The Kakuma News Reflecter

The Kakuma News Reflector, Known as KANERE, is a new refugee newsletter develoted to independent reporting on numan rights and encampment in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya. 'In exercising a refugee free prese, we speak in respect of human rights and the rule of law in order to create a more open society in refugee camps and to develop a forum for fair public debate on refugee affairs'. For many refugees who feel imprisoned in Kakuma Camp, KANERE represents a hope for change.
Please log on to www.kakuma.wordpress.com for details.

Report on Global Network of Migrants and Remitters

TIGRA has just published a report from the La Liga network's delegation to the GFMD (Global Forum on Migration and Development) held on October 18-31, 2008 in the Philippines. This report reflects the ongoing discussions on the vision of a global network of migrants and remitters, La Liga, and how TIGRA's corporate social responsibility campaign can be translated to the context of Asia.
You can find more information on La Liga at: www.laligaglobal.org

NTS- Asia Research Fellowship

The Consortium of Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia (NTS-Asia) invites applications for a 3-month Research Fellowship Programme, which will commence in July 2009. The research fellowship comes with a stipend of US$ 8,000 (all inclusive for the duration of the fellowship). Three positions are available for 2009-2010. The positions are intended for outstanding active researchers working on a wide range of non-traditional security issues (NTS) in Asia. Young scholars are encouraged to apply.

Successful candidates can choose to conduct their research at any of the 14 founding NTS-Asia member institutes located in Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia and South Asia.

NTS-Asia Research Fellows are expected to produce at least one publication at the end of the fellowship period. Interested applicants are invited to send their applications via e-mail by the 13th of April 2009
For details log on to http://www.rsis-ntsasia.org/activities/research-fellowship.html.

Thai Soldiers Force the Illegal Migrants from Bangladesh Back Out to Sea in Boats without Engines

This was another instance of inhuman treatment and securitization of borders in South Asia. Thousands of Burmese and Bangladeshis try to migrate to Thailand in search of work. Around 500 migrants from Bangladesh had reportedly paid Thai agents so that they could enter upon and have a better life in Thailand.

According to their accounts, they headed from Bangladesh to Thailand when their boats were intercepted around December 27, 2008 by Thai naval ships. They were detained with hundreds of other migrants for several days on a deserted Thai island in the Andaman Sea. It was reported that Thai soldiers tied the hands and then put them boats without engines. The only response from Thailand was a proposal to hold a conference to prevent the mass migration — and resulting suffering — of refugees after the Thai navy was accused of brutally mistreating boat people from Bangladesh.

Details of the report can be found on
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7830710.stm
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jF54s_oslzJMcV8N_Tgb7oL5ZLYgD95TARU05


People on the Run

According to Rajan Hoole, the capture of Kilinochchi in late December and the Mullaitivu ‘command hub’ in late January by government forces marked another milestone in the unending saga of Tamil refugees. From mid-2007, the bulk of the LTTE was confined to the Vanni, fighting in the last block of land under its control. By now, this war, running 30 years, during which the social fabric of the engaged societies has been shredded, has been shown to be futile. The civilians have been subject to Government and LTTE control and these people has been subject of state surveillance on ethnic grounds which show the lack of political will. Rajan Hoole further points out that in the Vanni, those who fled the LTTE were confined to detention centers, officially misnamed as ‘welfare centers’. One aspect confirming the prison status of these camps is the fact that families are not allowed to seek shelter with host families, hitherto a common arrangement for the displaced in Sri Lanka. People who had made arrangements to go abroad before they were displaced – such as young women whose fiancés were waiting for them – were also not allowed to leave. (After some delay, however, university students have been allowed to move out.). The people of the Vanni are now divided into three main groups: those who have escaped to India; those confined to camps south of Vanni by the Government and kept in isolation; and the estimated 2,50,000 within the shrinking LTTE-controlled area, living without proper care and shelter, and regularly subjected to army bombing and shelling. Recently some have also begun escaping north to the Jaffna Peninsula – an open-air prison. He feels that the recent developments should be read as a link between ideology, displacement, and political and military strategy. First is the Sinhalese nationalist extremist viewpoint that the island belongs to the Sinhalese, and is sacred to Buddhism. Second, there is the Tamil nationalist extremism. Although having violently marginalized the opposition among the Tamils, the LTTE was no match for the resources of the Sri Lankan state. An important factor has been the persistent absence of mature political leadership in the Sinhalese south.

Details of the report can be found on
http://www.himalmag.com/A-people-on-the run_nw2819.html


Rohingya People from Myanmar at the Thai Shores

It is a quite common incident that Rohingya people from Myanmar appear in boatfuls at the Thai shores. But as the Thai Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said recently, Thailand has no plans of opening camps for these boat people and would continue to uphold its policy of deporting them. The migrants would be given humane treatment, including provision for food and water, but would be subsequently deported as illegal aliens on shore. The Deputy added, “…We cannot afford carrying the burden of taking care of another 200,000-300,000 people…”
All these have come freshly under the limelight following reports of serial abuse of the stateless Muslim minority, the Rohingyas, from Myanmar’s northwest by the Thai military. Indonesia is currently questioning 198 Rohingya refugees who were found floating in a boat off the coast of Aceh for 21 days.

The Thai army has already admitted towing hundreds far out to sea before abandoning them. There are also allegations of their boat engines being sabotaged. Of 1,000 Rohingya given such treatment since early December, 550 are apprehended to have died. There have also been protests from within the Thai people against accepting the Rohingyas into their society. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says, 230,000 Rohingya now live a precarious, stateless existence in Bangladesh, having fled decades of abuse and harassment at the hands of Myanmar's Buddhist military rulers.

For details, look into:
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-37830220090204?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

For some more news, look into:
http://www.probenewsmagazine.com/index.php?index=2&contentId=4828

Globalization & Challenges to Building Peace Ed. By Ashok Swain, Ramses Amer & Joakim Öjendal Published by Anthem Press, 2007 ISBN 978-1-84331-287-1

Ishita Dey

This book is a compilation of some of the papers presented at Annual Conference of the Swedish Network of Peace, Conflict and Development Research, sponsored by the Swedish International Development Corporation Agency through its Department for Research Collaboration. The book is set against the backdrop of the changing notions of “war” and “development”. As the editors argue in the introduction and rightly put it that the nature of “war” has become intra state and “development” has shifted to tapping of neo-liberal global order in the most efficient way possible. This shifting pattern of development has led to cooption of strategies that have led to marginalisation of a large number of people which has resulted in intra state conflict. One of the widely suggested copying mechanisms to this effect has been the invention of “repairing”, “reconstructing and reconciliatory” policy approaches (pp 1). Though this approach was propounded by the UN system; its significance and implementation is set against the cold war period. Thus, the very nature of peace building efforts in the context of globalization needs to be revisited because the process of peace building as our experiences of history reflect does not end with disarmament, ceasefire, election monitoring, restoration of democracy, repatriation of refugees or even monitoring conflicts through peacekeeping forces but lies at the success of societal stability and reconstruction. The chapters in this volume through peace projects undertaken in Asia, Africa, Balkans and the Middle East address the challenges of peace projects.

One of the crucial challenges of peace building is its stability and Oliver P Richmond reopens this debate through a detailed examination of genealogy of the ‘problem of peace’ within the liberal peace framework. The liberal peace framework is comprised of four strands: victor’s peace project, constitutional peace project, civil society peace project and institutional peace project. One of the crucial attempts is to develop a peace consensus and often the bottom –up approach versions of peace building, contests the top down approach of the state and other machineries which guides and controls the manufacturing of peace consensus. There are several other graduations of liberal peace and these are reflected in the role of international agencies and states in Iraq, Afhghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo etc. While negotiation seems to be the underlying strategy of liberal peace project, preemptive self-defense is also seen as a measure to resolve conflict and attain peace. Ramses Amser explores the ongoing debate on pre-emptive self-defense and the policies adopted by U.S. specifically in the National Security strategies of 2002 and 2006 which are geared more towards preventive use of force than the use of force in self-defense (pp10). The role of the international community in peace building is revisited as notions of hierarchy, relations of power percolate in situations of conflict where populations are forced to cross borders. In this context Patrick Johansson argues whether refugee repatriation is an essential condition for peace. The role of diasporas in civil wars in their homelands is a much debated one. Ideals of territorial sovereignty often guide certain sections to enrage with extremist activities and certain groups to engage in peace building efforts. Katarina Månsson and Annika Björkdahl explore the role of the UN missions in depth in Chapter 8 and 9 respectively. It is not only important to revisit the treaties, policies and role of international communities in building peace but also to understand the causes of conflicts.

The causes of civil wars in Africa are multi- layered and it requires efforts that are long driven and not short cut. Linnea Bergholm in this study argues that a generalized understanding of the causes of war is insufficient to understand regional conflicts; for eg in Nepal as illustrated in Chapter 13 by JY Rotberg where control of natural resources such as forests and cropland leads to interstate conflicts. The book ends with a fascinating account of the security challenges posed by the opium and other illegal narcotics in the Northeast Asian Region. China remains the vulnerable region in this context.

This book to sum up raises the problematic that underlies “peace” in the context of democracy and globalisation. Is globalisation about creating a new force and new empire of regulation and regulatory mechanisms that will control and guide the international community? Is it resurfacing a new era of colonization through institutional mechanisms of “peace” keeping and restoration efforts? The chapter on Palestinian- Hamas movement deals with the problematic that underlie democracy and democratic peace process. Is democratic peace process another way of co-option and monopolization of global south by global north? How are we to situate ourselves, as our borders become more intra territorial rather than cartographic division between landmass? The ethnic divisions, religious divide and political processes guide the discourses on peace and globalisation and any critical approach to “peacebuilding” need to take into account these factors.

