Sucharita
Sengupta
Sucharita Sengupta works at MCRG. Her
current research focuses on Rohingyas. She can be reached at sucharita@mcrg.ac.in.
A report of
UNHCR talks about the kind of neglect rendered to refugee children or children who
are forcibly displaced and are in need of asylum. Compelled to leave their
homeland, these children are more than often subjected to violence, abuse,
sexual exploitation and worst, trafficking[1].
In the present time when Europe is witnessing its worst phase of massive migration
of people since the world war two, again the vulnerability of children in
particular, struck the whole world when the image of 3 year old Aylan Kurdi, a
drowned Syrian toddler’s body was found ashore in Turkey. Aylan’s brother Galib
also died on the same boat while trying to reach the Greek island of Kos[2].
In Asia, the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947 had witnessed such
massive migration of people which continued through the decades of 50s and 60s
and saw a sharp rise post 1971, with the creation of Bangladesh. This piece is
written on the basis of my field work in various correctional homes in West
Bengal between October-December 2014 and talks about children, particularly
young girls, who are either compelled to leave Bangladesh or are illegally trafficked
to West Bengal, India, through the porous borders in promise of job or marriage
or a better life.
There are two
dimensions of problems that are faced by these children. The first is the
problem of illegal trafficking. The second is when they just accompany their
parents, completely unaware of the consequences and find themselves either behind
bars for illegal immigration or in brothels. According to a report[3],
girls from Bangladesh are largely trafficked for sex work and most of them are
aged below 18. For instance, Champa hailing from Faridpur, Bangladeah, was sold
to a brothel in Orissa by traffickers when she was just a child of 12. Since
then she has lived in India. Now she is eighteen and while returning to her
home in Bangladesh, she was caught by the police and taken to jail custody
under the passport act for using a fake passport. I met Champa in the Alipore
Correctional Home for Women. The most popular trafficking route employed by
traffickers is Dhaka-Mumbai-Karachi-Dubai. Way back in 2004, the report says,
around 200-400 women and children were trafficked to India each month totaling
to approximate 10,000-15,000 annually. This number has increased to an alarming
figure now. Securitization of the border through passport and visa was
introduced in 1949 and 1952 respectively. The more the eastern part of the
border has been securitized, the more it has given rise to incidents of
violence and illegality like smuggling and trafficking of women and children
across the border.
The
table below shows the total number of Convicts, under trail persons and
children in all correctional homes of West Bengal are tabled below:
Bangladeshi National (BDN) Population in
All Fifty Eight Correctional Homes of West Bengal from June 2014 to January
2015
|
|||||||||||||
Month and Year
|
No. Of BDN Convict
|
No. Of BDN Under Trial
Prisoners
|
No. Of BDN Jan Khalash
|
No. Of BDN Children
|
Total
|
Grand Total
|
Percentage of Females
|
||||||
01.06.2014
|
M
|
F
|
M
|
F
|
M
|
F
|
M
|
F
|
M
|
F
|
|||
752
|
83
|
1464
|
203
|
681
|
78
|
61
|
78
|
2958
|
442
|
3400
|
13.00
|
||
01.07.2014
|
819
|
73
|
1429
|
179
|
313
|
47
|
41
|
64
|
2602
|
363
|
2965
|
12.24
|
|
01.08.2014
|
801
|
80
|
1427
|
181
|
192
|
43
|
64
|
79
|
2484
|
383
|
2867
|
13.36
|
|
01.09.2014
|
818
|
107
|
1434
|
209
|
434
|
63
|
64
|
81
|
2750
|
460
|
3210
|
14.33
|
|
01.10.2014
|
775
|
87
|
1224
|
162
|
254
|
65
|
51
|
65
|
2304
|
379
|
2683
|
14.13
|
|
01.11.2014
|
783
|
71
|
1695
|
235
|
261
|
35
|
59
|
70
|
2798
|
411
|
3209
|
12.81
|
|
01.12.2014
|
936
|
83
|
1787
|
237
|
330
|
46
|
83
|
67
|
3136
|
433
|
3569
|
12.13
|
|
01.01.2015
|
1037
|
71
|
1628
|
191
|
444
|
56
|
93
|
78
|
3202
|
396
|
3598
|
11.01
|
|
Source: ADG & IG of Correctional
Services, Directorate of Correctional Homes, Govt. Of West Bengal (Data
collected on 25.02.2015)
The study of the
figures above could mean two things, either young girls are being mostly
trafficked or sent or sold by their families for an earning. Basically children
and adolescents below eighteen, who are caught for illegally crossing the Bengal-Bangladesh
borders, are supposed to be sent to Homes run by various nongovernmental
organizations instead of prisons. This also is a major problem as the children
get separated from their families after detention and are often not released at
the same time. When the parents are
arrested and sent to judicial custody, the children above 6 years are presented
in front of the Child Welfare Committee and Juvenile Justice Board and then
sent to children homes. While this could have been a positive step this causes
a lot of worry and anxiety to the women concerned because for some of them they
don’t get to see their children for long, even after their conviction ends!
