Sexy goddesses of Calcutta

Sex workers in Kolkata, Only the mud from the residence of a sex worker can make sure that the soul of the goddess is pure

Newcomers to the red light district  of Kolkata will be given a spot demonstration at the unit with the help of a dildo on how to use a condom.
Chumki is one of the 4000 sex workers who will be celebrating the Durga Puja in Sonagachhi this year. “Only we can make sure that the soul of the goddess is pure,” she states, referring to the tradition where idol makers and puja organisers come to Sonagachhi to collect mud from their residence. The mud is considered to be pure and to drive away evil from society. “Our tradition says that a man who enters our rooms becomes pure as he leaves all of his vices behind,” she says.

While some sex workers think that Durga Puja is a celebration of motherhood as they “mother many fathers” throughout the year, others are of the view of blending of puja and pleasure during five days. Special guests of sex workers, usually Babus, have also been invited for dinner. Babus are those who become psychologically involved with a particular sex-worker or share a ‘husband-wife’ relationship.

 

Shreya is not sexier than their Goddess

The Hindu Makkal Katchi, a local Hindu militant organization under the Hindu sangh parivar family  has lodged a compliant against the actress, objecting to the outfit she wore during the 175th day celebration of the box-office hit ‘Sivaji-The Boss’. The group claims that her attire was skimpy and was ‘offensive to Hindu culture’.

What apparently added to their ire is, the actress who had starred opposite Rajnikanth in Sivaji, was dressed in such a way, at a function also attended by DMK chief and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi. Police say the complaint is being investigated.

Shreya is the second actress in ‘Kollywood’ after Kushboo to face anger from political parties and organisations recently. Khushboo had encountered protests for her reported comments on sex and virginity. The Hindu Munnani filed a case recently against her for causing disrespect to Hindu Goddesses at a function in Chennai where she was photographed seated with her footwear on near some idols of the Goddesses.

The function was held to honour the actors and technicians of the film Sivaji. Apart from her role opposite Rajnikanth, Shreya had also played the female lead in ‘Awaarapan,’ along with Emraan Hashmi.

 

Nearly half of young wives in Gujarat experience unwanted sex

Coerced Sex Among Young Wives in India

A recent survey confirms general perceptions of the way sex is practiced in most Indian families. Nearly half of young wives in the Indian states of Gujarat (in the west) and West Bengal (in the east) experience unwanted sex: 12% frequently and another 32% occasionally, according to “Consent and Coercion: Examining Unwanted Sex Among Married Young Women in India,” which appeared in the September 2007 issue of International Family Planning Perspectives.

Using survey data and in-depth interviews with 1,644 young married women, authors K.G. Santhya of the Population Council and others identify factors that predict a woman’s likelihood of experiencing unwanted sex with her husband. They find that wealthier women, women who knew their husbands before they got married and women whose husbands support them during family conflicts are less likely than their peers to experience unwanted sex.

Frequent coerced sex is more likely to occur among recently married young women than among pregnant women or new mothers, suggesting that the pressure to have a first child leaves some young married women especially vulnerable to sexual coercion. In addition, the more circumstances in which a woman believes it is justifiable for a husband to beat his wife, the more likely she is to experience unwanted sex. Young women with lower levels of education are also at greater risk than their more educated peers, the survey says.

Attitudinal change necessary to put an end to coerced Sex- Dr.Reddy

Reacting to the findings, Dr.D.Narayana Reddy, a renowned sexologist based in Chennai, said that while he had not come across the survey himself and hence could not comment on the reliability of the findings, coerced sex was almost inevitable given the patriarchal culture widely prevalent in India.

“The male is made to believe that he is somehow a prized being right through. He has the first claim on all good things of life, good food, good dress and good education. So pampered is he that when he steps into the bedroom, he thinks he has the right of passage! He never waits to find out whether his spouse wants sex, whether she is in a mood for that or what her physical condition is. He needs sex and he must get it. And when it is denied, he flies into a rage,” Dr.Reddy told Medindia.