Regulating Citizenship: Politics of ‘Check-In’ and ‘Check-Out’ in Mizoram, India

Anup Shekhar Chakraborty

[Lecturer in the Department of Political Science, St. Joseph’s College (University Department, North Bengal University), North Point, Darjeeling-734104, West Bengal. Email: anup_105@rediffmail.com; ascoty2000@yahoo.co.in; ascoty2000@gmail.com]

The notion of Citizenship in ‘Northeast’ more so in Mizoram, is channelled by the politics of inclusion and exclusion. The partition of the Sub-Continent aggravated the geo-political isolation of the North-East and propelled the mushrooming of ethno-cultural consciousness. The emergence of divergent claims of people over land and its resources; dug deep into the consciousness of people to tease out challenges and assertions. A yearning for definition of a native, immigrant and insider became necessary coupled with a desire to prove original inhabitance. Interestingly in the North East these issues cause friction not only at the macro level i.e. mainland versus heartland but also at the micro level i.e. North East versus North East. Further, though it is simpler to understand the debate in terms of protecting the “Self” from the outsiders, yet the usage of the term “Self” in a tribal context is itself debatable. Here the individual gains his identity through the collective and historical identity of the tribe which has been preserved and transferred through generations. Hence, the notion of “Self” transcends to that of collective good and rights rather than individual benefit.

A bird’s eye view on the ‘Vai’ and the politics of “Regulating Citizenship”

This concept of outsider is seen as prevailing across the North East, albeit under different names. In Mizoram, the term ‘Vai’ is used to denote people from mainland India, who have Aryan features. It evokes mixed feelings of contempt, distrust, mockery and envy. For the Mizos, the term Vai as an out-group has three broad meanings. In one sense, all non-Mizos including the British with reference to the ‘Raj’ were deemed as Vai. In the second sense, all the people living in the plains of India are Vai. In the third sense, the word associates the Burmese living in the plains to be Vai but in contrast to the Indian, the notion is more positive and traditional 1.

The inflow of the ‘Vai’ in present day Mizoram has a strong colonial linkage 2. The gradual yet sure, entry of the ‘Vai’ into the Zo/Mizo economy: provided for a greater degree of interaction between the ‘Vai’ and Zo/Mizo women 3 . The arena of economics, thus became the realm for the activities of Women and ‘Others’, i.e. for all those who were excluded from the realms of spirituality and politics. The Zo/Mizo patriarchy under the impact of Christian traditions began to view economics and the notions of business and that of profit to be both sensuous and materialistic and linked them with the notions of ‘original sin and sexuality’ and everything signified by the word ‘Khawvel’ (worldly) 4.

The post-colonial Zo/Mizo politics propelled by the Politics of the Pan Optics 5 relied heavily on the youth and students’ organizations like the Young Mizo Association (YMA), the Khristian Thalai Pawl (KTP) and also the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZP) for ‘systemic or structural control’. ‘Vai Ban’ (Bandhs) 6 for instance, is the most often sought mechanism for “Regulating Citizenship” and controlling the flow of the Vai in Mizoram. These ‘Vai Bandhs’ are often preceded by ‘quit Mizoram notices’ to the non-tribals. For instance, in 2004 the YMA served notices to the non-Mizos to quit Mizoram within a month 7. These Bandhs, can stretch from 12 hours to 48 hours or more and the ‘Vai’ are subtly directed to stay in-doors (invisible) and restrain from venturing out-doors (outdoors) for the sake of their own “safety”. Defying the diktat is followed by physical assaults and mob fury; not surprisingly the victims i.e. the petty migrant labourers mostly from Cachar and Bihar are rounded-off by the Police in lock-ups. Evidently, this is a systematic process of making the ‘Vai’ invisible and the Zo/ Mizo as the visible majority.

An interesting occurrence that takes place post-Vai-Bandh, is that women either as individuals or as organizations, along with the Y.M.A, K.T.P and other such organizations visit these lock-ups and offer eggs, bread and tea to those who faced the brunt of mob fury. From a communitarian perspective, this action can be viewed as the perpetrators of violence taking the role of healers. However, apart from the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the North East is considered to be a better home for gender equity than many other States in the country. It is an undeniable fact that the realms of women and men are always clearly demarcated in any society. Stereotypically, the role of the healer is “reserved” for women while men justify violence in the name of protection.

Thus, women are directly not party to the actions of their men and may even disagree with them but, given their operating spaces they often follow the decision of their men. The high moralistic standards applied to women also, make them the best targets to “hurt your enemy where it hurts the most”. Further, women may be entrusted with the responsibility of caring for the captured as a subtle means of evoking their sympathies and creating a more human face. The message conveyed through these contradictory actions demonstrates the willingness of the Mizo’s to let the “Vai” exist within restricted spaces, under the condition of total acceptance of decisions made by the Zo/Mizo community.

The ‘Vai’ over the years have moulded their survival strategies which includes ‘adopting Zo/Mizo names’, ‘converting to Christianity’ and marrying local tribal women’. These survival strategies or politics of camouflaging helps the Vai to bargain their existence in the Zo world. This politics of camouflaging can be adopted for a plethora of reasons from that of personal security to that of private business or for being accepted as a ‘Denizen’. But, the case of the Lepchas in Sikkim has also demonstrated how attempts at being included through marriage have been unsuccessful as even if an outsider marries a Lepcha he or she does not have the right to land ownership.

Conclusion

The strategies adopted by the ‘Vai’ reflect the survival strategies to counter the Politics of Silencings at various levels and the ‘manufacturing of spaces’ in the Post- Colonial politics of Mizoram. The case of the ‘Vai’ reflects the inability to assume the position of Denizens as has been achieved by the later migrants, the Gorkhas; and at the same time reflects the struggle to set oneself free from being constantly ostracized as the ‘Permanent Pariah’ within the spatial politics of Mizoram. An interesting phenomenon that can be observed in the whole process of ‘self-preservation/protection’ or ‘ethnic-cocooning’ is that the inflow, as well as the outflow of migrants/‘Others’ is thoroughly dictated by the sense of perceived or apparent threat as projected by the majoritarian tribes. In other words, the inflow is regulated by constitutional mechanisms of Inner Line Permit (ILP) Regime 8 ; and the outflow is regulated by ‘Vai Bandhs’. Thus, acceptance as citizens is channeled by the underlying politics of ‘Regulated Citizenship’ filtered through a process of “Politics of ‘Check-In’ and ‘Check-Out’”.

Notes

1.For detailed reading on the Vai and ‘in-group- out-group’ problem in Mizoram, see B.B Goswami, “out-group from the point of view of In-group: A Study of Mizos”, in Dubey, S.M. (1978). North East India: A Sociological Study. pp 99-110.
2.This however, does not go to suggest that there were no linkages between the ‘Vai’ and the Zo/Mizo worlds prior to British Colonial intervention. An analysis of the Kuki-Chin-Mizo folklores speaks volumes about the initial pre-colonial contacts between the two worlds. For details see, Chakraborty, Anup Shekhar. ‘Manufacturing of Spaces: The ‘Others’ in Zo/Mizo Politics’ South Asian Journal of Socio-Political Studies (SAJOSPS). Vol.9 No.1, July-December, 2008.
3.For details see, Chakraborty, Anup Shekhar. ‘Emergence of Women from ‘Private’ to ‘Public’: A Narrative of Power Politics from Mizoram’ Journal of International Women’s Studies (JIWS), Bridgewater. Vol. No. 9, 3rd May, 2008. Also see, Chakraborty, Anup Shekhar. ‘Mustering Empowerment experiences from Mizoram: A Leap from ‘Private’ to ‘Public’ Living Spaces’ Global South SEPHIS e-magazine. Vol.4 No.4, July, 2008.
4.For details see, Chakraborty, Anup Shekhar. ‘Politics of Silencings: Echoes of the Margins from Mizoram’ Indian Journal of Political Science (IJPS), Meerut, Chaudhury Charan Singh University. Vol. LXVIII, No. 4, Oct.-Dec., 2007.
5.The Mizo society serves as the good example for Bentham’s Panoptic Society, where all persons are fearful of being watched by the church and the moral agencies. The only difference being that in the case of the Mizo society the observer can be seen and sometimes partially invisible.
6.The latest of these ‘Vai Bandhs’ were called by the MZP, the Mizo Students’ Union and the YMA following the killing of a Mizo youth on 18th July, 2007 by suspected Bangladeshi goons at Dholai in Cachar District, Assam. Quit Mizoram notices were issued to the ‘Vais’ and a blanket curfew was imposed on the ‘Vais’ which was lifted only on the 25th of July 2007. The MZP, however, claimed that it had not imposed any curfew, but merely requested non-Mizos to stay indoors for their own safety. It also called a 24 hour bandh at Vairengte the nearest town to Silchar, Cachar or the plains and demanded Rs. 15 lakhs as compensation for the slain youth. (See J.B Lama, The Statesman, 30, July, 2007, ‘The inside and out of Mizoram’s ethnic skirmishes’ for details).
7.Thangliana, The Telegraph, 2004, http://www.norteastvigil.in/archives/? p=6919; Also see J.B Lama, The Statesman, 30, July, 2007, ‘The inside and out of Mizoram’s ethnic skirmishes’.
8.The Inner Line Permit (ILP) that has been in existence in Mizoram since the colonial days has been used and misused by different groups to victimize the minorities time and again. The ILP has infact become a weapon in the hands of the hegemonic tribes to extort money and exploit the minorities, especially the ‘Vai’ and the Burmese. For detailed reading on the issue of checking Foreigners in Mizoram, see http://www.Mizzima.com/MizzimaNews, ‘Burmese Migrants in Mizoram worry threat of deportation’; http://www.angelfire.com, ‘Chakma Refugees pushed back from Mizoram’.

