Human Trafficking in [India Street Children in [India] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [India] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the first ten years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2009
India is a source, destination, and transit country for
men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and
commercial sexual exploitation. Internal forced labor may constitute India's
largest trafficking problem; men, women, and children in debt bondage are
forced to work in industries such as brick kilns, rice mills, agriculture,
and embroidery factories. Although no comprehensive study of forced and
bonded labor has been carried out, some NGOs estimate this problem affects
tens of millions of Indians. Those from India’s most disadvantaged social
economic strata are particularly vulnerable to forced or bonded labor and sex
trafficking. Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the
purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage. Children are
also subjected to forced labor as factory workers, domestic servants,
beggars, and agricultural workers. - U.S.
State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009
[full country
report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** One wishes the circumstances were the same, but they seldom are. How does one equate a girl lured away from a village in Meghalaya to a brothel in Delhi with the one pushed into beedi-binding by her own parents just so there is enough money to feed all the mouths in the family? Or a boy thrown into the laps of paedophiliac foreign tourists in Goa with one who runs away from starvation and poverty at home, to be picked up and employed by a brick-kiln owner who gives him a paltry daily wage and lunch? Which arm of the State — women and child development, labour, police, or home affairs if there is border-crossing — has failed to do its job in each of these cases, and which is responsible for ensuring that the trafficked person gets a livelihood and a respectable life? This is why trafficking is such a
tricky crime in developing countries with their many areas of darkness. In Haryana, for instance, where it is acceptable to destroy
female foetuses and kill baby girls, young women
are trafficked from Bengal and the Northeast and forced into marriage to keep
the family line going. How does one, in the absence of a complaint from the
girl or her family, initiate criminal proceedings against those who claim the
girl as their daughter-in-law? Police rescue trafficking suspect from mob fury Police on Tuesday rescued a former employee of a Bhubaneswar-based placement agency facing charges of trafficking youths from this region to Malaysia from a frenzied mob in Nikiraia village, 15 km from here. The villagers gave vent to their anger as about four youths from the area reportedly enslaved in Malaysia since their departure three months back. The mob badly beat up Sunil Das and held him captive in the village. The irate mob pounced on him demanding the refund of money that the Malaysia bound youths had paid to the placement agency, police said. A Dalit youth from this part of the state had undergone a two-month-long nightmarish ordeal in Malaysia and escaped from the clutches of a well-knit human trafficking racket, bringing to the fore the harrowing plight of a number of unemployed local youths still stranded in Malaysia in their quest for greener pastures. The Enslavement Of Dalit And Indigenous Communities In India, Nepal And Pakistan Through Debt Bondage [PDF] www.antislavery.org/homepage/resources/goonesekere.pdf At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] SUMMARY - This paper describes the gross
and continuing violation of the rights of millions of people in ***
ARCHIVES *** CHILDLINE
- Toll Free Call 1098 - Night & Day CHILDLINE reaches out to all children in
need of care and protection such as: street children, child labourers, children who have been abused, child victims
of flesh trade, differently-abled children, child
addicts, children in conflict with the law, children in institutions,
mentally challenged children, HIV/AIDs infected
children, children affected by conflict and disaster, child political
refugees, children whose families are in crises. Delhi Govt. Started the toll free 'Youth Phone service’ 1-800-11-6888 The Government of Delhi running
the 'youth' helpline named Yuva Phone line in
Delhi. The counsellors are available round the
clock on toll free no 1800116888. The
helpline is specially for students. Website
to track missing children launched Anyone who has lost their child
can post a message on this website and a search will be set in motion
simultaneously in 40 cities in the country.
Launched by Don Bosco National Forum for
Youth at Risk in association with UNICEF, www.missingchildsearch.net will be closely watched and
monitored by child welfare organisations in all
major cities in the country and a search will be generated immediately. The
Don Bosco National Forum for Youth at Risk is a major
partner of Childline India Foundation and extends
service to hundreds of children who are victims of war, conflict, natural
calamities, sexual exploitation, trafficking and HIV/AIDS. They also take
care of street and working children. U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Bonded or forced child labor is a problem and exists in several
industries. Recent reports indicate
that the practice exists in carpet manufacturing and silk weaving. Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – Within the country, women from economically depressed areas often moved to cities seeking greater economic opportunities, and once there they were often forced by traffickers into prostitution. In many cases, family members sold young girls into prostitution. Extreme poverty, combined with the low social status of women, often resulted in parents handing over their children to strangers for what they believed was employment or marriage. In some instances, parents received payments or the promise that their children would send wages back home. According to the Boys, often as young as age four were trafficked to the
Middle East or the Persian Gulf as jockeys in camel races, and many boys
ended up as beggars in Saudi Arabia during Hajj (pilgrimage). The majority of
such children worked with the knowledge of their parents, who received $200 (Rs. 9,300) for their child's labor. Many children were
kidnapped for forced labor, with kidnappers earning approximately $150 (Rs. seven thousand) per month from the labor of each
child. The child's names were usually added to the passport of a Bangladeshi
or female citizen who already had a visa for the Gulf. Girls and women were
trafficked to the Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2004 [74] The Committee welcomes the
ratification of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)
Convention on Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for
Prostitution; the adoption of a plan of action to combat trafficking and
commercial sexual exploitation of women and children; the initiative to
undertake a study, inter alia, to collect data on the number of children and
women who become victims of sexual exploitation and trafficking; and the
Pilot Projects to Combat Trafficking of Children for Commercial Sexual
Exploitation in Destination and Source Areas, but remains concerned that the
Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1986 does not define trafficking and limits
its scope to sexual exploitation. In addition, the Committee expresses its
concern at the increasing number of child victims of sexual exploitation,
including prostitution and pornography. Concern is also expressed at the
insufficient programs for the physical and psychological recovery and social
reintegration of child victims of such abuse and exploitation. actioncenter.polarisproject.org/the-frontlines/survivor-testimonies/38-testimonies/56-testimony-of-anita
I felt very scared that evening
and I refused to eat anything. I soon noticed that many men were coming in
and out of the house and I realized it was a brothel. I began howling and
shouting. I said that I wanted to leave. Renu Lama
told me that I was ignorant. She said that I did not just come easily and I
could not go easily. She said that I had been bought and I would have to work
as a prostitute in order to pay them back. On the fourth day that I was in
the brothel, my first client came to me. I refused to have sex with him. He
had already paid so he grabbed me and tried to rape me. I fought him off. He
had managed to get my clothes off but he was very frustrated because I was
resisting him so much. He stormed out and asked for his money back. A couple
of the brothel owners (voluntary prostitutes) came in and beat me. When they
were done, the same man came back in. Some of my associates overheard
the owners saying that they were also planning to sell me to a brothel in Sarat because I was too much trouble. I decided that I
could not wait until the boy returned from Nepal. I had to try again to run
away. I asked some of the other girls to run with me, but they were too
afraid. We had been told that we would be killed if we tried to run away. But
I had determined that I would rather die than stay in the brothel. The other
girls pooled their money together and came up with two hundred rupees. In
exchange for the 200 rupees, I promised that if I made it out alive, I would
get help for them. Bangla aiding NE human trafficking www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=mar2809/at09 The Director General of Assam
Police GM Srivastava today stated that neighbouring countries, especially Bangladesh, continue
to fuel the growth of human trafficking cases in the Northeast, particularly
Assam. “There have been many instances where we have seen that professional
human traffickers from Bangladesh after marrying a girl from a remote area in
the State elopes back home and after keeping her in the neighbouring
country for some time, finally sells her to brothels in metros of India,” said
Srivastava, adding that the number of duped girls,
who are being duped by this racket of human traffickers, is increasing in the
State. Attributing the rise of human
trafficking cases in the region to poverty and the simplicity of the people
here, the Assam Police chief stressed on the need for an attitudinal change
amongst the people to wipe out the menace from the society. Indian
workers' struggle shines light on human trafficking, slave labor The plight of immigrant Indian
workers who were deceived into virtual slavery has brought attention to the
vile practice of human trafficking.