And worse most women tend to internalize the male attitude to sex. ‘When they want it, we can’t hold back. We have to co-operate, whatever our own problems.’ That is how women in an average Indian household seem to behave, and the legacy was passed on from generation to generation.

Dr.Reddy feels such a me-first attitude on the part of males cuts across education, caste and wealth.

However the silver lining in the cloud is that increasingly women have begun to challenge such traditional values.

Going for jobs, contributing to the family kitty and exposure to the outside world have all helped Indian women assert themselves, though this is happening on a small scale, perhaps an essentially urban phenomenon.

Still such a change is coming about, and it is heartening. The male can no more take his partner for granted and should be ready to face resistance. He may have to lay off too, if necessary.

And he has to be concerned with fulfilling the sexual needs of his spouse too and realize sex cannot be a one way traffic. Dr.Reddy also agrees that there should be programmes aimed at counseling newly wed young males against seeking to coerce their spouses into sex.

But he is skeptical whether such programmes by themselves would yield desired results. “A wholesale attitudinal change is called for if Indian women are to enjoy sex and not view it as some fealty owed. Man has to stop strutting around as if he is the master of everything he surveys, even if within the household. ‘She’s my wife, she’s my chattel, she’s my anything’ – that kind of attitude should go. But that’s easier said than done. Ours being a society still steeped in patriarchal traditions, targeted programmes here or there will not work. A massive educational campaign is required for the purpose. The media has a very big role to play in this. But having said that, let me also repeat that such changes are brought about only over a period of time, consequent on far-reaching socio-economic transformation,” Dr.Reddy said.

A couple of days ago a condom-manufacturing firm had claimed that according to a survey conducted by it, Indians were among the most satisfied lot in the world when it came to sex.

Asked about the claims, the Chennai expert shot back – “Do you know that a similar survey conducted by the very same firm last year said Indians fared very badly? How come such a dramatic change in the space of a year? It’s absolute rubbish. Their methodology is all deficient and their findings should be discarded as used condoms are …”

 

Unemployed youths to sterilize monkey gods in India

By GAVIN RABINOWITZ –NEW DELHI (AP) — A northern Indian state said Thursday it planned to use unemployed youths to sterilize monkeys to try to combat aggressive primates who have been raiding farms. The idea drew immediate condemnation from conservationists, who said the plan was unscientific and would likely worsen the problem.Indian authorities have struggled in recent years to deal with the tens of thousands of monkeys that live in and around cities. They are drawn to public places such as temples and office buildings, where devout Hindus feed them, believing them to be manifestations of the god Hanuman.

In recent months, the deputy mayor of New Delhi was killed when he fell from his balcony during an attack by wild monkeys, and 25 others were injured when a monkey went on a rampage in the city.

The mountainous state of Himachal Pradesh is infested with rhesus macaque monkeys, who have been driven to farms and cities after losing their natural forest habitat.

Prem Kumar Dhumal, the state’s chief minister, said Himachal Pradesh would go on a “war footing” to fight the thousands of monkeys who have been turning farms into wastelands and attacking people, according to a statement from his office.

“Affected districts would be identified and local youth involved in the process, who would be provided training in capturing and sterilization by the experts,” the statement quoted Dhumal as saying, adding that they would use “laser sterilization.”

The capacity of zoos in the area would be expanded to accommodate captured monkeys, and camps may be set up for them in order to protect crops and other farmland from being encroached upon, the statement said.

Conservationists condemned the proposal to let inexperienced youths sterilize monkeys, saying it was cruel and would not solve the problem.

Sujoy Chaudhuri, an ecologist who co-authored a report by prominent primatologists and conservationists that was submitted recently to the federal and state governments, said the plan would make the monkey problem worse.