A Sleep in a Sterile Zone

Ariella Azoulay

[This military campaign, too, is a part of the same regime]

The familiar sight of a Palestinian room - colorful blankets wrap those sleeping on the floor, crowded against each other. A khaki sleeve caught my eye. A ray of light crossing the frame from the right led to it. Then it became easier to notice a pair of army boots peeking under another blanket, a flexed knee in uniform and an upside-down helmet. These are Israeli soldiers. They are sleeping in a Palestinian home in Gaza. There is no trace of the inhabitants. They must have “fled” once more as refugees.

This photograph landed in my e-mailbox ten days ago with about another twenty. The accompanying letter iterated: "We should all be proud of the IDF… these brave kids defend our country" and, following, provided a recommendation which is also an authorization to distribute these images. This e-mail was signed by the CEO of the Israeli branch of a large European firm. His full personal data were prominently noted at the bottom of the letter. This is the most abstract photograph of a very harsh series, the last two of which come with a warning: these are not to be viewed by children. According to the sender, the rest may apparently be shared with them as a part of this war's booty.

Images similar to the one of soldiers asleep in a Palestinian home were disseminated to date only by soldiers who are members in Shovrim Shtika (Breaking the Silence) as a part of their sobering-up process from the missions the army had required them to carry out for the sake of 'state security'. Their photographs are not made public in the press but are exhibited in alternative venues. In Israel, at least, the occupation of a Palestinian home to provide soldiers with a place to sleep is not a media item. Were a press-photographer to shoot such a frame, the editor would not print it for 'lack of public interest'. But now the press has been kept away from Gaza, and it has a very meager supply of images of the ongoing horror there. Israel allows press-photographers to set themselves up on a hill adjacent to the Gaza Strip and shoot – long distance - the smoke billowing over the horizon, thus screening the inferno within. The hill overlooking Gaza is open to local tourist-visitors. For their convenience, someone has placed benches there as well as site-scape information booths. In the last few weeks, people have been arriving with children and binoculars to show their kids and watch Gaza being bombarded, and to take pleasure in Israel’s might. When the man standing with his back to the camera returns home, he will download the photographs he took and distribute them to family and friends. He will show them that he, too, was there, holding his fingers in a victory sign for the camera, while Gaza goes up in flames in the background. From time to time, this screen that insulates us from Gaza is ruptured by photographs transmitted via e-mail by Gazan photographers – unbearable images of severe harm to civilians and their immediate environment. Very few of these are printed in Israeli daily press. Those that are published are provided by Reuters (whose Gaza office was bombed yesterday) or AP. Some probably reach these news agencies by the Gazan agency Ramatan that currently employs 150 journalists and photographers in Gaza and has become a major supplier of news photographs worldwide (except to Israel). The person who proudly forwarded the photograph at hand did not see in it that which the soldiers of Breaking the Silence saw in the images they published in the past. They, or others like them, have refused to go to war this time around. Those who refused have been tried and incarcerated. The Israeli press has not reported this at all. The media's silencing their refusal joins the similar silencing of demonstrations by Jewish Israelis against the war, or the arrest and incarceration of dozens of demonstrators. No one will prosecute the soldiers in this picture or the one who photographed them, all having invaded a home and removed its inhabitants in order to have a place to sleep. Theirs is an 'act of state'.

The photograph I have chosen is a not particularly harsh sight. It shows soldiers asleep in Gaza. Even in the midst of battle soldiers need their sleep. The difficulty arises when one recalls that these colorful blankets in which the soldiers are curled up are not their own, that the dwellers of this home where they now sleep have been made homeless. One of the soldiers, wakened by a first ray of morning light before his mates, is taking pictures - for them, for their families, a souvenir – an image of a night's sleep in Gaza.

But, after all, this is Gaza. How can Israeli soldiers who participated in the destruction of Gaza – the devastation of entire neighborhoods, public buildings, fatal ruin of vital infrastructure, wounding thousands, bombing hospitals, civilian shelters, schools, killing of over one-thousand human beings – how can these soldiers who are "not exactly welcome guests" in Gaza, how can they possibly afford to sleep so peacefully in the midst of the inferno they have produced without sensing any immediate danger to their own lives? The answer lies in one of the Occupation's practices, most common since its inception – creating a 'sterile zone'. What is a sterile zone? An area emptied of Arabs so that the military can carry out its missions. In this image we are most likely witnessing the heart of the sterile zone. We have no knowledge of its range, its perimeter, but for these soldiers to sleep so serenely, so safely, not only the dwellers of this house had to be removed from the sterile zone, but the residents of the entire area.

For the Israeli soldier, a Palestinian home is a violable space. This point has not been born in the recent Gaza campaign. The history of this violability goes back slightly over sixty years-old. At that time, the voices opposing the expulsion of Palestinians were hushed by another that overtook the military and political leadership of the Jewish public, making expulsion a fait-accompli. This leading voice stammered in its official declarations but was none the less determined in its practical aspects and managed to expel 750,000 Arabs from the areas of British Mandate Palestine. For a whole year Jewish soldiers went from village to village and, when called upon, from home to home, tearing the Arabs away from their dwellings and lands. At times they used indirect means - rumors and truck convoys – and at others, violence and direct threat. Ever since, the Palestinian home has not ceased to be threatened by the very thinking and operating pattern that to the Israeli public (as well as to world public opinion) presents that very home as an existential threat.

The residents of the Arab towns of Ramle, Bir Al-Saba, Majdal and Isdud, occupied by Israeli forces in the 1948 war, either escaped or were forcibly expelled and most of them were removed to Gaza and tripled its population at once. At the end of the war the Egyptians controlled Gaza and instated their own military administration. Israel did not manage that last "military victory" – the conquest of Gaza – before signing the ceasefire agreements with Egypt in 1949, thus giving birth to the narrow, troublesome 'strip' at the edge of the State of Israel. A 'strip' is a military-political term that expresses temporariness and designates a region that must be dealt with as undetermined, its situation to be solved. 'The Gaza Strip' was born as a problem. Since this birth, Israel has never ceased proposing 'solutions to the problem'. In 1949 Israel proposed a 'political' solution, aiming to annex the strip along with some of the refugees it harbored. But this political 'solution' with its military scent was rejected by the parties involved. In the 1956 Sinai campaign, the Strip was occupied along with the entire peninsula and Israel imposed its military administration. This did not last long for under American-Russian pressure Israel was forced to retreat from the territory it conquered. In 1967 Israel managed to re-conquer the Strip and take control of the 1948 refugees yet once again. Since then, for over forty years Israel has controlled the Palestinian population in Gaza. At least ever since the general closure Israel imposed upon the Gaza Strip in 1991 during the first Gulf War, such control entails cutting off the Strip from the West Bank as well as strict control over any entry and exit from it. By means of administering the crossings, Israel regulates life in Gaza. Since the Second Intifada, and ever more tightly since its 'disengagement', Israel has been managing a measured, chronic disaster, ever-watchful not to cross the fine line of a 'humanitarian catastrophe', enabling or preventing the flow of goods, people and means.

Since 1948, the Palestinian home is never the private domicile that shelters its dwellers from invaders and strangers. Israelis do not conceive of themselves as invaders or strangers, and the Palestinians are not regarded as home-owners in the simplest sense of the term. Their homes are vulnerable to nightly incursions, bulldozer activity, bombs dropped upon them from the skies, missile barrages or simply shootings that make them uninhabitable, expropriate them to create army outposts, positions and headquarters, all given to changing circumstances and the increasing 'security necessities'. The explanation given for these ritual actions is that they are crucial in order to 'flush out the terrorists from their nests', 'suppress resistance' or 'destroy insurgent infrastructure'. Thus the Palestinian home is presented as a military outpost of the enemy, calling for military intervention. The Palestinian home constitutes a problem, and military intervention its solution or at least a means to 'solving the problem'. More precisely, the home becomes penetrable and violable because it has been perceived by some local Israeli commander as a 'security problem' or its solution, but it tends to be regarded again and again as a problem because it is always seen as penetrable.

Israel usually manages to carry out its destruction with a public silencer, without reverberating in Israeli or international public discourse, maintaining the status quo. Whenever its operations were intensified and expanded and the Palestinians persistently resisted Israeli military might with the meager means at their disposal, Israel has turned to 'the world' for help, to halt the self-same campaign it initiated and bring about a 'ceasefire' agreement. Usually, while conducting these negotiations, it manages to grab the chance for some more destructive actions and invades more homes. Any such military campaign renews the state of emergency, re-justifying its permanent validity since 1948, mobilizing one and all and helping to forget the preceding emergency. Most importantly – it prevents citizens from identifying the source of this state of emergency: the regime itself. This regime needs the state of emergency. It cannot survive without it. To this end it has been mobilizing its citizens for the past forty years and more to continue fighting its non-citizens subjects. The source of the real state of emergency is the existence of a regime that denies all of its subjects - both citizens and non-citizens – the viable possibility to build for themselves joint frames of living in their area; it does not let them exorcise themselves of the language of occupation in which any Arab is a potential member of the 'killer gangs' as they were termed in the 1940s, 'infiltrators' in the 1950s, 'militants' in the 1960s and 1970s, and 'terrorist organizations' ever since the 1980s.