Indian workers protest slave-like conditions before the Department of
Justice, Washington, D.C., June 11.
The workers took jobs with Signal International to work on the U.S.
Gulf Coast following the devastation of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The
Indian workers were told they would receive "green cards," allowing
them permanent legal residence in the United States. Many who left their
families behind in search of better wages had been told they would be able to
bring their relatives. The promises
were all lies. Instead of receiving permanent legal status, the workers—who
had paid fees of up to $20,000 to Signal—received 10-month H-2B temporary
worker visas. The workers were
essentially trapped, and their employers knew it. Their documents were stolen
and wages were withheld. For all practical purposes, slavery had returned to
Louisiana. Prostitution thriving on teenagers in northeast howrah.org/top_story/14415.html The contents of this article had
appeared under a different title and may possibly still be accessible [here]
All is not well with children in In addition, the report also
states that most of the children are victims of acute physical torture.
"They are initially raped and flogged almost to death to take up the
profession," the report said.
Almost half of the child prostitutes were from Assam, followed by Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh, said Sarma.
Some of the victims were also sold to brothels in Mumbai, Pune
and Ahmedabad.
"We have reports that sheikhs from the Middle East are also
buying northeastern girls from these brothels. Also, trafficking gangs from
Southeast Asian countries are taking a keen interest in the girls because of
their Mongoloid features," Sarma said. CBI
goes after foster parents in child racket The case had originated on the
basis of complaints from parents about missing children. One of them, the
child of Kathiravel and Nagamani,
pavement-dwellers in Pulianthope, had been
allegedly kidnapped and sold to a Dutch couple. Similarly, the four-year-old child of
Sylvia, a woman from Otteri, was kidnapped from an
auto and sold to a couple in Australia. Another couple from the city had lost
their one-and-a-half-year old child, who was traced to the US. The racket was busted in the city
in the first week of May 2005 after the Otteri
police received specific information about kidnapping of children in and
around Otteri.
The police team then started investigations and arrested seven people
identified as Varadharajan, Sheikh Dawood, Navjeen, Sabeera, Manoharan, Salima and K.T. Dawood. They subsequently
traced the racket to an illegal adoption agency, Malaysian Social Service,
which had kidnapped street children and sold them to foreigners after forging
certificates. The case was subsequently transferred to the Crime Branch. - htsc Child
trafficking could become rampant in state unless tackled urgently, feels
activist Every year thousands
are trafficked across India for a variety of reasons including sexual
exploitation, bonded labour, organ transplantation,
adoption, coerced marriage etc. Women and children are particularly
vulnerable to human trafficking and in Manipur child trafficking appears to
be a growing epidemic. Though the number of cases are rising, the state
government has failed to take any measures Anee Mangsatabam, the chairman of Child Welfare Committee told
IFP. Various NGOs and organisations of the state who are working to prevent
human trafficking in the state, have said that due to lack of funds and other
reasons they were unable to take any action against the traffickers. Assam human
trafficking: A startling revelation! Every year thousands of tea tribe
girls are lured by people and taken to different parts of India, to work as
slave and in most of the cases they lands up in brothels. Those who are
forced into sex work, or who are vulnerable to sexual exploitation as
domestic labourers, are particularly at risk of
sexually transmitted infections, including HIV, and unwanted pregnancy. The plight of the women from this
community has remained unheard and unattended, since ages and they are have
no other options but to migrate and to follow the people who lure them and assure
them good jobs out side the state. - htcp Punjab
girls' NRI dream turns nightmare Every year thousands of Punjabis fly
to foreign lands for employment and better future. But for some, this dream
turns sour as they are cheated by travel agents and given false assurances. It was the last thing her father, Gurdev Singh, expected to hear. He had sold land and took loans to pay Rs eight lakh to a travel agent
for her job in London. But she ended up in Ukraine where she was forced into
prostitution. "We ran away and sought help
from a lady in Ukraine and narrated my entire story and told her that my
travel agent took away my passport and travel documents. With her help, I was
able to contact my family," added Manjit Kaur. The scourge of
human trafficking in India When Mona was 13 years, her mother
died and her father remarried. The stepmother was uncomfortable with Mona and
wanted to send her away for some job, where she would be able to look after
herself. Along came a ”contractor” who arranged jobs for youngsters as
domestic help, etc. He paid a certain sum of money to the stepmother and took
Mona to a town far away. He got her a job in a massage parlour as a ‘receptionist’. Even before Mona got to know
the work profile, she realized that she had been trapped into sexual
exploitation. She had become a sexual slave to the ‘customers’ who
frequented the place for full-body massage. Ravi promises support to Indian trafficking victims in US About 100 Indian victims of human
trafficking in the US have found support from Overseas Indian Affairs
Minister Vayalar Ravi who
has promised all help. The workers,
who Wednesday quit working for Signal International at Pascagoula shipyard in
Mississippi, met in New Orleans, Louisiana, Saturday to discuss their course
of action, said Stephen Boykewich, a media
spokesperson for the New Orleans Workers' Centre for Racial Justice that is
helping them. The workers were
recruited by Dewan Consultants of Mumbai, and brought
by Signal, a marine construction company, to the US over a year ago and made
to live and work in abysmal conditions. 'Dr Kidney'
arrest exposes Indian organ traffic The arrest of "Doctor
Kidney" Amit Kumar for running a sizeable
racket in live kidneys has highlighted the role that South Asia plays as the
hub of an international trade in human organs. A sophisticated but unregulated healthcare
industry, a "donor pool" of desperately poor people ready to sell a
kidney, and a corrupt monitoring system have combined to create a special
brand of "medical tourism" in the region, especially in India and
neighboring Pakistan. Kumar is accused of luring poor
laborers to his "hospital" in the New Delhi suburb of Gurgaon with promises of job offers or large sums of
money. Typically, they were promised 300,000 rupees (US$7,500) but paid only
30,000 ($750) after the surgery, police said.