“It is a ridiculous idea and what is worse, it will do nothing to contain the problem and probably make it worse,” Chaudhuri said. “Can you imagine what having badly sterilized monkeys running around will do to the levels of aggression?”

Belinda Wright, the director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, added: “The government chooses not to act on recommendations from experts and instead comes out with these absurd proposals.”

 

Global Hindutva in support of Gujarat’s super hindu leader

Press Trust of India

Sunday, December 2, 2007 (Patan)

A large number of Gujarati NRIs have landed in their native state to lend support to political parties they are backing in the upcoming assembly election, due on December 11 and 16.

Many are supporters of incumbent Narendra Modi, who feel the state has developed under the stewardship of the BJP leader. Opposing them are a considerable number of Congress
supporters, who say Modi has divided the state.

Although they cannot vote in the state assembly polls, the NRIs who have come from places like the UK and US are pumping in huge amounts of money in campaigning, besides trying to woo voters for the party of their choice.

”Though I can’t vote, still I would like to see to it that the right people are voted to power. Even if I can’t vote I would like to make sure that other 100 people at least go and vote. It’s very important,” says 42-year-old Rajen Patel from London, an ardent supporter of Modi.

Patel, who claims he campaigned for former US vice president Al Gore when he was in the presidential race, says about 100 like-minded NRIs in the UK have decided to come to Gujarat to support Modi as they believe he is ushering in growth and development.

”We would like to invest in Gujarat as things have improved a lot here. There is less of corruption now and action is taken on complaints made even over phones,” he says.

Rejecting the claims of development under Modi’s government are Congress supporters, who have also come together based on their political affiliation.

”What development are they talking about? Everything is a hogwash. No state can develop where people are divided. And that’s what BJP has done here,” says Deepak Amin, who has come all the way from Seattle (US) to support Congress.

”To be number one you have to be united first. When you talk about Hindu rastra, you ignore the rest of the people in the country. What about them?” Amin laments.

He says he is in touch with at least 15 other like-minded NRIs from various countries.

”We have held several rounds of meetings in Seattle, New York, New Jersey etc to discuss our agenda before coming to India. We will be reaching out to people to pass on our message,” Amin says.

He said his ‘group’ was opposed to the way BJP is bragging about development in Gujarat, adding ”It’s just like their ‘India Shining’ campaign”.

But the Modi camp would like to differ. ”There’s discipline, peace and harmony now unlike earlier,” says Patel.

On his group’s strategy, Patel says, ”We will place ourselves in different regions of the state. Like five-six people in Vadodara, 10 in Ahmedabad and four in Surat, while one of us will be travelling to meet people and help the party in the electoral process.”

He claims Modi has many fans in the UK and US who want to know what can they do to help their state.

 

India, Where paradoxes reign supreme

It has become a cliché to speak of India as a land of paradoxes. The old joke about our country is that anything you say about India, the opposite is also true. We like to think of ourselves as an ancient civilisation but we are also a young republic; our IT experts stride confidently into the 21st century but much of our population seems to live in each of the other 20 centuries. Quite often the opposites co-exist quite cheerfully.

One of my favourite images of India is from the last Kumbha mela, of a naked sadhu, with matted hair, ash-smeared forehead and scraggly beard, for all the world a picture of timeless other-worldliness, chatting away on a cellphone. I even suggested it to the publishers of my newest book of essays on India as a perfect cover image, but they assured me it was so well-known that it had become a cliché in itself.

And yet, clichés are clichés because they are true, and the paradoxes of India say something painfully real about our society.

How does one come to terms with a country whose population is still nearly 40% illiterate but which has educated the world’s second-largest pool of trained scientists and engineers, many of whom are making a flourishing living in Silicon Valley? How does one explain a land where peasant organisations and suspicious officials once attempted to close down Kentucky Fried Chicken as a threat to the nation, where a former prime minister bitterly criticised the sale of Pepsi-Cola since 250 million of our countrymen and women don’t have access to clean drinking water, and which yet invents more sophisticated software for the world’s computer manufacturers than any other country on the planet? A place where bullock carts are still an indispensable mode of transportation for millions, but whose rocket and satellite programmes are amongst the most advanced on earth?