"A ceasefire is enough for us", Ben Gurion wrote in 1949. "If we chase peace – the Arabs will expect us to pay a price – either borders or refugees, or both. Let us wait a few years." Ben Gurion wrote this in the very year the State of Israel was accepted as a member nation in the UN. In spite of its mass expulsion of Palestinians and the devastation of their habitat, Israel was recognized as a 'peace-seeking' state.

Within this pattern of suspending the final solution – be it peace, war or mass expulsion – the current campaign, too – constitutes colonial expansion and violent suppression of resistant people who have been made refugees. This recognition, namely the alliance of sovereign nation-states that back each other up in the wars they conduct against civilians who have been made refugees in their own land or outside, continues to condone Israel's countless military campaigns in the territories it has occupied.

Amnesty International in its Public Statement Appeals the Moroccan Authorities to Investigate the Death of a Migrant Killed at the Border

The organization also called for the respect of the rights of migrants who are often ill-treated and summarily expelled from Morocco. The calls follow the killing of 29 year-old migrant from Cameroon, known as Alino and the arrest and arbitrary expulsion of 14 other migrants at the beginning of January 2009.

In the morning of 1 January 2009, at least 50 migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa tried to reach the fence between Morocco and the enclave of Melilla. According to accounts given to Amnesty International, Moroccan law enforcement officials fired once in the air but following shots were directed at the migrants to prevent them from crossing the border. Alino, one of the migrants, was reportedly hit by the second shot and died during his transportation to Nador hospital

For details of the public statement issued by Amnesty pl. click on the link:
http://www.upes.org/body1_eng.asp?field=sosio_eng&id=1410

Morocco will Soon Join the Sea Horse Network – A Communication Satellite to Monitor Migratory Flows Between Sub-Saharan Africa and Spain

"Sea Horse Network is a communication satellite developed by the European Union (EU) and Spain to monitor migratory flows between sub-Saharan Africa and Spain. Regarded as a rear base and base transit of illegal migrants to Europe, Morocco deploys many ways to deter potential migrants to the European Eldorado. Her participation in "Sea Horse Network will monitor real-time departure of boats to the Canary Islands. This system will also be used for monitoring maritime traffic in drugs on the Mediterranean and the Atlantic according to its designers. A system that probably will relieve the Kingdom of Morocco in the efforts already undertaken in the fight against migration. The "Sea Horse Network is already in place between Spain, Portugal, Senegal, Mauritania and Cape Verde. The exchange of information between the focal point of the Canary Islands and the offices of Senegal, Cape Verde and Mauritania are already operational. All this information is processed in the central platform installed in the Spanish capital.

It is time to rethink whether this kind of surveillance mechanisms will lead to more violence to the borders. The securitisation of the borders will lead to policing and control of populations who might be forced to move for several reasons. The international community should join hands to probe these reasons rather than act as the monitoring agencies at the “borders”.

For details click on the link:
http://www.yabiladi.com/article-politique-1654.html

Ten Years of Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (GP10)

Forced Migration Review has launched a special issue on Ten years of Guiding principles. The special issue reflects on the discussions at the international conference on the Ten Years of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (GP10) held in Oslo on 16-17 October 2008.

The conference aimed to assess the accomplishments and shortcomings of the Guiding Principles since their launch in 1998. The FMR special issue includes shortened versions of some of the conference presentations, plus a selection of other articles, most of which present case studies on the application of the Guiding Principles in different countries.

For details click on the link:
http://www.fmreview.org/GuidingPrinciples10.htm

Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia by Louise Brown Published by: Virago Press, 2000 ISBN 1 86049 903 1 Pages—276 Price: UK Pounds 7.99

Geetisha Dasgupta

Louise Brown begins this book with a rather shocking narrative style. In the preface, she introduces the thought behind the book. She also says that research in prostitution is not an easy task; the research methodology cannot involve standard research techniques and information about the real trade is difficult to access. She adds that the Asian stereotype of the woman is a myth. Poor Asian women, though exposed to danger of being trafficked to a huge degree, cannot be said to be weak. Their vulnerability does not prove their weakness. The array of chapters is interesting, and signifies how the author views the industry. The book explores facets like “The Market”, “The Commodity”, “The Agents”, “Seasoning”, “The Customers”, “The Management”, “The Law”, “Life and Death”, and “The Shame”. The following paragraphs try to throw some light on these.

Relating minute details of the social behavioral pattern of the Asian commercial sex industry, she speaks of the very basics of the mode on which the flesh trade subsist. She begins with the case of Sahana, a young illiterate Nepali woman, who was violated because of her two most valuable qualities, that of being pretty and that of being young. Her family earned a good fifty pounds for her face. She ceased to be in the trade after a while because she contracted HIV and rapidly lost her physical beauty that was the key to her survival in the market. In the first chapter, the author talks about the sexual attitudes of the Asian men and counter poses it to that of the western men. Notions that mark the understanding are hypocrisy and contempt for women, fidelity and virtue, abhorrence for and fear of divorce, etc. Prostitution for these women is not a forced occupation always. The link between poverty, prostitution and trafficking is a pretty confused one. Often, money earned out of prostitution enables one to earn the respect of the family, and in turn, it is the family itself that expects a pretty daughter to join prostitution if that is a standard mode of income in the society in reference.

Though the Asian sex industry underwent considerable changes following the Second World War, the essential social mores were never altered, nor was the attitude towards the women. Brideprice and dowry are both ways that convert a woman into a non-person. In case of the failure of families, it is the women who are more vulnerable. Social hierarchies are confirmed in terms of access to and control over the women. This is in a way manifested in the exchange of women in marriages. Rape is often an entry ticket to flesh trade and the perpetrator in this case, becomes the trafficker as well as the pimp. The author explores the concept of Devadasi in Hindu religion and says, it is a kind of religious prostitution where, girls are sold pre puberty and on the occasion of reaching physical adulthood, sold off to the highest bidder. Thus restricted to the profession for life and her daughters also follow suit. Hinduism makes space for prostitute castes, like the Badis in Nepal. Islam, though equal to women in religious terms, creates huge levels of gender power differences in the social realm and therefore perpetuates violence. Brown analyses the Purdah as a social tool to harness the women whom the men seek to control. This notion, when violated, would inflict consequences like honour killings. Newspapers in Sindh have reported 66 honour killings in the province in 1996 alone. Prostitution in such societies, are never overt. Often, the uninitiated customer would not realize where to approach in search of “free women”. In countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Philippines, there would be covert concubines, which, would not be recognized from outside. Globalization and liberalization pushed more and more women to flesh trade. They are being increasingly commodified, and often the buyer would sort through an array of choices made available to him by the agent. In Thailand, two million young children and women from Burma have become sex slaves in the past few years.

In traditional societies, where illegitimate sexual experience is a great no-no, there have to be agents who usher the women into the trade. Agents function in almost all kinds of ways that one might imagine. More often than not, the daughter is culled out from the family through lucrative offers of a better life through a sanitized job in a big city. Many a time, romantic liaisons are fabricated. In countries like Bangladesh for example, marriage, rather than employment is a better avenue towards flesh trade. The story of Rupchand, a rickshaw puller from Dhaka, is a case in point. He had three daughters to marry off. When he married one of them to an unseen Indian man through a known Indian woman, the daughter vanished forever. Rupchand died and his widow has suspicious of what had happened to Fatema, the daughter. But there were never any way to find out. Some sex workers in Asia however, make a conscious choice to enter the market, though such women are very few in number. Girls are recruited at an early age. There are even pick up vans that assist them for the travel.

In the rest of the chapters, the author speaks of the ‘qualities’ that are sought in a prostitute by a potential buyer and how the trade which is increasing by leaps and bounds is ‘managed’. Every industry has its laws, and so does the commercial sex industry. The author points out the significant dissimilarities that the Asian market has, when compared to the west. The book is marked by an on your face narrative style that often takes aback the uninitiated, but also would create more interest to the reader who wants to begin in this particular study area. This summarizes the reason for using not too much figures, but more field experiences, stories and descriptions.

Geography of Mass Incarceration

Oren Yiftachel

[Prof. Oren Yiftachel teaches political geography and urban planning at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba]

"We have a great opportunity now in Gaza to smash and flatten them… we should destroy thousand of houses, tunnels and industries, and kill as many terrorists as possible…". So declared Eli Yishai, Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, a few days ago. On the same day Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni promised "to topple the Hamas Regime", and Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert demanded in every forum to "hermetically seal" the Gazan-Egyptian border.

These, and many similar statements by Israeli leaders, sketch in painful clarity the ‘political geography of mass incarceration’ increasingly evident in Israel/Palestine. Under this regime large populations are locked into specific areas against their will, and often against international law, and are then subject to the mercy of their wardens. Typically, when the conditions of imprisonment become unbearable a rebellion erupts, and is suppressed by violent collective punishment, which in turn sets the conditions for the next uprising.

This is how Israel is now treating its rebelling prisoners in Gaza. As the leaders’ statements show, it seeks to lock them in the tiny strip and punish them with enormous force. At the same time Israel is further institutionalizing the geography of incarceration and with it the likelihood of future uprisings.

This is not a new phenomenon: European colonialism widely used mass incarceration of indigenous groups, condensing them in reserves and Bantustans, to enable Whites to freely exploit land, minerals and labor. Today too, racist governments attempt to deal with the existence of 'unwanted populations' by applying methods of spatial containment and violent ‘punishment’, as evident in the cases of Chechnya, Kosovo, Kashmir, Darfur and Tamil Elam in Sri Lanka. The key to this spreading political order is the prevention of the rebelling region from gaining state sovereignty, leaving it ‘neither in nor out’ of the state’s control system. As a non-state entity, resistance of the jailed to colonial power is often criminalized, leading the state’s righteous claim that it has 'no choice' but to further oppress the anti-colonial struggle.