He is alleged to have conducted more than 500 transplants over an
unspecified period, charging up to $50,000 dollars for each operation.
Investigators say his patients came from Britain, the United States, Turkey,
Nepal, Dubai, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Saddam said, "Our parents face severe hardships in making both ends meet due to abject poverty. Sagir took advantage of this and one day he came to our house and offered to 'help' the family by ensuring education for us. Gaining our parents' confidence and consent, Sagir brought us to Nagpur." He added, "When we arrived in the city, Sagir took us to his zari embroidery unit in Farooq Nagar, near Teka Naka. He forced us to work in the embroidery unit. We used to work right from 8 am to 2 am, and he (Sagir) used to pay us a very meagre Rs 15 to Rs 20 per week." New
cases on human trafficking Trafficking of poor girls by
unscrupulous persons or gangs along the Indo-Nepal border here is common, but
local people were shocked to know that a father sold his daughter and a
husband sold his young wife for money. West
Bengals sex workers remarkable fight against HIV To stop human trafficking in sex
trade, a self-regulatory board has been established by the sex workers. The board works as a filter and it checks
whether the new girl joining the trade is an adult or a minor. This board
also tries to find out if any new girl joining the profession is under any
pressure to do so. This has been very
successful way to check human trafficking, police raids have also reduced
considerably, said Swapna Gayen,
who too is a sex worker in Sonagachi for over two
decades. Is Christmas
really Merry for Indian Children? The much-hyped policy against
child labour has shown little results. In Shahpur village in Vaishali
district in Bihar, children were being used as beasts of burden. But the
mindset of people was such that, none of them wanted to help those children.
The boys were being used instead of bullocks for ploughing
the land and the land under question belongs to the minister for rural
development Raghuvansh Prasad’s brother Raghuraj Singh. Child labour
right under the nose of the ministry! Children under the age of 14 are
forced to work in glass, fireworks, and most commonly, carpet-making
factories. India has the largest number of uneducated children in the world.
We boast of abysmal numbers, with 75 million children suffering from
malnutrition and more than a 100 million being uneducated. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, the Mid Day meal scheme have not shown the
desirous results yet, with 70 per cent dropout rate of children before the
10th standard. Trafficking
victim awaits permanent home Abandoned at the Gurgaon bus stand on Thursday, a 14-year-old victim of
human trafficking is left in the lurch with no one willing to offer her a
solution, or a long-term shelter. Neither the local police stations nor NGOs
are ready to take care of her. A resident of Gopalganj
in Bihar, the victim was married off to a 45-year-old man (one Pramod) as her father could not repay money he had
borrowed, the victim has said. The marriage took place in Bihar on March 10,
and she was brought to Rohtak a couple of months
ago, the victim said. Trading flesh, selling souls www.deccanherald.com/Content/Dec82007/she2007120740003.asp At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] According to the United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), between two to three million people are
trafficked annually in and out of People from these states are
trafficked to work in brothels, dance bars, pubs, restaurants, friendship
clubs, massage parlours and for domestic chores,
says Dr P M Nair, a senior police official and co-author of the National
Human Rights Commission (NHRC) study entitled 'Trafficking in Women and
Children in India'. Human
trafficking burst in Chhattisgarh, 400 villagers
rescued Over 400 villagers from Mahasamund district have been rescued by the Chhattisgarh government officials when they were being
transported outside the state, a senior official said on Friday. "All the villagers were put
inside the containers which did not have have
sufficient ventilation or light and were being transported like
animals," she said. Women emerge
as primary victims in trafficking Porous borders with economically poorer Bangladesh
and Nepal (from where none need visa to visit India) aggravate the problem of
cross-border trafficking. Bangladesh remained a source country for women and
children for a quite a long time, traffickers target their preys in the
poverty stricken rural areas. On the
other hand, Nepal is identified as a source country in the region. Fair
looking Nepali young women are the primary victims of the trafficking, though
new trend emerges with attraction for boys too. Unconfirmed statistics reveal
that in average 12,000 Nepali women with minors are trafficked every year for
sexual exploitation in outer countries. Most of the trafficked women from
Nepal were later found infected with HIV/AIDS and also tuberculosis. Addressing the conference, the minister Ms Chowdhury also argued that trafficking is by and large a gendered phenomenon. The trafficking in India is primarily for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. There are nearly three million sex workers in India and 40 per cent of them are children or adolescent girls. Statistics reveal that children below the age of 10 years are also found in the brothel of Indian cities like Mumbai and Delhi now a day, the minister disclosed. "Many believe that having sex with young and virgin girls would cure them of diseases. It is nonsense," Ms Chowdhury uttered. She emphasized on reducing the demand for prostitutes, engagement of children in workplaces, use of forced labour and empowering all collaborative efforts of governments, NGOs and other institutions to deal with the situation. - htcp 25
arrested for human trafficking; 200 labourers
rescued in Indian state At least 200 persons, including
women and children, were rescued from forced labour
and 25 middlemen were arrested in this regard, police said Friday. The rescued include 70 persons,
who were confined for three days in a forest in the jurisdiction of Turekela police station area and 30 others, who were
rescued from Titilagarh railway station. One wishes the circumstances were
the same, but they seldom are. How does one equate a girl lured away from a
village in Meghalaya to a brothel in Delhi with the
one pushed into beedi-binding by her own parents
just so there is enough money to feed all the mouths in the family? Or a boy
thrown into the laps of paedophiliac foreign
tourists in Goa with one who runs away from
starvation and poverty at home, to be picked up and employed by a brick-kiln
owner who gives him a paltry daily wage and lunch? Which arm of the State —
women and child development, labour, police, or
home affairs if there is border-crossing — has failed to do its job in each
of these cases, and which is responsible for ensuring that the trafficked
person gets a livelihood and a respectable life? This is why trafficking is such a
tricky crime in developing countries with their many areas of darkness. In Haryana, for instance, where it is acceptable to destroy
female foetuses and kill baby girls, young women
are trafficked from Bengal and the Northeast and forced into marriage to keep
the family line going. How does one, in the absence of a complaint from the
girl or her family, initiate criminal proceedings against those who claim the
girl as their daughter-in-law? UN
seeks end to human trafficking GOALS - Every day in South Asia children and young women
are lured or taken from their homes with promises of a job, marriage or a
place in the entertainment industry.
