Children in Prisons

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.

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[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.