Importantly, the mass incarceration strategy is usually not the preferred option. It is typically employed only when the colonial power has lost some of its ability to settle and control the land by other, softer, means, and when the option of ethnic cleansing has become untenable. Much to the regret of racist regimes, this is the situation today under international law. Hence, mass incarceration remains one of the main policy options for colonial states aiming to dominate indigenous populations.

Back to Israel/Palestine: Gaza turned into an open air jail already in the late 1940s when over 150,000 Palestinian refugees were driven by Israel into the small region (covering just 1.7% of British Palestine), joining its 60,000 previous residents. The refugees were never allowed to return to their lands and homes which were confiscated and destroyed. Ironically, it was during the 'peace process' that the incarceration of Gaza intensified, with a sequence of closures, movement restrictions and the construction in 1994 of a massive barrier around the Strip. Following the 2005 disengagement and the election of Hamas, Israel's illegal siege over the area was notched up with a near total blockade of movement and trade.

Gaza is a severe case, but it’s not unique. Since its establishment, Israel's ethnocratic regime has worked incessantly to Judaize the country by confiscating Palestinian lands, constructing hundreds of Jewish settlements and restricting the Palestinians to small enclaves. This began with the military government inside the Green Line until 1966, and the establishment of a 'fenced area' for the Bedouins in the south, which operates until today. Since the 1990s, the ghettoisation of Palestinians continued with the marking of areas A-B-C in the occupied territories, with the advent of closures and checkpoints, and finally with the construction of ‘the wall’ – all helping to fragment Palestine to dozens of isolated enclaves.

The long-term geographical impact of the Judaization policy has been dramatic. -- the Palestinians in Israel, for example, constitute 18% of the population, but control less than three percent of the land. In the entire area between Jordan and Sea, the Palestinians constitute just under 50%, but control only 13% of the land. Critically however, Judaization seems to have reached its limits, and since the Oslo period Israel has been re-arranging its colonial geography to fit realization.

The difference between Gaza and the other enclaves is the depth of its isolation and its persistent rebellion. The Hamas leadership never accepted the Oslo illusion, or the promise of 'two states for two people' enshrined in the 'roadmap' or the 'Annapolis process'. They have realized that the promise has become an empty rhetoric which enables the on-going colonization of their lands. The promised Palestinian state has become in the meantime fragmented, suffocated and impoverished. And what has been Israel's response to this crisis? The deepening of mass incarceration, 'necessitated' to protect Jewish settlement, and at the same time maintaining a campaign of massive personal incarceration, during which Israel has arrested over 10,000 prisoners who are now jailed without trials, including dozens of Palestinian parliamentarians. The incarceration policy has thus resulted in the creation of prisons within prisons.

While the geography of incarceration is typically explained as a security measure, its appeal is also increasing for economic reasons. During the current age of globalization, personal, commercial and financial movement has become essential for development and prosperity. The geography of mass incarceration helps to keep the ‘unwanted’ outside the riches of this process. Therefore, the on-going fortification around Gaza, including the current invasion, also put in place a system of protecting Jewish economic privileges.

Indeed, Palestinian violence plays an important part in the creation of this geography, through the hostile dialectic between colonizer and colonized. For example, the shelling of Israeli civilians by Hamas and suicide bombing of previous years are clear acts of terror, which gave legitimacy within Israeli society to carry out the incarceration policy. But Palestinian violence, and particularly the shelling from Gaza should also be perceived as a prison uprising, currently suppressed by the use of state terror, which kills many more civilians and creates infinitely more damage than the initial act of resistance. This dialectic means that the very maintenance of a geography of incarceration already sews the seeds for the next prison uprising...

It is important to note, however, that the option of rebellion only intensifies the punishment and killing, but not the basic geography of imprisonment. Hence, even after the current invasion is over, Israel will undoubtedly continue to use this strategy in both Gaza and the (non-rebelling) West Bank, and in softer forms inside the Green Line, where Israel's Palestinian citizens are also contained in small enclaves. I have termed this process 'creeping apartheid' – an undeclared yet powerful political order, which creates vastly unequal forms of citizenship under one ruling power. Rights under such regimes are determined by a combination of ethnic affiliation and place of birth. This cannot be illustrated more vividly than by noting the differences in mobility and property rights – Jews are free to move and purchase land in almost the entire area under Israeli control, while Palestinians are limited to ‘their own’ separated enclaves -- Gazans in Gaza only, Jerusalemites only in Jerusalem and so on.

This type of political geography tends to result in a chain of absurdities. Here is one: the invasion and destruction of Gaza is carried out by an ousted Israeli government, and is actively supported by a defeated US administration. The two governments which lost power are violently attacking in their dying days the democratically elected government of Palestine. This leads to the next absurd: instead of condemning and placing sanctions on Israel, which has placed Gaza under siege for the last two years, the world has imposed sanctions over the Hamas government. The occupied are punished twice: once by the brutal occupation, and a second time for the attempt to resist.

Sadly, these absurdities are not surprising, being part of the geography of mass incarceration, under which the colonial power will recognize the prisoners’ leadership only if they refrain from rebelling against their incarceration, as is currently the case with the Abass regime in the West Bank. In the case of a rebellion, however, its leaders are likely to be oppressed are often eliminated.

What may be slightly (but not entirely) more surprising is that Israeli leadership and society have not learnt from history that a geography of mass incarceration exists on borrowed time. Such as geography can never receive legitimacy, and hence cannot create security for the jailing side. On the contrary, instability and constant rebellions are likely to undermine the incarcerating regime itself.

Against the reality of mass incarceration, it may be advisable to listen to Mahmoud Darwish’s wise advise to his prison warden: “I shall still teach you how to wait/ at the gate of my postponed death/ slowly slowly/ perhaps you will have enough of me/ and will rid yourself of my cross/ and enter your night liberated/ from my ghostly shadow."

Returning Time to Gazans

Oren Yiftachel

[Prof. Oren Yiftachel teaches political geography and urban planning at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba]

The sights of death and destruction from Gaza are devastating, and the residents of southern Israel are under on-going bombardment. The situation is suffocating, saddening and infuriating. In such a time it may be difficult to look beyond the violence, but this may be necessary to understand what is transpiring in front of our eyes.

An aboriginal author once said, during the struggle for native rights in Australia: "wherever national territory advances, our time is killed, but it also has a strange habit of returning after death."

It may seem far removed, but this insight can help us fathom the war on Gaza. Beyond the carnage, brutality, and screaming children, we can also see it as the continuation of the Israeli territorial project which has adopted a consistent and cruel goal – the erasure of Palestinian time, that is, the full recent history of this land. This erasure, needless to say, is aimed at destroying Palestinian space, in what Palestinian professor Sari Hanafi calls ‘spaciocide’. With this destruction comes the annihilation of political powers, those existing by right, and not as a result of some Israeli 'generosity'.

Accordingly, one may look at the current invasion to Gaza not only as an 'operation' to stop Hamas' rockets; a pre-election effort to boost popularity by cynical Israeli leaders; nor an attempt to re-establish Israel's deterrence following the failure of the second Lebanon War of 2006. This invasion and destruction of Gaza is neither only a colonial attempt to 'create a new political order' among neighboring nations, or an imperial (American-Israeli) push to control insurgent Arab societies. The current attack on Gaza is of course all these, but also – and most importantly, another step in the long-standing project of silencing, fragmenting, breaking and annihilating Palestinian history and collective existence. The erasure project is conducted by nearly everybody in Israel – politicians, artists, the media, university researchers and intellectuals.

Against these efforts of collective forgetfulness, let us remember that history: the Gaza Strip is a small region covering only 1.7% of historic Palestine. It was created as an entity following the 1948 war, known as the Nakbah (Palestinian disaster), during which some two thirds of Palestinians refugees were driven out from what is now Israel, with 150,000 of them joining the 60,000 Arabs already residing in the area. The armistice lines were drawn between Israeli and Egypt, with the refugees trapped on the 'wrong side', and prevented from returning to their villages. In the meantime, Israel destroyed nearly all Arab villages from Jaffa to Beersheba, appropriated all Palestinian land and allocated it to the dozens of Jewish towns and settlements built around Gaza.

The refugee population in Gaza today amounts to more than a million (over two thirds of the Strip's population). Its spatial conditions have worsened dramatically, with overcrowding, poverty, lack of services and a growing regime of geographic constraints. Israel's conquest in 1967 eased for a while the sense of siege, but following the first Intifada, and further since the Oslo Agreement, Gaza was cordoned once more, cut off from the rest of the Palestinian Territories and the world, and surrounded in 1994 by a massive 'security fence', ironically as part of the 'peace process'. Gaza became a large Palestinian Ghetto, or as notable Gaza Eyad el-Sarraj quipped: "the largest jail in the world.".

This is the background for the rise of Hamas, which offered an alternative to the failed Oslo accords under which the promise to peace turned into a Palestinian 'Via Dolorosa'. Hamas refused to believe the promise of 'two states for two nations', which has become an empty slogan, enabling the endless continuation of Jewish settlement and Israeli colonial occupation. Hamas also gave voice and political weight for the refugees by appointing Ismail Haniya - - resident of the Shati Camp, as its first Prime Minister. This move was conducted against a corrupt Palestinian political elite, trapped within the Oslo framework, which prevented it from dealing with the refugee issue, thereby silencing again the recent history of this land.

True, the shelling of Israeli towns by Hamas should be condemned as an act of terror, and as a disastrous political strategy with grave consequences to the Palestinian people. But beyond this, we should understand it as a desperate attempt to remind the world, Israel, and even the Arab world, that the refugee problem is still alive – an open wound awaiting to be healed by the forces that created it -- first and foremost Israel.