Instead, they end up in the sex trade or as forced labour. India
is the hub of this trade, with organised crime
syndicates trafficking women and children both within the country and from
across the border in Nepal or Bangladesh. Sarpanch held for human trafficking www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20071006015628&Page=Q&Headline=Sarpanch+held+for+human+trafficking&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0 A country-made revolver was seized
from the sarpanch. On a tipoff,
Patnagarh police, led by DSP (crime) N C Dandsena, rescued the 40 labourers
when they were being taken to a nearby railway station to work in a brick
kiln unit. Police said the Sarpanch had given some money to the labourers
in advance and forced them to go to Hyderabad. They were to work in the brick
kiln for five months. Over 650 Indian trafficking victims rescued: UNODC www.giftasia.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=218&Itemid=389&phpMyAdmin=4f584d8c4572365487e8bfe7282ef5aa Over 650 Indians, including 138 minors,
who were victims to human trafficking, were rescued during the first six
months of this year, an United Nations agency said
here today. He claimed the average age of
girls being trafficked in South Asia was dropping. "While in 1980, the average age of
trafficked girls was 14 to 16 years, it dropped to 10-14 years in 1994. The
figure in 2006 has decreased," he said. Human trafficking
has become a billion-dollar business: UN report The United Nations report also
said, that girls and women from West Bengal and Assam are being increasingly
trafficked to Punjab and Haryana, where they are
sexually exploited until they bear a male child. “(There is an) emerging pattern of
trafficking in girls from West Bengal and Assam to the more prosperous states
of Punjab and Haryana, where the gender gap is most
acute…The woman is either abandoned or passed onto another man after the
birth of the male child,” the study said. Human
trafficking helps spread HIV/AIDS in Asia: UN "Trafficking ... contributes
to the spread of HIV by significantly increasing the vulnerability of
trafficked persons to infection," said Caitlin Wiesen-Antin,
HIV/AIDS regional coordinator, Asia and Pacific, for the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP). "Both human trafficking and HIV
greatly threaten human development and security." Major human trafficking routes run
between Nepal and India and
between Thailand and neighbors like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Many of the
victims are young teenage girls who end up in prostitution. "The link between human trafficking
and HIV/AIDS has only been identified fairly recently," Wiesen-Antin told the International Congress on AIDS in
Asia and the Pacific. Police
rescue trafficking suspect from mob fury Police on Tuesday rescued a former
employee of a Bhubaneswar-based placement agency
facing charges of trafficking youths from this region to Malaysia from a
frenzied mob in Nikiraia village, 15 km from here.
The villagers gave vent to their anger as about four youths from the area
reportedly enslaved in Malaysia since their departure three months back. The mob badly beat up Sunil Das and held him captive in the village. The irate mob
pounced on him demanding the refund of money that the Malaysia bound youths
had paid to the placement agency, police said. A Dalit
youth from this part of the state had undergone a two-month-long nightmarish
ordeal in Malaysia and escaped from the clutches of a well-knit human
trafficking racket, bringing to the fore the harrowing plight of a number of
unemployed local youths still stranded in Malaysia in their quest for greener
pastures. Church
organizes struggle against human trafficking Many girls from the region are
also taken to Indian cities with promises of jobs, said Shimray,
a native of Manipur state. Shimray said many women are taken from their homes after
being promised jobs as domestic maids. The educated ones are promised jobs in
hotels and city firms, she added. In many cases, those who entrap the women
are members of their own families, relatives or people close to them. In the period, the state recorded
3,718 missing female adults. Among them, 1,837 are still untraceable. During
the same period 4,259 girls went missing and only 1,918 were traced, Borah said. Guard
Against Human Trafficking These marriage offers come for a
consideration ranging between Rs 5,000 and Rs 1 lakh,which are ascertained
on the basis of her beauty. In some situations, poor family members sell
children hoping that they will get a good life, job or education. However,
most of them end up in a brothel or simply they are forced to have sex with
clientele." Traffickers often use local people
(sub-agents) in a community or village to find young women and children, and
target families who are poor and vulnerable. "One of the major problems
with making arrests is that the victim's family does not complain as it does
not want to be used as witnesses against the agents or gangs involved in
trafficking," an officer said. Human trafficking on the rise www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEK20070427021745&Page=K&Title=Southern+News+-+Karnataka&Topic=0 The contents of this article had
appeared under a different title and may possibly still be accessible [here]
The increase in human trafficking
cases in the last couple of years is worrying NGOs and exposes the
government’s apathy towards the social evil.
Figures say that more than 60 girls from Karnataka, who fell prey to human
trafficking, have been rescued from brothels and red light areas in Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi.
