that the bill may be restricted to placement agencies for domestic workers. A meeting next month will take a final decision and put up the final draft for approval of the cabinet. Based on the objections and suggestions, some changes have been made to the final draft. For instance, it is now proposed to also register the link person who introduces the domestic worker to a placement agency to guard against trafficking and take measures against miscreants.

TOI had reported last August how the Delhi government’s draft Bill on placement agencies — aimed at reining in agents — had created a flutter among NGOs, with activists claiming it was riddled with loopholes. At that time, when the Bill was put up for objections and suggestions, it came under severe criticism from representatives of around 12 NGOs who voiced their concerns it’s provisions.

Rishikant of NGO Shakti Vahini, who is part of the investigations in the death of the two minor girls from Jharkhand, feels this case is a classic example of how domestic work needs legal regulations. “Just implementing an Act in Delhi will not help as the problem is national. Domestic workers are being brought from states like West Bengal and Jharkhand. It’s important to put in place a national plan of action for placement agencies to ensure coordination between states,” said Rishikant.

Social activist Subhash Bhatnagar too feels the government’s focus on regulating agencies is misplaced and monitoring employers who engage domestic workers is critical. NGOs want employers to be mandatorily registered with the state. Like in the case of the two girls from Jharkhand, most agents who bring girls to the city promising employment are exploiters not wanting to get themselves registered, say activists.

The Draft Delhi Private Placement Agencies (Regulation) Bill 2012 lays down that no agency shall employ, engage or deploy anyone under the age of 18 as a domestic help. Violation of the Bill’s provisions can fetch a jail term up to one year and a fine of Rs 20,000. The provisions state that only licensed individuals or private agencies can provide private domestic workers. The licences will be issued for a period of five years by a controlling authority comprising officers of the level of joint labour commissioner. All existing placement agencies are required to register with the state within three months of the new law being notified.

The Bill mandates a placement agency to display its licence at the office and maintain a register with records of domestic workers and employers. The labour department has been empowered to inspect and crosscheck these documents. The agency has to issue photo IDs to workers and inform the controlling authority about deployment of workers within five days of their getting employed. Each worker will have a bank account and a pass book in which their salary will be deposited.

Jan26

Abducted Gurgaon minor rescued from West Bengal

Posted on by
Standard

Abducted Gurgaon minor rescued from West Bengal

ASHOK KUMAR IN THE HINDU

First case of reverse trafficking from Haryana to Bengal

A 13-year-old girl who was allegedly abducted from a village here earlier this month has been rescued from Malda in West Bengal. She was rescued by the local police following a tip-off by a non-government organisation, Shakti Vahini.

The girl’s family had lodged a complaint with the police on January 13 stating that she had been abducted by their neighbour, a native of Malda in West Bengal. The complaint said the accused had abducted her on the pretext of marrying her. A First Information Report was registered at Kherki Dhaula police station in this connection.

The NGO took up the matter with the police and also met the victim’s family.

“We then contacted the Malda Police and the girl was rescued from the Habibpur police station area. During counselling the victim revealed that the accused took her along on the pretext of marriage. It is a clear case of human trafficking and the accused probably wanted to sell her,” said Shakti Vahini activist Rishi Kant. The accused has been arrested.

Mr. Kant, who has been working on the issue of human trafficking in Haryana, said it was the first such case of reverse trafficking in which a girl from Haryana was trafficked to West Bengal.

“Every year a large number of girls are being trafficked from West Bengal to Haryana, but this present case is the first instance where the opposite has happened. It could be the tip of an iceberg and hints at the possibility of a reverse trend. In 2011, more than a thousand minors and 2,677 adults had gone missing in Haryana. There is need for strengthening inter-State police and non-government organisations’ partnership to combat human trafficking in the State.”

Jul26

We are not encouraging sex workers, Supreme Court clarifies

Posted on by
Standard

NATIONAL LEGAL RESEARCH DESK

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court today modified one of its order on welfare and rehabilitation of sex workers on the Centre’s submissions that the last year’s order gave an impression that it seeks to legalize prostitution. Allaying the Centre’s fears that it was giving its seal of approval to prostitution, a special bench of justices Altamas Kabir and Gyan Sudha Misra modified its earlier order, saying “the modification shall not be construed that by this order any encouragement is being given to prostitution.”