Against this on-going cry, Israel typically decided to escape engaging with the issue, and is now conducting a campaign of state-sanctioned terror, against Gazan society. Hence the brutal violence that aims to divide, cut, kill and injure. But even tones of bombs and piles of 'cast lead' cannot silence the echo of history. Israel's mighty military power is weak politically and morally and will not prevent the return of native time, even after its pronounced death, as predicted by the Aboriginal author.

The moral is clear: the genuine cessation of violence must pass through the return of time to our public and political life, that is, the opening of a genuine debate over the history that created and maintained Gaza and other Palestinian ghettoes controlled violently by Israel. Without that, we may realize time and again that our enormous military power buys no genuine security. During such a debate, the refugee issue will be foremost on the agenda, but it will also have to engage with the Jews' own history of dislocation and disaster, and the making of a safe Jewish place in an Arab Middle East.

The return of Palestinian time, therefore, is necessary for the recognition of Jewish time, and for the two nations to find a way to coexist in their common homeland. Hence, we must replace territory with history as the core of Palestinian-Jewish engagement, and thereby enter, perhaps, a time of reconciliation.

A Look at the Uganda Situation: Conflict, Displacement and Return

Geetisha Dasgupta

Northern Uganda has for long suffered from internal conflicts resulting in huge number of displacements. The conflict stems from reasons long drawn: under the British, the north was the labour reserve for the plantations in the south. However, following independence, power in government was progressively consolidated among politicians of northern origin. This was due, partially, to the fact that most Ugandans have come to identify themselves with their ethnic group rather than with citizenship of the Ugandan nation state. Though most of Uganda has been pacified with the passage of time, places like Acholiland continue to remain outside the peace bubble. There have been displacements in Acholiland, Lango and Teso regions, especially in the Lira district.

Karamoja is one of the principal problem areas, where there is no one single identifiable reason for the skirmishes. The Karimojong have had long, intermittent, unpredictable conflicts amongst themselves. The principal cause however continues to be underdevelopment, perpetual poverty and insecurities. All these factors re-inforce each other. Lawlessness and human rights violation, food deficits, poor governance, break with traditional governance and inadequate consolidation with modern governing practices, unbridled arms sale, depletion of productivity, recurrent drought and famine, together with cultural, economic and social factors trigger the violence.

Until a few days ago, out-migration of Karimojong to neighbouring districts, specifically Pader, was reportedly on the increase, with substantial presences of Karimojong from Kotido District reported in the border sub-counties of Paimol, Lapono and Adilang of Pader District. Population movements now occurred even outside the habitual migration season, in December or January, when people move for work reasons. The primary reason cited for the increased out-migration at this unusual hour was hunger and the lack of food, or employment to earn money to buy food, within Karamoja. Authorities in Kacheri sub-county estimated that 2,000 people have left the sub-county for Pader, while estimates from Rengen sub-county suggest that over 1,000 people have left in a span of three months.

However, of late, improvements in the security situation in northern Uganda have allowed about half of the more than 1.8 million people who had been internally displaced by the conflict to return to their villages, while another quarter have moved to transit sites nearer to their homes. While the peace process has stalled due to the repeated failure by the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, to sign a Final Peace Agreement, the security situation in northern Uganda has much improved since the signing of a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement between the government of Uganda and the LRA in August 2006. Large numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) have already returned to their villages, while others are in the process of doing so.

For the detailed speech please click on the link:

http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/6F88DD668CF61CD2C125742C00523EDD?OpenDocument

Women Building Peace Between India and Pakistan. Edited by Shree Mulay and Jackie Kirk. Delhi :Anthem Critical Studies, 2007

Ishita Dey

This book weaves together some of the attempts that the women’s movements have worked towards building peace between one of the most sensitive borders in South Asia. Through a compilation of essays, the editors have attempted to situate and understand how women negotiate, challenge and questions the role women perform in war , as “mothers” both in India and Pakistan. In a nutshell it questions the stereotypes and dogmas that perpetuate “peace” as a “ temporal” concept and tries to link peace with justice, security of the people, position of women not in terms of role-performance but also in terms of their position in relation to nationalistic, religious and other dominant discourses. What is significant and departs from the existing writings on “peace” is the aspect of self –reflexivity and the rich ethnographic roots of the articles. It questions the traditional protests evoking the patriarchal kinship relations of mother, sister and brother specially in times of torture.

There is a need to move beyond victimization and as one of the articles in this volume on Kashmir conflict, Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal suggests that it is important to understand that activities like stripping, mutilating, amputing breasts, molesting and raping is about “male construction of sexuality , it is symbolic representation of “manhood” . Hence “rape” is one of the worst ways to “victimize” women ; to create “shame” leave them marginalized within and outside the group almost on the threshold and is “suffering” the will generate more meaningful dialogues across borders in the recent times.

Any discussion on peace building between India and Pakistan is left answered without addressing the concept of ‘Kasmiriyat’ ; a secular ethnic concept expounded by the Muslim ruler Zain-ul-Abdeen and popularized by a mystic Hindu woman Lal Ded, defining the relationship between the Hindu and the Muslim communities of the valley by this model. Reeta Chowdhari Tremblay in the essay on “Identity and Nationalism : Where are Women in Kashmiri Politics?” argues that though the concept of Kashmiriyat was popularized by a woman the state discourse of nationalism is devoid of any gendered understanding to define “Kasmiri nation”; thus concepts of community, region and religion has taken predominance over nationalist debate.

One constant thread that weaves the essays is the how the building of nation-state in South Asia is based on what Himani Banerjee calls masculinisation of demography; whereby constant attempts to cleanse ethnic and religious minority groups to create political spaces where demography overrides democracy is evident. This results in citizenship based not on rights but on various culturally constructed forms of belonging. According to Himani Banerjee, “the question of demography involving actualities of human reproduction entails the issue of women’s bodies as reproductive sites- and in relation to the Hindu right’s agenda in India, that of Muslim women’s bodies, especially of their reproductive parts”. It is against this background and context she locates the genocide of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.

Some essays reflect on the peace initiatives by women’s groups in Pakistan . Beena Sarwar and Shahid Fiaz in their respective essays discuss in detail about the various peace initiatives namely by Woman’s action Forum and other cross border civil society groups to address demilitarization, intolerance, globalization and Kashmir. Post Kargil there were various initiatives from both ends to continue civil society dialogue through “women’s peace bus” spearheaded by Gandhian Nirmala Despande which was received by Asma Jehangir. While on one hand these cultural exchanges uphold attempts to uphold the unity of the people most of these events as Beena Sarwar says go unreported and unnoticed.

It is significant in this context to understand the role of the media in both India and Pakistan. What do the popular media images portray, symbolize, represent about India – Pakistan relationship in Indian and Pakistan media? While Suhasini Mulay lays down the Indian perspective; through a overview of the popular media discourses on Pakistan in radio, TV and our cinema; Shireen Pasha argues for people to have correct access to information we need stringent media laws.

What follows from these essays is how are these steps significant in the context of peacebuilding efforts and understanding violence in South Asia. The essays by Chris Corin, Daya R Varma, Jackie Kirk and Shree Mulay provides a backdrop and context to the understanding of peace, “securitization” of peace efforts and legal interpretations of the same in their attempts to address the linkages between women, peace and security provided by the brilliant introductory essay on Canada and United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, peace and security which foregrounds the human security approach from a gendered perspective to understand the root causes of conflict. UNSCR 1325 is path breaking and a model for advocacy groups who are working on peace and security agenda.

On the Margins of Citizenship: Cooper’s Camp in Nadia

Ishita Dey

In this essay, we will try to understand one of the unique refugee experience of the Indian Subcontinent; partition refugees through the lens of the transition of one of the largest transit camps “Cooper’s camp” in Nadia District. This essay will reflect on “ the processes and practices by which specific images, meanings, and identities of the refugee have been historically produced, differentiated from other subjectivities, institutionalized, and deployed as effective resources of and for practices of statecraft”.

On 11 March 1950 Cooper’s Camp was established by the West Bengal Government. It was one of the largest transit camps in West Bengal. The camp offered a basic medical facility in the form of Cooper’s general hospital and it functioned till 1977.Acording to Tushar Sinha ( 1999), despite being one of the largest transit camps, which once functioned as a military base had the basic infrastructural facilities of housing people. The lighting facility of the camp was limited to 18 petromax and 1000 hurricane. For every 750 people there were 40 tubewells. The camp was full of open latrines and open drainage system which was hazaradous and was responsible for the decline in health among camp residents. From 21 March 1950 the camp was supported by the central Government. By this time 126 people died after suffering from cholera. On 3 April, 1950, J P Narayan visited the camp.

Gouranga Das’s family was of the 22 families who arrived in Coopers in 1950. Cooper’s Camp was divided into several blocks and huts for administrative purposes. Each resident was registered in the relief office and was registered in the “Ranaghat transit centre records” according to his Ration Card No, Date of admission and Name and family details. After this classification, the displaced was allocated a Hut which had to be shared and Block number.

“We had read in the newspaper about Cooper’s Camp. I was among the first twenty two refugee families to reach the camp. The camp started functioning on 11 March 1950. There were some tents, shops along the railwayline and langarkhana. We were served rice, dal, wheat, clothes and financial assistance of Rs 1.

My family was forced to migrate to West Bengal in 1949. I was eighteen years old. In 1948 Communist Party of India (undivided) was banned. I belong to Sheyalguni village of the Barishal District. We first took a boat from our village to Barishal and then we boarded a steamer and there were 2000-3000 families who migrated with us. We are issued a border slip at Benapole border.