These rescued girls, in the age-group of 12 to 20 years, are mostly
from the northern districts of Bijapur, Bagalkot, Shimoga, Mysore, Mandya and Chamrajnagar. They
fall easy prey to the agents who assure them of jobs and attractive earnings,
but they land up in brothels. State unaware of child abuse situation, projecting
deflated figues www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEQ20070410122717&Page=Q&Title=ORISSA&Topic=0 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] The pilgrim town of But the State Administration and
Police make no attempt to move because the holy town also happens to be a
tourist hotspot. But the real cause of concern lies
elsewhere. Domestic abuse continues unabated and even in the face of newer
and stringent legislation. Having children as domestic helps is a common
practice and they are the major victims of abuse. The sensational incident of child
torture by royals of Khariar in 2004 had amply
revealed the magnitude of the problem. The Crime Branch of Orissa Police arrested the former royal BP Singh Deo and his wife Pushpalata
Singh Deo who allegedly branded their 8-year-old
domestic help. The new and stringent legislation
has not been able to rein in the menace. Children are not only afraid of
reporting the abuse in fear of retribution, loss of livelihood also deters
them to disclose. How to change the world - The role of the social entreprenuer www.dailymirror.lk/2007/03/15/opinion/1.asp At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] As Childline
expanded to new cities, the call-tracking system also emerged as an important
source of child protection information. National data showed that the biggest
killer of street children was tuberculosis, but regional call patterns
revealed a variety of local problems. In Jaipur,
for example, childline received reports of abuse in
the garment and jewelry industries. In Varanasi,
there were reports of children being abducted to work in the sari industry.
In Delhi, many calls came from middle-class children. In Nagpur,
a transit hub, there were frequent reports of children abandoned in train
stations. In Goa, a beach resort, a major problem
was the sexual abuse of children by foreign tourists. Panel
Draws Attention to Human Trafficking Thirty families living in a
village in the Tiruvallur district of India all
have one thing in common: They are now free after spending years in bonded
labor at a nearby brick kiln, said Gayatri Patel,
who visited the village in 2006. "The people I met with told
me the owner of the brick kiln who had practically enslaved these people had
been arrested, but he was only sentenced to one night in prison," Patel
recently told a Georgetown audience. "The next morning when he left, he
just went back to his brick kiln, rounded up another 100 bonded laborers and
put them to work." NGO worker involved in human trafficking arrested htnext.in/news/181_1948302,0009.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Arrest of an activist working for
a non-government organisation (NGO) for his alleged
involvement in human trafficking of 13 Nepalese women in Maharajganj
district on Thursday has put a question mark over the very genuineness of
such agencies involved in the eradication of the menace. This worker, arrested along with a
policeman, was working for the NGO Manav Sewa Sansthan. March
denounces child trafficking LURED BY SWEETS - Kailash
Satyarthi, chairman of the Global March Against
Child Labour, says South Asia is a major source,
destination and transit area for child trafficking of all forms. “Children are being taken for forced labour and bonded labour,"
he says. "Children are being used for
child marriages. Child prostitution is of course there, then a lot of
children are taken as camel jockeys."
Thousands of children work in roadside food stalls Some children, he says, are
kidnapped and sold so their organs can be harvested for transplant
operations. One of the young marchers is a boy
of 13 who says he was lured from his village in Bihar by a man with sweets,
kidnapped, and taken to Punjab where he was made to work 12 hours a day,
every day. Human trafficking
is a $32 bn worldwide business Afsana Khatun,
a 15-year-old Muslim girl from Kolkata's Kidderpore area, has never met 13-year-old Rakesh who works for 18 hours in a Punjab village like a
slave after he was trafficked from his native village in Bihar. But on Sunday, Afsana
will march with thousands of others from Kolkata so that Rakesh and
other boys and girls of his age who are trafficked every day are not enslaved
in a stone quarry or a red light area forever. 'The objective of this march is to
build a mass movement against child trafficking and forced labour. There is no regional protocol to prohibit
trafficking. We would march to make the government answerable and people
aware,' he said. Four
held for human trafficking; three girls rescued Three young women aged 18 to 20
years were rescued from being trafficked and four persons arrested in this
connection here on Tuesday, police said. The girls belonging to Vijayawada city were lured on the promise of jobs in
Hyderabad. TRAFFICKING AND CHILD MARRIAGE - Due to a demographic imbalance
in Haryana (850 girls/1000 boys), men find it
difficult to find a bride. The easy way out has been through a network of
touts who help men, young old and widowed men to find wives from West Bengal,
Assam and Bihar. An estimated 5000 girls were sold in the Mewat
region of Haryana. Of Serious Concern www.gorkhapatra.org.np/content.php?nid=10333 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Incidents of human trafficking are
on the rise in the country despite the presence of a number of organisations, both in the private and government
sectors, and the powerful media that makes each incident of human trafficking
public. The latest case of human trafficking was revealed in Nepalgunj the other day when a suspected trafficker was
arrested while trying to traffic four boys and five girls across the border.
Thanks to Maiti Nepal, an NGO working for the
well-being of helpless girls, the police arrested the suspected trafficker.
Though there is no official record regarding the number of Nepalese girls
trafficked to Indian brothels, thousands of Nepalese girls are said to live
lives of untold misery in the Indian brothels. Four arrested for human trafficking CID Crime Branch sleuths on
Saturday said they’ve arrested four persons who are involved in trafficking
two girls allegedly for the purpose of trafficking. On interrogation, police found
that the girls were brought from outside the state and were being supplied by
a couple to a middleman in Goa, who in turn sent
girls to prospective customers. 4 held for human
trafficking, inter-state racket busted Samir went the to urinal while the
announcement was being made but when he returned, both his daughter-in-law
and the man, identified as Ramesh, were missing,
said police. During investigations, police
found that Ramesh, who stays in Usmanpur
Pusta, northwest Delhi, had gone to Roorkee in Uttaranchal and
followed him. At Roorkee bus stop, Ramesh and one Sandhya Devi were arrested while they were settling a deal of Rs 20,000 for the victim, police said. Police raided Sandhya's house in Roorkee and
rescued a 15-year-old girl, who was kidnapped from Old Delhi Railway Station
earlier. Pak
one of the key sources of women trafficking in world: UN report A UN report has described Pakistan
as the “one of the key sources of women trafficking” in the world. It said that India had also lately emerged
as a key destination and transit point for global trafficking of women and
girls. Bombay HC Lambasts Police Inaction in Curbing Human Trafficking The court was hearing a petition
filed by a non-government organisation "Prerna" which has sought reinvestigation into the
case wherein nine girls, who had been rescued from a brothel in 2002, had
gone missing. The court was told that the number
of minor girls rescued from brothels during the last three years was
shocking. As many as 26 girls were rescued in 2003, twelve in 2004, 31 girls
were rescued in 2005 and 27 during the current year, the court was told. Human trafficking from Nepal on rise www.madhuchandra.org/Women%20atroticities/Human%20trafficking%20from%20Nepal%20on%20rise.htm Trafficking of Nepalese women and
children into India, especially from the western districts, has increased
significantly in recent days due to lax security at border checkpoints. A large number of women and
children are being trafficked into India from checkpoints west of Butwal, representatives of several Indian and Nepalese
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and security officials stated during an
interaction on 'controlling cross-border human trafficking'. Woman
held for human trafficking A middle-aged woman allegedly
engaged in trafficking of humans was caught at New Delhi railway station on
Monday after a woman she had sold to a brothel-owner on G.B. Road here eight
years ago identified her. The accused had come to the Capital to sell another
young woman from Latur in Maharashtra
to flesh traders. Nodal
cell in Home Ministry to deal with human trafficking The centre has directed state
governments to deal with such crimes in a holistic manner and to evolve an
effective and comprehensive strategy encompassing rescue, relief and
rehabilitation of victims besides deterrent action against violators. Govt push to drive against human trafficking A total of 8900 cases of
trafficking were registered in 2004-2005. 13,300 persons were arrested, 93%
of them women and minors. 85% of them were convicted, IPS officer P Nair,
currently on deputation to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
(UNODC), quotes these figures to illustrate how the justice system is criminalising victims, but not traffickers. Budhia Singh was sold as a baby by his
illiterate and impoverished mother. Now, aged five, he is India's most
improbable young sports star, famed for his astonishing feats of endurance
running. India
to fight human trafficking at grassroots Village heads across impoverished
rural India will be asked to help fight human trafficking by keeping a register
of people who leave in search of work.