Modifying its earlier order, the bench clarified that it would only examine the “conditions conducive for sex workers to work with dignity in accordance with provisions of Article 21 of the Constitution.” It added it was keen that sex workers should be given opportunity to avail rehabilitation measures of the government and other agencies for them.While adjudicating a petition for rehabilitation of former sex workers, the apex court had on July 19, 2011 framed three terms of reference.

Appointing a broad-based panel to look into the matter, the apex court by its July 2011 order had formulated three questions related to prevention of trafficking, rehabilitation of sex workers who wish to leave the sex work and “conditions conducive for sex workers who wish to continue working as sex workers with dignity.”On the Centre’s submission that the third term gave an impression that prostitution has been sought to be legalised, the apex court modified it to read as “conducive for sex workers to live with dignity in accordance with the provisions of Article 21 of the Constitution”.

“The above modification shall not be construed that by this order any encouragement is being given to prostitution,” the bench added. Justice Sudha also observed, “While we do not wish to encourage sex trade we would emphasise rehabilitation of sex workers for which we had taken the issue. “We wish to add although the sex workers have right to live with dignity. There has to be collective endeavours by courts and sex workers to give up flesh trade in case they are given alternative platform on employment.”

Related articles
Jun27

Eight girls rescued from placement cells

Posted on by
Standard

TIMES OF INDIA

NEW DELHI: Eight girls from Assam, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh have been rescued from four placement agencies in east Delhi allegedly involved in human trafficking. Four persons, including a woman, have been arrested.

“There was a tip-off from an NGO, Shakti Vahini, and we raided the four placement agencies, Babita Enterprises, India Maid Bureau, Deepika Placement Agency and Mission Welfare Society,” said Sanjay Kumar Jain, deputy commissioner of police (crime). The arrested have been identified as Ravinder Yadav, Pradeep Toppo, Vimal Kerketta and Babita, all residents of Shakurpur in east Delhi.

Four of the rescued girls are from Assam, one from Chhattisgarh and three from Jharkhand. “The girls were terrified and have disclosed that the placement agencies had employed them as domestic help across Delhi. When they wanted to go home, the agencies had detained them and withheld their earnings. These placement agencies wanted them to employ further as domestic helps

,” Jain said. After medical examination, the girls were sent to the children’s home for girls at Nirmal Chhaya in Hari Nagar. Ten girls, who were lured on the pretext of employment in the capital, were also rescued from GB Road brothels in central Delhi. The girls in the age group of 15-18 years were rescued from GB Road brothels following a tip-off by Rescue Foundation, an NGO. Nine of them are from West Bengal and one from Bihar.

“They all belong to poor families and were lured on the pretext of providing them employment in Delhi,” Devesh Srivastava, Additional Commissioner of Police (Central), said. The raid was conducted after the NGO informed police that a a minor girl who was missing from 24 Pargana in West Bengal is confined at Kotha No- 58, GB Road. Out of ten, nine are residents of West Bengal while one is from Bihar.

Jun27

‘Escort services new form of prostitution’

Posted on by
Standard

TIMES OF INDIA

PANAJI:  A need for tackling human trafficking at the root with help from states where victims are sourced is required, felt the ‘consultation of service providers from Goa and source states to combat human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in Goa’, a seminar on human trafficking held at the secretariat hall in Porvorim.

Addressing a session on ‘Process of rescue in Goa and need for support of source state to prosecute traffickers’, crime branch police inspector Sunita Sawant said “Escort services is the new form of prostitution. Escorts give all sorts of ‘comfort’ to tourists.”

“The escorts (who are usually victims of trafficking) come in batches from north east for 5-6 days…They are usually lured with jobs in the hotel industry,” she added. Sawant felt, “Transit and source state trafficking offenders need to be brought to book.”

Narrating the difficulties faced in convicting offenders, Sawant said in one instance the rescued girls fled from the protective home. Hence, they could not get them to testify in court and the offenders were subsequently acquitted.