The air of Benapole was filled with dirt and death. But at every step we felt that we will go back. Shree Guru Sangha had set up a camp near the border and various places for refugee. There were various welfare organizations who were organizing relief camps. From Bongaon we reached Sealdah station and stayed there for nearly fifteen days. Almost Lakhs of people were stranded there. We were served free food (rice, dal and vegetable curry) in make shift langarkhana( adjacent to platform No. 8 ) by Marwari Relief Society. We thought it’s a temporary phase. Specially our forefathers believed that we will return to our “desh”/ “homeland”.

There were communal outbreaks at various points of time but the worst of the riots took place in late 1948. Every year we used to celebrate Durga Puja and we had huge brass cooking vessels which were used to cook food during festivals. When the riots broke, we used these brass cooking vessels filled with water for defense purposes. We adopted various tactics to save ourselves from the onslaught of the rioters. When the rioters attacked we often splashed water all over the house to save our lives. When the rioters attacked our house and burned down our puja mandap; we had managed to run away. We were not attacked by anybody. We left our house in the night.

By 1951, one lakh people poured in refugee camp. The refugee movement began as protest against bad quality of food grains that used to be served. Often stale wheat, rice and dal were served. Alorani Dutta died due to lack of medical help. Dijen Dutta organized the movement with the support 70000-80,000 people in Coopers Camp, 25000 in Rupashree pally , 30000 from women’s camp.

The first martyr of refugee movement of 1950 was Paresh Das, resident of 7 No. Godown. From 1950-52 refugee movement subsided after his killing. People were scared.

On 18 Oct, 1952,144 No. House , Jatin Saha and Ratish Mullick spearheaded the refugee movement. Jatin Saha opened up a tea shop and in his tea shop the communist newspaper “Swadhinata” was available for public reading. The tea shop was the base that Jatin Saha used to initiate a communist movement in Coopers Camp. Jatin Saha also distributed leaflets in the night among the refugee households.

In 1952, we planned our communist struggle in 174 No House, G Block currently Ward No. 11. We had twenty one party members. We initiated the refugee movement in the Cooper’s Camp. One of the main demands of the refugee movement was to recognize Cooper’s as industrial colony and B.C. Ray did recognize Cooper’s under the urban scheme. Other demands were to improve the quality and increase the quantity of food grain “doles”. One of the mistakes of the refugee movement I feel was our decision regarding rehabilitation in Dandakaranya and Nainital. People who settled in Nainital are better off. Their land is of much worth than ours. Our slogan was “Lathi khabo, guli kahbo kintu banglar Baire Jabo Naa”. We never wanted to be rehabilitated outside West Bengal. We could never think of being settled anywhere else.

After 1954 when passports were introduced, there was huge influx of refugee population. In 1971 with the formation of Bangladesh, Central Government offered relief to the refugees”.

From his narrative we can deduce some common refugee experiences and their transit points. People came with the hope that this is a temporary phase and once things settle down they are going to return. The bordering Nadia District of West Bengal mainly, Benapole and Darshana were the entry points. What is also evident that before the refugees shifted to Government camps they stayed primarily at Sealdah station . There are several accounts relating to the refugee situation in Sealdah station. In one of the newspaper reports in Amrita Bazaar Patrika also quoted in Prafulla K. Chakrabarti’s work, the station is described as dumping ground of people from the eastern border.

As soon as they arrive, they are given inoculation against cholera and such other diseases. Then they are assigned a shelter camp by an officer of the Relief and Rehabilitation Department. An area of 39/ 39 square feet has been designated for the refugees to use before they are transferred to refugee camps. The report mentions that a group of five to six thousand men, women and children had access to three taps for drinking water. Apart from drinking water, there were two latrines for women and about 12 latrines for men.

So what we see here is that the “refugee” is uprooted from his state and is forced to live life in make shift arrangements under most inhuman circumstances. It is at this critical juncture we are left to ponder whether or not “Right to life” is an individual question or a political question? Political responses to the mass displacement has always tried to “negotiate” with the “refugee” who is a stateless, and immediate efforts to classify, regiment this stateless figure by the newly adopted state one hand is embedded in the notion of “care” and on the other is trying to make space for the refugee through statecraft. The earlier one is regimented the better.

These circumstances led to a very active refugee movement within cooper’s camp which initially began with protesting against bad quality of food grains specially rice, dal and wheat flour which was often stale. The refugee movement within Cooper’s was organized by the people who were devoted Communist party activist even when the party was banned in 1948. Gouranga Das proudly informs that he used to work as a messenger to communicate to other workers about meetings. Another cooper’s camp resident informed even in late 1970s the communist party activity was secret in nature and orientation.

On 6 July 1956, Central Government Minister Mr. Arunchandra Guha visited the camp and the camp residents were prevented from presenting their deputation before him. There was police lathi charge and in protest of that there was a public demonstration organized by Nadia District chapter of Bastuhara Parishaad. Police firing was a frequent feature in Cooper’s Camp. On 16 July 1956, police organized a combing operation in Cooper’s and arrested 44 protesters of which 7 were women. Various noted left refugee actvists were arrested. On 11 August, 1956 under the leadership of Amritendu Mukhopadhyay, a protest meeting was organized to release 44 activists which was attended by 5000 people. From 1957, a separate demand was placed before the Government- to recognize and carry out reform activities to convert Coopers into an industrial township. The police declared this meeting as illegal. By early 60’s there was a change in the demands of the refugee movement in itself and one of the prime reasons was the winding up process of various camps.

The West Bengal government Relief and Rehabilitation Directorate initiated a study on the relief and rehabilitation of displaced persons in West Bengal and the report was published in 1957. According to this report, the findings suggested that there were certain camps like coopers which have a large number of refugees and an attempt is being made to convert them into townships”. Various rehabilitation alternatives and schemes were laid down. The Government decided to shut down the transit camps by 1951.After the disbursal to rehabilitation centres in 1949, there was a sudden wave of migration in 1950-51 which swelled the number to 360769. At this time there was a decision to close down all the camps by March 1951 as a result of which camp families were dispersed to rehabilitation sites and the camp population came down to 80000 by the end of 1951.
The next phase of Refugee movement within Cooper’s Camp is to be understood against the following backdrop of the findings of the reports on rehabilitation and economic opportunities. Cooper’s Camp of Nadia district is treated as one of the ex-camp sites. In 1961, The Government asked the refugees in all relief camps either to move to Dandakaranya for rehabilitation or to leave camps on receiving 6 months cash doles. In September 1961 about 10000 families were left in campsites. The Government had already closed the camps. Not only the camp benefits such as doles, medical and educational facilities were withdrawn but even tubewells for drinking water was withdrawn by the Indian nation-state. This marked another phase in the refugee discourse and statecraft. The emphasis of refugee discourse changed from refugee care to economic rehabilitation as the perfect solution to the refugee problem. The Committee of Review of Rehabilitation work in West Bengal appointed by Government of India in 1981 report revealed that 45,000 displaced persons are living at 74 ex-camp sites. Around this time in Cooper’s Camp there were 1068 families awaiting rehabilitation of which 387 were ex-camp site families.

Since 1956 there was a growing concern among the displaced population for the available economic livelihoods and resources in Cooper’s Camp. The then Chief Minister of West Bengal Dr. Bidhan Chandra Ray in a written statement had promised to develop Coopers into an industrial township. This promise was a ray of hope for most of the families who stopped receiving financial assistance or doles from Government after 1961. The camp residents lived with the hope that they will receive proper economic rehabilitation through the development of small cottage industry and spinning industry in RIC scheme. Most of the refugees were waiting for almost 20-22 years in Coopers Camp for economic rehabilitation. Community Party of India Activist Ashok Chakraborty observed 10 days hunger strike in 10 June, 1978 and again in 19 October, 1981 to appeal for economic rehabilitation and securitisation of livelihood.

The hunger strike was called to declare Coopers Camp as a notified area and to appeal to the government for industrial development as most of the persons had no source of income after the Government ceased to support any refugee apart from those in Permanent Liability camps. There was also an appeal to recognize the marketplace and to renovate the Cooper’s Hospital. The Cooper’s hospital the protesters claimed was suffering from adequate doctors, nurse and medicine and thus the people from Coopers had to travel some miles to reach the general hospital.

The demands of the Communist Party of India according to party pamphlet were: -

1. Government should restart the scheme of doles for the 385 families who refused to rehabilitate in Dandakaranya and encourage small cottage industry, which will help in economic rehabiliation. Increase in loan assistance for the rehabilitable families from Rs 10000-Rs 15000 and single unit family should receive Rs 10000. Coopers Rupashreepally Women’s Camp residents should be rehabilitated after proper planning.
2. The government should immediately live up to its promise of declaring Kirtinagar Colony, Coopers Urban (RIC), Colony, Rupashree, Women’s Camp and Coopers should be given the recognition of Cooper’s Camp notified Area. The Government should also initiate a spinning mill in RIC industrial area, it should take steps to re-open the ceramic industry as it will meet the demands of increasing unemployment figures among the youth and old in camps.
3. The cooper’s camp hospital should be renovated. It should introduce specialized departments. 100 beds should be introduced in the hospital. A new Secondary Girls School should be established and the Coopers Junior School should be upgraded to Senior Secondary School and appeal to establish 5-6 primary schools in RIC colony, Rupashree Colony and Coopers.

According to Gouranga Das, “Cooper’s Camp never saw the light of industrial development. In the name of RIC, land was traded between the central and state Government and leased out to private players. This did not survive for along time”. The struggle from Cooper’s Camp to Cooper’s camp Notified area was marked with violence, killing, Panchayat vote boycott. Finally after several years of vote boycott under the Nagarik Committee, which was comprised of all party leadership Cooper’s camp was declared as a Coopers camp Notified Area in 1997. Coopers Camp Notified Area has a separate municipality and people who dreamt of an “industrial township” are yet to see any industries in Coopers even after its fight for autonomy.