The United Nations Development Project (UNDP) is also asking village
chiefs to watch out for traffickers who lure villagers with promises of
well-paid jobs but force them into the sex trade. India is transit hub for human trafficking The study said 72 percent of human trafficking is for commercial sex, 80.26 percent of trafficking of women takes place in Bihar - most of it happening during migration for labour - and 12.36 percent of the total trafficking is due to family traditions. Human
trafficking turning into organised crime in India "Trafficking can be disguised
as migration, commercial sex or marriage. But what begins as a voluntary
decision often ends up as trafficking as victims find themselves in
unfamiliar destinations, subjected to unexpected work," said E Rajarethinam of GCT. Pointing out that trafficking is
deeply related to deprivation, Jill Shirey, a
consultant at American Centre for International Labour
Solidarity (ACILS) said that people are "forced into accepting unknown
jobs due to lack of options." India rejects U. S. criticism for inability to control
human trafficking indiadaily.com/editorial/9418.asp At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] The Indian ministry statement said
India and the United States have an ongoing dialogue on the trafficking in
persons, and the annual report "certainly is not helpful to furthering
our dialogue." Rep. Christopher Smith, a
Republican author of the 2000 law that established the annual trafficking
reports, said in Washington that the Bush administration went too easy on
India by placing it on the watch list instead of among the dozen worst
offenders. Microsoft
Teams with CAP to Train Victims of Human Trafficking in IT Microsoft Corp. India Private
Limited, under its Project Jyoti program, has
announced a grant of around Rs. 2.2 crore to CAP (Child and Police project), a
Hyderabad-based NGO, to provide IT skills training to victims of human
trafficking as well as vulnerable communities at risk of trafficking. Press release: Friday, November 15, 2002 gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-press.mbox/fsf-press.mbox At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] The Free Software Foundation of
India would like to bring to the attention of the Government and the general
public the negative implications of the "investment pledges" made
by the Microsoft Chairman, Bill Gates, during his present visit to Human
trafficking in the northeast fuelling HIV/AIDS We visited 25 relief camps of
internally displaced persons [IDPs] in Kokrajhar in
Bodoland Territorial Council, Assam [state]. Nearly
200,000 people are living in these camps without proper food. Traffickers
carry out recruitment drives in such relief camps. They make false promises
of jobs as domestic help in big cities. Bangladesh
busts human trafficking ring: 34 rescued The women and children, some as
young as five-years-old, were brought by the traffickers from four neighbourhood districts with false promises of lucrative
jobs in India. But they are mostly forced into
prostitution as they illegally enter India, said Adhikar,
a local non-government charity for children from poor families. Need to rid
Gujarat of human trafficking Last August, the city police had
raided several embroidery units in Rakhial and
rescued 84 child labourers from Bihar and Uttar
Pradesh. The boys, aged between seven and 17 years, had come to Gujarat in
search of employment. Subsequent raids by juvenile remand home officials and
cops on jewellery production units revealed that
child labourers from West Bengal and Orissa were working in sub-human conditions for some
money to send back home. Historians will look back in
puzzlement at the way our 21st century world tolerates the slavery of more
than a million children in brothels around the world. India alone may have half a
million children in its brothels, more than any other country in the world.
Visit the brothel district in almost any city in India, and you can meet
14-year-old girls who have been kidnapped off the street, or drugged, or
offered jobs as maids, and then sold into a world that they often escape only
by dying of AIDS. Indo-Pak
girls forced into prostitution In a startling case of organised women trafficking that has come to light,
Pakistani and Indian girls aged between 11 and 13 are being smuggled to the
Middle East countries for being forced into prostitution there. The girls,
who are shown as aged between 20 and 22 on their passports, are brought to
these countries on the pretext of getting them attracting jobs. Hitting Brothel Owners where it Hurts [24 January 2006] Imagine what you would have done if you'd been in Hasina Bibi's sandals. She was a lonely 16-year-old working in a garment factory in Bangladesh when an older employee began mothering her. They grew close, and one day the older woman gave Hasina some cakes to eat. Two days later, Hasina emerged from a drug-induced stupor in India, sold to a brothel in faraway Gujarat. The brothel's owner beat Hasina and threatened to deform her face with acid if she tried to escape. She had to do whatever the customers wanted, with or without condoms. Caritas India Campaign against Hunger and Disease, 2005 www.caritasindia.org/caritas_campaign_2005.asp At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] THE
TRAFFICKED VICTIM IS SUBJECTED TO WORST FORM OF HUMAN RIGHT ABUSES - Mona, (not her real name) a girl
from Jharkhand, aged 14 years, had
been trafficked to Prostitution
of Nepalese girls rampant in Indian brothel ''Young girls are trafficked from US accuses NGO of 'trafficking' www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1504660,00050001.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] US government is getting tough on the issue of trafficking of human beings. Indicating its seriousness on the issue, the US government-funding agency USAID terminated funding to the NGO Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha (SANGRAM) for reportedly supporting brothel owners and obstructing the rescue of minor girls from red light areas. Northeast
girls in metros forced into prostitution Gullible young girls from the
northeast are being forced into prostitution in the metropolises after being
lured by organized syndicates promising them glamorous careers and lucrative
jobs, a rights group has said. "The situation is extremely serious with
smart operators flooding the northeast hunting for good looking young girls
for modeling assignments or jobs in call centers with good salaries,"
said Hasina Kharbih,
chairperson of Impulse NGO Network.