She narrated another instance wherein a Bangladeshi girl who was trafficked initially told officials she hailed from West Bengal. She revealed the truth to a counselor after three months, Sawant added. Police inspector Gurudas Kadam cited an incident in Anjuna where an Andhra Pradesh-based businessman was found dead after a conference where businessmen exploited trafficked girls in a hotel.

The hotel did not maintain any record of the girls entering the premises nor the rooms used for the illicit activity. The hotel manager was also involved, he added.He said many times the victims do not cooperate and hence authorities need greater help from source states (from where victims are trafficked) to eradicate the problem of trafficking from the root.A counsellor at one of the state-run shelters where victims are rehabilitated said, “The girls are traumatized. They want to go home… Sometimes, the victims become hostile.”

Jun27

179 girls trafficked into Goa rescued over last three years

Posted on by
Standard

TIMES OF INDIA

PANAJI: A total of 179 girls who were trafficked into Goa for commercial sexual exploitation were rescued in the state over the last three years.

The revelation came from Anyay Rahit Zindagi (ARZ), a nodal NGO working to curb human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in Goa. ARZ was participating in a two-day consultation workshop of service providers from Goa and source states to strategize combating human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation in Goa.

Representatives from eight states including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Nagaland, Assam, Mizoram, Manipur and West Bengal are also participating. According to ARZ director Arun Pandey, though Goa is a destination state for trafficked girls, no study has been done on the magnitude of the trafficking.

Pandey said 146 were Indian girls followed by Nepal (27), Bangladesh (4) and Russia (2). From Indian states, 39 girls came from Mumbai. Others were Manipur (31), Goa (16), Andhra Pradesh (14), West Bengal (09), Nagaland (08), Karnataka (07), Maharashtra and Assam (both 5 each), Mizoram (4).

Related articles
Jun21

Graft fuels trafficking

Posted on by
Standard

Graft fuels trafficking

Graft fuels trafficking

PANKAJ SARMA IN THE TELEGRAPH

US department of state’s report paints gloomy picture for region

Guwahati, June 20: A US government report has painted a gloomy picture of human trafficking in the Northeast.The US state department’s 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report, released by secretary of state Hillary Clinton yesterday, said there had been a rise in women from the region being subjected to “servile marriages” in states with low female-to-male child sex ratios such as Haryana and Punjab. According to the report, girls from the Northeast are also subjected to transactional sexual exploitation in West Asia under the guise of temporary marriages.

The report blames corrupt law enforcement officers in India of facilitating the movement of sex trafficking victims besides protecting suspected traffickers and brothel-keepers from enforcement of the law by taking bribes from sex trafficking establishments and sexual services from victims. “Some policemen allegedly continue to tip off sex and labour traffickers to impede rescue efforts,” the report said.

The arrest of a BSF jawan posted at Aizawl for trafficking a minor girl from Mizoram to Rewari district in Haryana in September 2011 also finds mention in the report, which says the accused jawan has been out on bail since December 2011. The report has put India among Tier 2 countries whose governments do not fully comply with minimum standards but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance.

“The government of India does not fully comply with the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking. However, it is making significant efforts to do so. The ministry of home affairs continues to establish anti-human trafficking units which are responsible for combining law enforcement and rehabilitation efforts,” the report said.

It added that there had been numerous reports about sex trafficking victims being rescued by police-NGO teams and increased reports about inter-state coordination among anti-human trafficking units that resulted in the victims being rescued. “In one case, the Manipur, Rajasthan, and Kerala anti-human trafficking units collaborated in the rescue of 33 trafficked children,” the report said.

Welcoming the report, Rishi Kant of Shakti-Vahini, a Delhi-based NGO working against trafficking, told The Telegraph that a large number of girls, mainly minors, from the Northeast was being regularly trafficked and forced to marry in states like Haryana and Punjab.

“The registration of trafficking cases by the police in the Northeast has risen, but the government must ensure that guilty persons are convicted in court and for that the judiciary also needs to be sensitised,” he said.

The anti-human trafficking unit of Assam police has recovered many girls from Hissar district in Haryana with help from Shakti Vahini and has been rewarded recently by the Union home ministry for its efforts. The report also quoted a senior government official saying that while trafficking rescues and registration of cases have increased, convictions remain low in the country. It added that the government continued to make progress in its law enforcement efforts to combat human trafficking in 2011, but concerns remain over the uneven enforcement of trafficking laws and alleged official complicity.