Adding more to the misery is the fact that the mothers and their children are
not repatriated together. Often the women go back to their home place but
children are left behind because of the long process of repatriation. The homes
where these children are mostly kept are Kishalaya Home, Sneha, Sahid bandana
Smriti Abas, Ananda Ashram and Malda District Shelter Home among others.
The Welfare Officers of Dumdum, Behrampur and the
Superintendent of Balurghat Correctional Home also expressed their worry and
concern about this problem as this is causing mental trauma to most women in
the respective correctional homes who have come with their children. According to a
report, as many as 592 Bangladeshi inmates have been suffering in several jails
in West Bengal, including 112 children[4].
According to the
Operational Guidelines on rescue and repatriation of women and children, a task
force has been created for safe repatriation of incarcerated women and children
of Bangladesh from West Bengal, India. This task Force would monitor the
process of repatriation of rescued women and children safely back to their
country of origin. The procedure is explained through a number of steps:
a) The
Victim- be it a child or a woman after being rescued by the Police or Border
Security Force (BSF) or any Non- Governmental Organisation (NGO) has to be
thoroughly and carefully interrogated so as to differentiate between a victim
and a trafficker. [Vide Ministry of Home Affair’s Advisory dated 1-5-2012 No.
14051/14/2011-FVI).
b) Since
children are even more vulnerable and prone to being victims of trafficking
they are in need of extra care and protection (CNCP) as defined in the Juvenile
Justice, Care and Protection of Children Act, 2000, they would be first placed
before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and sent to the government or home run
by any NGO.
c) This
point is most important as the guideline says, if a foreign child is found to
be the victim of trafficking then he/she should not be prosecuted under the
Foreigners Act (MHA’s advisory dated- 1.5.2012) and to be placed in children’s
home within one week.
d) A
request would be sent to the respective State Task Forces Secretariat for the
address verification of the trafficked person in country of origin with copies
to relevant authorities like – District Superintendent of Police, District
Magistrate, Director of Social welfare, Women and Child Development and the West
Bengal Task Force Secretariat, with all documents relating to the case
confidentially.
e) After
this is done, the State Task Force Secretariat would send a request for
identity and address verification of the concerned person, with necessary
documents to Branch Secretariat of Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) at
Kolkata through the Home (Foreign &Non Residential Indian[5])
section, with intimation to the National Task Force at the MHA.
f) The
State Task Force as well as the National task Force will regularly review the
progress regarding the identity/ address verification.
g) The
Bangladeshi Deputy High Commission (BDHC) would expedite family tracing and
inform back within 45-60 days. Or the Bangladesh High Commission might also
issue temporary travel documents. The entire set of travel documents would then
be sent to the State Home Department with intimation to the State Task Force.
The State Home Department (F&NRI) would have to issue a no-objection
certificate to facilitate the return of the trafficked person. The shelter
home-in charge has to also issue a release order which has to be submitted to
the West Bengal task Force Secretariat, after which the home in charge would
keep the trafficked victim ready with all relevant documents required during
departure like case file, case history etc. In the meantime the West Bengal
task Force Secretariat would consul with the counterpart Task Force or NGO as
nominated by the Task Force in Bangladesh for the safe homecoming of the
trafficked victim.
h) In
case of children, after all the above steps are done, the Director of
Intelligence Bureau (DIB) in consultation with the BSF, West Bengal Task Force
Secretariat and selected NGO would make arrangement for the transportation of
the child along with the case file to Border for repatriation by land. The
child would be handed over by eh BSF to the Border Guards of Bangladesh (BGB),
in the presence of the BSF & NGOs of both sides.
The Amnesty
International had urged both the governments of India and Bangladesh to accept
this guideline in order to protect the rights of persons who have “illegally”
crossed the Bengal-Bangladesh Borderland. However, till now this has remained
only as a suggestion in papers. The continuous movement of people across Borders
and in particular the problem of the long separation of Bangladeshi children
from their families still remain a problem despite many rounds of meetings and
conversation among officials.
[1] http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c1e8.html
, accessed on 10 October 2015
[2]
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/2/syrians-refugees-drown-wash-ashore-in-turkey.html
, accessed on 10 October 2015
[3]
http://www.ibtimes.com/despite-low-pay-poor-work-conditions-garment-factories-empowering-millions-bangladeshi-women-1563419
in International Business Times,
accessed on 15 December 2014
[4]
http://www.humanrightsinitiative.org/chrinews/2012/17052012.pdf accessed on 17
December 2014.
[5] The Foreigners’ & NRI
section of the Home Department is primarily an agency of the Home Affairs and
Ministry of the External Affairs which is responsible for issuing
India-Bangladesh passports to Indian citizens in the State, granting of
extension of stay/ visa to foreigners in West Bengal, processing grant of
Indian citizenship and deportation of illegal immigrants and repatriation - http://home.wb.gov.in/wbhome/Download?action=1&alf_path=Documents&alf_f_name=Home(FNRI)%20Official%20doc%20incorporated.pdf accessed on 03 January 2015.
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