"But in reality, many of these women were pushed into the
notorious world of prostitution." Slavery is not dead in Police
rescue 24 girls from red light area Police said the rescued girls had
been whisked away from various places in Tasmina Khatun
agreed to elope with Muku Mondal,
a man she loved, not knowing the nightmare she was inviting. Police yesterday rescued the 15-year-old
girl from the Sunderbans when she was about to be
taken to Bangla prostitution racket busted in Goa [07-20-2005, 08:23 PM] The minor girl, Mallika, hailing from a poverty stricken family, was approached by a 'sympathetic-looking' Bangladeshi woman, who offered to take the girl to Mumbai with the promise that the family would see a change in their fortunes. At Apna Ghar, Mallika narrated her woeful tale of being bought in from Bangladesh and being forced into the prostitution trade, to the counselor appointed by the government. Speaking
out for the `nameless' "Anamika"
(the nameless) is a documentary on trafficking of women and children from
Andhra Pradesh to various parts of the country. It narrates how young girls are deceived,
forced or coerced to enter the trade every year. The
face that launched a thousand shares Thousands of Indians, especially women
and children, are trafficked everyday to some destination or the other and
are forced to lead lives of slavery. They survive in brothels, factories,
guesthouses, dance bars, farms and even in the homes of well-off Indians,
with no control over their bodies and lives. Women and children are also
being trafficked for illegal adoptions, organ transplants, the circus and the
entertainment industry. In the tender age of five or six
these children are made to work up to fifteen hours a day in stone quarries,
fields, picking rags on city streets or as domestic servants. They do not go
to school, and throughout their lifetime they possibly wouldn’t even have the
barest skills of literacy. Couple
Arrested For Human Trafficking Sunil Dayalkar
alias Sanjay More and wife Kushi alias Nishikant Biswas allegedly
bought Asha (name changed) from one Sanjay Dutt for Rs 65,000 and then
forced her into prostitution. This
Will Force Us To Clean Up Our Act NGOs estimate that at least 7,000
girls are trafficked into 17,000
Nepal Women Forced Into Prostitution In India According to the study, the
investigators talked personally to the Nepali women in the brothels of The
Saving of Innocents - The Satya Interview with Ruchira Gupta An uncle or a family friend pays the parent something
like $30. There is the middleman in a packed city, the border guard who takes
a payoff, and the agent who takes the girls across the border to the people
who then transport them to Human
Trafficking Situation In India Grim "The Government of India has shown little progress in addressing anti-trafficking in persons concerns since May... In Mumbai, convictions for trafficking-related offences increased from three in 2003 to 11 thus far in 2004 but remain grossly unrepresentative in a city of over 18 million inhabitants." Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 3 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study Slavery Today | Introduction www.enotes.com/slavery-today-article/ At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [scroll down] The most common form of slavery today is debt
bondage or bonded labor. A person enters into debt bondage when his or her
labor is demanded as a way to pay back a loan. In India, for example, debts
running from $14 to $214 are usually incurred for basic necessities, such as
food, medical emergencies, marriage dowries (a long-standing cultural
tradition), or funeral expenses. Taking into account the outrageous interest
rates, often in excess of 60 percent, and the debtors’ meager wages, these
loans are difficult, if not impossible, to repay. Moreover, inaccurate
bookkeeping on the part of the moneylender ensures that the debtor never pays
off the loan. Individuals are then forced to repay loans by working for the
moneylender for the rest of their lives and often pass the same debt on to
their children and grandchildren. Human rights groups estimate that there are
approximately 20 million bonded laborers throughout the world. India
could lead the fight against human trafficking In a bid to combat the menace, the
U.S. would like to expand its dialogue with India, including its law
enforcement agencies. Talking to The Hindu here, the visiting U.S. Assistant
Attorney-General, R. Alexander Acosta, said that India faced a handicap in
the fight against such crimes due to the lack of a federal law enforcement
agency. During the past three years, the
Vajpayee Government has tried to push the idea. But several States have
expressed doubts that it would usurp the rights of their police organisations. Lauding the shift in India's
approach to nab the traffickers, rather than the victims, Mr. Acosta hoped
that the trend would continue. The three Ps — prosecution, prevention and
protection — played a crucial role in checking trafficking. Probe
into Iraq trafficking claims Indian press reports said that
Indian nationals in Jordan and Kuwait were recruited for jobs in U.S.
military camps in Iraq as cooks, butchers, laundry workers and handymen. Some of the Indians charge they signed up
through Indian employment companies to work in Kuwait, but ended up in Iraq
working for low pay and were refused permission to leave the country. Pulling
the Rug out from Under Us - A Report on Debt Bondage, Carpet-Marking, and
Child Slavery Ironically, India, the world’s
largest democracy, is also home to more slaves than all the other countries
of the world combined.1
With roughly one billion inhabitants, India supports over 15% of the world’s
population.2
And with more than half of India’s population living below the income poverty
line3,
nearly 40% of the population cannot afford a sufficient diet.4
As inadequate government expenditure on education, health, and welfare
increases the high vulnerability of much of India’s vast population,
exploitation – even enslavement – are everyday realities for many Indians. Unresolved Crisis www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishweekly/spotlight/2004/apr/apr02/national7.htm At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] A recent study by International
Labor Organization (ILO) showed that around 12000 Nepalese women and children
are trafficked every year. They are mostly trafficked across the border to
India for the purpose of prostitution.