The paradoxes go well beyond the nature of our entry into the 21st century. Our teeming cities overflow while two out of three Indians still scratch a living from the soil. We have been recognised, for all practical purposes, as a leading nuclear power, but 600 million Indians still have no access to electricity and there are daily power cuts even in the nation’s capital.

Ours is a culture which elevated non-violence to an effective moral principle, but whose freedom was born in blood and whose independence still soaks in it. We are the world’s leading manufacturers of generic medication for illnesses such as AIDS, but we have three million of our own citizens without access to AIDS medication, another two million with TB, and tens of millions with no health centre or clinic within 10 kilometres of their places of residence.

Bollywood makes four times as many movies as Hollywood, but 150 million Indians cannot see them, because they are blind. India holds the world record for the number of cellphones sold (8.5 million last month), but also for the number of farmer suicides (4000 in the Vidarbha district of Maharashtra alone last year).

This month, in mid-November, the prestigious Forbes magazine list of the world’s top billionaires made room for 10 new Indian names. The four richest Indians in the world are collectively worth a staggering $180 billion, greater than the GDP of a majority of member states of the United Nations. Indian papers have reported with undisguised glee that these four (Lakshmi Mittal, the two Ambani brothers, and DLF chief K P Singh) are worth more than the 40 richest Chinese combined.

We seem to find less space in our papers to note that though we have more dollar billionaires than in any country in Asia – even more than Japan, which has been richer longer – we also have 260 million people living below the poverty line. And it’s not the World Bank’s poverty line of $1 a day, but the Indian poverty line of Rs 360 a month, or 30 cents a day – in other words, a line that’s been drawn just this side of the funeral pyre.

Last month, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex crossed 20,000, just 20 months after it had first hit 10,000; but on the same day, some 25,000 landless people marched to Parliament, clamouring for land reform and justice. We have trained world-class scientists and engineers, but 400 million of our compatriots are illiterate, and we also have more children who have not seen the inside of a school than any other country in the world does.

We have a great demographic advantage in 540 million young people under 25 (which means we should have a dynamic, youthful and productive workforce for the next 40 years when the rest of the world, including China, is ageing) but we also have 60 million child labourers, and 72% of the children in our government schools drop out by the eighth standard. We celebrate India’s IT triumphs, but information technology has employed a grand total of 1 million people in the last five years, while 10 million are entering the workforce each year and we don’t have jobs for them.

Many of our urban youth rightly say with confidence that their future will be better than their parents’ past, but there are Maoist insurgencies violently disturbing the peace in 165 of India’s 602 districts, and these are largely made up of unemployed young men.

So yes, we are a land of paradoxes, and amongst those paradoxes is that so many of us speak about India as a great power of the 21st century when we are not yet able to feed, educate and employ our people. And yet, India is more than the sum of its contradictions. It may be a country rife with despair and disrepair, but it nonetheless moved a Mughal Emperor to declaim, ‘‘if on earth there be paradise of bliss, it is this, it is this, it is this…’’ We just have a lot more to do before it can be anything like paradise for the vast majority of our fellow citizens.

25 Nov 2007, 0000 hrs IST,Shashi Tharoor, Times of India

 

Yearly 200,000 Nepali women are trafficked and sold in to sex work in India

An Open Secret

Enabled by a booming sex trade, an open border with India, and weak enforcement from government, more than 200,000 Nepali women are trafficked and sold into sex work every year. But even in the face of a new anti-trafficking law, trafficking networks have become more sophisticated and much of the population here views the problem as commonplace. BY TARA BHATTARAI

KATHMANDU, NEPAL — “Be alert! You might be sold and your life ruined,” warns a poster hanging on the wall of Maiti Nepal, one of seven nongovernmental organizations here working to prevent human trafficking and providing rescue and rehabilitation services to women and girls who have been trafficked and sold into prostitution.