Infact residents across ex-camp sites are the “most distressed refugee population in West Bengal”.

The main emphasis on refugee rehabilitation in Cooper’s is issue of Free Hold Title Deed; under which the land allotted to a family cannot be sold for ten years and under certain circumstances like marriage of a girl child, diseases like cancer, AIDS and any unforeseen nature of financial hardship the family has to seek permission from RR& R directorate to sell the land. The status report on refugee rehabilitation in Ranaghat subdivision till 25.2.2008 reveals:-

Total land involved 3280.3 acres
Total no. of deeds (large) to be distributed 16001+(8)
Total no. of deeds already distributed as on 31.03.06 14,205+(8)
Target Fixed for 2007-2008 200
Number of deeds already for registration 100
(Source: Sub divisional OfficeRecords of Ranaghat Subdivision)

Coopers Camp Notified Area Municipality was formed in 1997. For administrative purposes it has been divided into 12 wards. According to 2001 census, there are 17,555 people of which 51% males and 49% females live in Coopers. Almost 70-75% of the camp residents belong to the scheduled castes. According to census data of 2001, 13,533 people belong to SC and 18 people to ST. There is a higher secondary school in Cooper’s camp and there are several primary schools in a number of Wards. The primary school in Ward No 6 houses is one of the largest primary schools. Most of the boys stay away from the school to lend a helping hand in teashops.

These measures demonstrate the changing attitude of the Indian state towards the refugees. The refugee experience of economic development and economic rehabilitation at Cooper’s Camp of West Bengal is an illustration of the state responsibility towards refugees- who were seen as a problem. The constant emphasis to wind up homes and camps across the state speak about the fact that “ refugee problem” is a thing of the past whereas the rehabilitation schemes merely encouraged a shelter and self-employment. In places such as Cooper’s where most of the people are unemployed and women have taken to bidi making and men in adhoc jobs like carpentry it remains a far-fetched dream of Coopers to transform into an “ industrial township”.

A New Report to Understand Urban Displacement

To complement the Guidance on Profiling Internally Displaced Persons, in 2006 IDMC commissioned a study from the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University to develop research tools to estimate the number and distribution of IDPs living in urban settings, and to gather information about their assistance and protection needs. Case studies conducted in Khartoum (Sudan), Abidjan (Côte d’Ivoire) and Santa Marta (Colombia) between 2006 and 2008 compared the experience of IDPs and other living in the same city.

Please click on the link given on the right column for detailed report
(http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004BE3B1/(httpInfoFiles)/7F6CD51212CC958EC12574DB003F8F56/$file/Urban%20displacement%20May%202008%20-%20Seminar%20report.pdf)

Appeal for $ 17 Million to Help Pakistani Government

UNHCR has appealed for $17 million to help the Pakistani government bring aid to more than 300,000 people displaced by fighting and floods near the Afghan border. Pakistan’s government estimates that 90,000 people who had fled recent fighting remain in North West Frontier Province along the Afghan border, with a similar number displaced due to conflict in the northern part of the province around Swat. In addition, floods have displaced some 84,000 people in August.

(For the detailed news pl. click on the link in the right hand column
(http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004D31AA/(httpIDPNewsAlerts)/0C26CE9E6D565DE5C12574CF0057CA5A?OpenDocument)

On 21 September 2008, Thousands of Tamil Sri Lankans were Ordered to Register

Thousands of mostly Tamil Sri Lankans who had fled from the country’s war zones to Colombo and its suburbs were ordered to register by Sri Lankan authorities on 21 September. The order applies to all those who fled five war-affected districts in the last five years and comes as the army intensifies an offensive against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels in the north. People arriving from the north have long had to register with police when they move to Colombo, but last week the police said that they needed to update their records to ensure security in the capital and that all the people who have made the move in the last five years must register again. The police said earlier that the order would affect more than 100,000 people.

For the detailed news pl. click on the link in the right hand column
(http://www.internal-displacement.org/8025708F004D31AA/(httpIDPNewsAlerts)/0C26CE9E6D565DE5C12574CF0057CA5A?OpenDocument)

Women and Migration in Asia: Volume IV ; Migrant Women and Work edited by Anuja Agrawal;Series Editor: Meenakshi Thapan

Geetisha Dasgupta

Familial gender based division of labour has been produced and reproduced even after women migrated out of the private spaces and tried joining the mainstream workforce. While states have benefited from the remittances sent by women migrant workers from across the globe, they also continued blaming the “absent mothers”, and never actually acknowledging the economic benefits effected by women on the same scale of regard as that sent by men. A woman’s dilemma continues to be one of earning a good livelihood for her family and her children and that of being present there for taking care of them personally by remaining with the family.

In the series introduction, Meenakshi Thapan begins by familiarizing us with the theme of the Conference, from where this book series comes up. She comments, it is time that we go beyond characterizing women as a part of the baggage when men move and reckon the fact that women can, and all over the world, do move from one place to another as independent migrants. Even when women move in tandem with the principal or male migratory in the family, they have a completely independent set of experiences to share and their coping mechanism is also unique to their gender identity. They are individuals with characteristic subscriptions and judgments, and that is evident from their adjusting processes.

Movement opens up a plethora of choices. With the challenges of settling and setting up in a new land, there definitely comes chances to explore, there come encounters that could make life better or worse. Therefore, migration, though generally conceived of as a misfortune, is often taken with the hopes of a better life in an unseen world altogether. Thapan quotes from Jolly Bell and Narayanswamy to remind us that Asia sends out the maximum number of international migrants and every year the number of women migrants have been on a rise. Despite that, women have not been given equal status as migrants; let apart the recognition of their individual agency. Visa policies and work permit rules bear this contention out.

Women migrate both associationally, i.e., for marriage or with the family; as well as independent agents, i.e., for work etc. In the volume introduction, Anuja Agrawal picks up from that point by commenting that when studying in terms of destination and work options, the individual mode of migration sets off interesting patterns of societal displacement in course of the transition from the parent to the host community. For example, one of the papers shows, the global increase in demand for domestic labour is a major factor in the feminization of migration. Sexual division of labour, hitherto restricted more or less within the private quarters, is thereby carried forward to the public space. It becomes paid work, but only when the requisite amount of displacement in terms of work station has occurred. Agrawal quotes Ehrenreich and Hochschild and says that there comes about a revival of domestic work for women, but is responsive only to a ‘care deficit’ in the developed countries, which in turn gives birth to a similar kind of deficit in the parent communities. Back home, these women might hire domestic workers for themselves. In the process, ethnic and class divisions merge as certain occupations become the mark of some ethnic identities.

There are interesting viewpoints, especially about cases of countries like Philippines, Japan, Singapore, the Middle East or Bangladesh that prefer sending or receiving for particular purposes. For example, Japan had a steady demand of women entertainers, specifically for filling up as prostitutes or courtesans. Philippines offered its women for these professions, which later drew much criticism from both the sending and the receiving countries. Filipino women went to Japan under tourist visa to provide such services. Gulati, in her chapter explains, this kind of demand sprung from a decay in the Japanese tradition of ‘geisha’s and Japanese men’s age old habit of seeking release from work pressure by indulging in sexual entertainment; so much so that, Japanese embassy in Philippines came up with the idea of introducing a special short term entertainer’s visa. Gulati further pints out that certain states take exporting workers as an industry altogether. For example, the Governments of Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka encourage migration of women workers for the same reason for which they encourage male migration, viz., source of foreign remittances and maintaining a pressure valve internationally.

Parvati Raghuram, in her chapter called “Gendering Medical Migration: Asian Women Doctors In The UK”, says, while most Asian women labour migrants move to take up jobs as domestic workers, sex workers and nurses, professions that are defined by notions of feminity, there are many who move to take part in the less feminized sectors of the labour market, such as Information Technology, where gender exclusivity and male domination are the standard norms. Such highly skilled migration has received much less attention than its other counterparts. Collating and analyzing secondary data available from the Department of Health, The Medical Workforce Standing Advisory Committee and the General Medical Council, the British Medical Association and several other individual sources, health consultants and international recruitment consultants, she reveals that in spite of increasing feminization of labour force and women forming sizeable section of UK’s medical force, women never came up to be a recognized as such in the current literature, for it falls between the interstices between the debates on female migration, women and medicine and medical migration.

In a very interesting chapter, Anuja Agrawal discusses the case of the Bedia community in north India. She explains how prostitution is one of the pivotal preconceptions of women’s migration for work. Women engaged in flesh trade have had to move away from their families. While the family would not acknowledge the kinship relation with the prostitute, economic benefits are accepted, often in a camouflaged manner. Agrawal discusses familial factors in the Bedia community that facilitate the women to go for prostitution. This community is largely dependent on the earning of the female members who make a living out of prostitution. Commercial prostitution is an accepted way of survival and even the entire family is seen to migrate to urban areas temporarily for that purpose. The Bedia community that Agrawal studies, show a classic case where the family members reside in situ of prostitution is carried out by the female members and therefore bears evidences of critical conditions of familial adjustments.

The book provokes interesting thought bubbles for both first time encounterers with the theme of women’s migration as well as those who would like to have an overview studies into women’s migration for work. However, there is an over focus on some countries like Philippines or Thailand while some others also needed to be discussed in more detail, like Bangladesh or Pakistan. The book is a pleasure to read for its quality of propelling the reader to study in greater detail about women in migration.