Although Nepal has been suffering from this problem for long, there
are still no comprehensive data regarding the actual situation of
trafficking. “An analysis of information from
print media, case studies and surveys on trafficked survivors shows the age
groups, 11-18 years for girls and 6-12 years for boys to be more vulnerable
to trafficking. The percentage of trafficking is the highest among hill
ethnic groups, followed by Brahmin, Chhetri and
occupational castes. There is a great variation in data relating to the
educational level of trafficked persons. Nevertheless various reports show
that illiterate persons are more vulnerable than literate persons are,”
states the book. Child Prostitution in Nepal/India www.plan-uk.org/uk/wherewework/asia/india/childprostitution/ At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] Every year, thousands of Nepalese
girls, some as young as 11 are sent to or procured for brothels in the big
Indian cities, like They are often the daughters of
poor farming families, where everyone must help with the family income. Girls
have little or no earning potential, and if they are to marry need
substantial dowries. So, when the middleman arrives in the village, and
promises parents cash in return for taking the girls to work in India, or
perhaps in "the circus", and that they will be fed, housed and
cared for, the offer is hard to resist. In reality, many of these girls
are taken to work in Indian brothels, where new, young girls are much sought
after, and their families may never hear from them again. Anti
Trafficking -Save Our Sisters Movement (SOS) EVERY HOUR, FOUR WOMEN AND GIRLS IN
INDIA ENTER PROSTITUTION, THREE OF THEM AGAINST THEIR WILL - 13-year-old Mira of Nepal was offered
a job as a domestic worker in Mumbai, India. Instead she arrived at a brothel
on Mumbai's Falkland Road, where tens of thousands of young women are
displayed in row after row of zoo-like animal cages. Her father had been
duped into giving her to a trafficker. When she refused to have sex, she was
dragged into a torture chamber in a dark alley used for 'breaking-in' new
girls. She was locked in a narrow, windowless room without food or water. On
the fourth day, one of the madam's goondas (thug)
wrestled her to the floor and banged her head against the concrete until she
passed out. When she awoke, she was naked; a "rattan" cane smeared
with pureed red chilli peppers shoved into her
vagina. Later she was raped by the goonda.
Afterwards, she complied with their demands. The madam told Mira that she had
been sold to the brothel for 50,000 rupees (about US$ 1,700), that she had to
work until she paid off her debt. Mira was sold to a client who became her
pimp.' [ Robert I. Freidman, "India's
Shame" Sexual Slavery and Political Corruption Are Leading to AN AIDS
Catastrophe," - The Nation, 8 April 1996 ] India: Freeing
the Small Hands of the Silk Industry TINY HANDS AT WORK - In the glow of apparent
prosperity, what went unnoticed for the most part were tiny hands that
pulled, twisted and separated the yarn, so the fiber could become strong
enough for weaving into cloth -- tiny hands that often bled from cuts and
sometimes suffered permanent damage at the unrelenting machines in front of
them. They belonged to children as young as 6 or 8, who stood all day on
tired feet, laboring away at the twisting machines. These children worked in the midst
of ear-splitting noise all day long, in many cases for up to 14 hours a day.
Those were the average working conditions for the children of Magadi. No one in their town had heard of children’s
rights, let alone of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child. Every year, an average of 22,480
women and 44,476 children are reported missing in India. Out of these, every
year, an average of 5,452 women and 11,008 children are not traced. A recent
report, Action Research on Trafficking in Women and Children in India -
2002-2003 indicates that many of the missing persons are not really missing
but are instead trafficked. Take the story of Parvathi Vinayak, a young girl
in Maharashtra who was reported missing. She was
abused and sexually exploited in a beer bar, according to the report. Even
when it was confirmed that PV had been trafficked, the police records still
had her name listed in the 'missing' list. Similarly, Suhasini
Lakshmi, a Class 9 student in Karnataka, was
brought to Mumbai by her neighbour for a job. While
her parents complained to the police that she was missing, SL was sold to a
brothel-owner in Mumbai and was rescued after 20 days when the brothel was
raided by the police.
- htcp BEATEN UP - For 11-year-old Mansoor, life was hellish. "I used to work 15 hours a day and
earn about 20 rupees (less than $0.5) per week," he said. Mansoor, who is
from Muzaffarpur district in Bihar, said he used
sleep hungry in a small dingy room on most days after work. He has been
working for the past nine months.
"My parents came into contact with a middleman who had promised
good money for working in Delhi," he said. SOLD THREE TIMES - Narayani,
in her 50s, said she had been sold three times during the last three decades
by her employers. "I was working
with my husband and three children in the northern state of Haryana in a factory, and all that we used to get as
salary was food," said Narayani. FOREWORD - Every year, millions of Asian
men, women, and even children, venture to new pastures—from the village to
the city and sometimes to another country. They are driven by poverty, social
exclusion or civil unrest. Their goal is to survive and earn money for their
families. For many—disproportionately women and children—these journeys end
tragically, as they fall into the hands of traffickers. CHILD "CARPET SLAVES" IN
INDIA - Kidnapped
from their villages when they are as young as five years old, between 200,000
and 300,000 children are held captive in locked rooms and forced to weave on
looms for food. In India—as well in other countries—the issue of slavery is
exacerbated by a rigid caste system. The Enslavement Of Dalit And
Indigenous Communities In www.antislavery.org/homepage/resources/goonesekere.pdf At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] SUMMARY - This paper describes the gross
and continuing violation of the rights of millions of people in The Dark Side of Football www.oneworld.net/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.indianet.nl%2Fiv.html At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The NLI report estimates the
average daily earning of an adult male in the sports goods industry to be
around Rs.20 (less than half a US dollar) which is about one third of the
present minimum wage of Rs.63 a day. Stitchers are
normally not aware of the concept of minimum wage and are not organized by
any trade union. Any protest or attempt to organize themselves can be easily
crushed as they are dependent on the contractors for work. THE SMALL
HANDS OF SLAVERY - Bonded Child Labor In India SUMMARY - With credible estimates ranging
from 60 to 115 million, India has the largest number of working children in
the world. Whether they are sweating in the heat of stone quarries, working
in the fields sixteen hours a day, picking rags in city streets, or hidden
away as domestic servants, these children endure miserable and difficult
lives. They earn little and are abused much. They struggle to make enough to
eat and perhaps to help feed their families as well. They do not go to
school; more than half of them will never learn the barest skills of
literacy. Many of them have been working since the age of four or five, and
by the time they reach adulthood they may be irrevocably sick or
deformed-they will certainly be exhausted, old men and women by the age of
forty, likely to be dead by fifty. In a report released today, Human
Rights Watch, the New York-based human rights organization, charged that
women and girls trafficked from Nepal into India for the purpose of
prostitution are kept in conditions tantamount to slavery. Held in debt
bondage for years at a time, they are raped and subjected to severe beatings,
exposure to AIDS, and arbitrary imprisonment. Both the Indian and Nepali
governments are complicit in the abuses suffered by trafficking victims. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [India Street Children in [India] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [India] [other countries]