This big and bright room at the center of the Maiti Nepal offices is adorned with posters, pictures and slogans that aim to build awareness about the unrelenting problem of female sex trafficking in Nepal. Today, there are tables and chairs set up on the right side of the room where two information officers busily provide information to the center’s many visitors. In the opposite corner a large bookshelf is neatly packed with books, most about the horrors human trafficking. A ceiling fan was whirls incessantly, throwing cool air throughout the room.

Geeta Tamang, 24, a petite woman with a round face, almond shaped eyes and a wide smile entered the room with a tray of tea for the visitors. Tamang has lived and worked at Maiti Nepal since 1997 when she was rescued from a brothel in the Indian city of Pune.

Tamang, who is from Nuwakot, a neighboring district of Kathmandu, was sold into the sex trade when she was ten years old. She was forced to work as a prostitute for more than four years before a team of investigators from Maiti Nepal rescued her.

From the start, Tamang led a troubled life, but she says she never dreamed she would end up in a brothel.

Tamang was the only child born to a blind mother and an ailing father, who died when she was 3 years old. Poverty and her mother’s condition left Tamang to bear the responsibility of providing for her family. She says as a small child she used to work as a daily wage laborer in her village. Neighbors employed her with petty tasks like fetching grass for cattle, firewood, water and other household chores. For this, she was paid with rice and other daily essentials.

When Tamang was ten, her mothers’ sister, Laxmi, visited the village. Laxmi told the young Tamang that little girls shouldn’t have to work so hard. She assured the 10-year-old that she could work less and earn better wages in Kathmandu. Tamang says she was thrilled by the idea of living the city life. She fantasized about riding buses and she hoped her aunt would buy her fancy clothes and give her with food and shelter. Tamang says her mother also hoped for more for her daughter, so she sent her with her aunt, hoping she would have a chance at a better life.

With excitement, Tamang says she followed Laxmi to Kathmandu. “But my aunt tricked me,” she said. “She sold me to a brothel in India.”

“My aunt said, we would reach Kathmandu after a few days. But on the fourth day, I was taken into the brothel,” she recalled. Her body swelled with emotion as she recalled her first days in the Indian brothel. ” I trusted her blindly thinking she is my kith and kin but she ruined my life by selling me there,” Tamang said.

Every year, thousands young Nepali girls, like Tamang, are lured and sold into brothels in Bombay, Calcutta, Pune and other Indian cities. A report published by a local non-governmental organization that works against women trafficking, ABC Nepal, reported in 2003 that there are as many as 200,000 Nepali women trafficked in India and forced into the sex trade every year. A 2007 report of Child Workers in the Nepal Concern Center, (CWIN), reported that the number of young girls, between the ages of 10 and 16, trafficked into the Indian sex trade can number as many as 7,000 annually.

The three open crossing points along the southern border of Nepal coupled with India’s booming sex trade, it is no wonder that at least half of the 200,000 women trafficked out of Nepal end up in Bombay alone. The other half ends up in other major Indian cities. According to an article published in the August-September 2005 issue of the reputed Nepali magazine Himal, the demand for Nepali women is high in brothels in India as clients are said to favor their fair complexion, soft nature, and unique beauty.

Brothels typically pay as much as $1,700 USD for a beautiful Nepali woman, who can, according to the Himal article, earn brothel owners upwards of $50,000 USD over five years, the average work span of a prostitute.

Of course, the women in the brothels don’t see any part of their earnings. Tamang says brothel clients pay the owner for fixed increments of time before meeting the girls. She says she was never told how much a client paid for her. When clients would tip her extra money after sex, Tamang says it was taken from her. “No matter how many clients I had sex with, I never got a single penny. When some clients used to give me extra money, Didi, [the brothel owner,] used to search my wardrobe and take it from me.”