PANKAJ SARMA IN THE TELEGRAPH

Related articles
Jun14

MP Police form Anti-Human Trafficking squads

Posted on by
Standard

PTI | 10:05 PM,May 31,2012

Morena (MP), May 31 (PTI) Expressing concern over rising incidents of human-trafficking in Madhya Pradesh, Home Minister Uma Shankar Gupta today said the police have formed eight special squads to deal with the menace. “The rising incidents of human-trafficking in the state are a matter of concern. But the Government is committed to curb the menace in an effective way. The police have formed eight Anti-Human Trafficking squads for the purpose,” Gupta, who was here to take part in a Vaishya community programme, told PTI. He praised the Mandsaur Police for its exemplary work in the field of curing human-trafficking and ensuring release of over 200 girls from the captivity of a tribal community traditionally engaged in flesh trade. To a query on introducing Police Commissioner System in Madhya Pradesh as announced by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, he said necessary work is going on in this regard. By and large the state has been witnessing peace with no major problem on the law and order front. The Government had wiped out dacoits from the Chambal valley, he said. Gupta denied reports that persons from Vaishya community had migrated from Chambal region because of the fear of anti-social elements.

Jun12

Raids on trains from east and northeast to curb Girl Trafficking

Posted on by
Standard

DWIPAYAN GHOSH IN THE TIMES OF INDIA

NEW DELHI: The rescue of seven girls from West Bengal, after a raid on March 16 in various placement agencies in northwest Delhi and the subsequent rescue of several girls from four other states of India in May from the red-light areas of the Capital has led the Delhi Police to begin a 24-hour check on various trains arriving from Bengal, Jharkhand and the entire northeast.

These raids – without prior information – were first mooted by the NGOs. The Delhi Police has decided to hold talks with their Kolkata counterparts on the issue. The NGOs working against child trafficking have long been demanding a more “proactive and joint” action from the cops of all states.

“I have instructed by GRP staff to keep an eye on each of the children in some specific trains from east, northeast and south India. The whole idea is to ensure we nab the traffickers and rescue the children before they get mingled with the city’s population making it all the more difficult to nab and rescue them,” said Sanjay Bhatia, additional DCP (railways).

According to a reply to a Lok Sabha question, filed by the state crime records bureau on March 15 this year, a total of 7917 minor girls were “untracked” till 2011 from across India and believed to be in capital. Similarly, 3311 minor boys are missing from West Bengal alone, while another 2149 adult females were untracked till the end of last year.

When contacted, an officer of Kolkata CID department said they had begun random checks on trains leaving for the Capital. “We have started the exercise about a month back. But I have no qualms in admitting that the drive has not been satisfactory so far. Only a greater coordination with Delhi, UP and Jharkhand police can control this menace,” said an officer.

Cops in Kolkata and Delhi said they had zeroed in on two persons identified as Raj and Raju, who operate from the railway stations in and around Kolkata. A Delhi police team will be in the city soon to coordinate with Kolkata Police and nab the duo.

Sources in Delhi Police Anti Human Trafficking Unit said the girls, mostly, assemble at the Sealdah, Howrah, Guwahati and Ranchi railway stations and board trains like the Poorva Express, Kalka Mail and even Toofan Express and Jharkhand SK Express.

“This year alone, we have identified over a hundred cases of women trafficking from North 24 Parganas, Nadia, Malda and Coochbehar. We have over 500 untraced cases in last few years. We are also on the lookout for groups of girls arriving suspiciously in these trains at the New Delhi and Old Delhi stations. However, such raids have their limitations and constraints. Hence, we are still working on the finer details of carrying out these surprise checks,” said an AHTU official.

Shakti Vahini coordinator Rishi kant, who has been working on the issue for several years, said: “There are over 10,000 children missing from east India according to data provided in the Parliament last year most of whom use the rail network. We want cops to note down addresses of the girls arriving in the Capital for jobs. They can then check these addresses to find if those are genuine. Strict action against dubious agencies, which sell these girls in Haryana as brides, should be taken.”

DWIPAYAN GHOSH IN THE TIMES OF INDIA

Related articles