Trafficking Nepali women across the border to India for sex work is an open secret here. The shocking frequency has made the reality of trafficking almost commonplace.

Like so many others, Tamang’s journey to an Indian brothel was tragic, but also typical. In 2000, a United Nations study reported that women are most often sold into Indian brothels with the lure of promising a better life.

When Tamang and her aunt reached Pune, she was dropped off at a brothel called The Purana Welcome in the Budhabaarpet neighborhood of the city.

Tamang remembers being left with a woman addressed only as Didi, the traditional greeting for elder sister. She was told her aunt would be back for her the next day. But by the evening of the next night, it was clear Laxmi wasn’t coming back for her. “The [Didi] said, ‘You have already been sold here and now you cannot [leave] unless you pay the amount I have paid for you.’”

Tamang was sold for 70,000 rupees, about $1,600 USD. “My aunt had already sold me for prostitution but until then I didn’t even know that I was sold and for what kind of work,” Tamang said.

The reality of Tamang’s new life soon became clear. She was ten years old, alone, and living in a building with a red light constantly glowing outside.

The Purana was in a multi-level bungalow style building. Small shops with shutters occupied the ground floor. The higher floors were made up of small, dark rooms with five or sex beds, separated by curtains. Tamang says the place was always busy, with many men coming and going at all times of the day.

Tamang says she cried continuously during her first days in the brothel. She soon met many other Nepali women who had also been sold there. In all, the brothel was filled with more than 70 women, at least 40 were Nepali.

During her first days at the Purana Tamang tried to escape, but was unsuccessful. When she was caught the first time, the Didi beat her and locked her in a room without food for days. She says she tried to escape again and again, but never managed to because the brothel was heavily guarded.

Tamang said she continued to rebel against the Didi and refused to accept her new life. For her rebellion she was beaten and tortured. Tamang said she finally chose to accept her new life after the Didi brought a group of five men into her room. They held her down and gang raped her until she fainted.

When she awoke, the Didi told her she would be raped time and again until she agreed to comply with the customer’s wishes and the Didi’s demands. “I finally knew I couldn’t win the battle. I realized I had no other option but to resign to my fate,” she said.

From her eighth day in the Purana Welcome brothel, she was trained on how to satisfy the customers. The Didi taught her how to have sex, oral sex and to stimulate her clients by touching and fondling them. She was asked to persuade her clients to use condoms, but not to pressure the ones who did not want to use one.

At the Purana, her day started at 11 a.m. and ended late at night. She lived in a small room that she shared with six other women. Clients would come into the room and were allowed to choose which woman they wanted. Tamang says the dirty, flimsy curtains between the beds were pulled closed while having sex.

Like most brothel owners, the Didi at the Purana was not selective about the clients she let in. As a result, violence was common. Tamang remembers many instances of being beaten by clients. “One day, a ferocious looking man came [to my room]. He beat me and pulled my hair. He burned my hand with the butt of a cigarette,” she said, showing the scar on her right hand.

Tamang’s daily routine was torturous. “I had to have sex with [as many as] 40 men some days. Even during the days when it was less crowded in the brothel, I had to take care of at least 15 clients.” Tamang says during periods when there were festivals in the city the brothel was overcrowded with demanding clients. “Sometimes after going to the toilet to urinate, I didn’t even get the time to put my undergarments back on before the next client entered my room.”

Sickness and infections were common for the women in the brothel. “I used to have pain in my vagina while having sex with clients. It used to be painful even to urinate. If we told the Didi, we could not have sex on some days, the clients used to complain to the madam and we would be beaten. So I had to show my artificial smile and somehow satisfy the clients,” Tamang said.

Because condom use was infrequent in the brothel AIDS and pregnancy were routine. Tamang says many clients visiting the brothels refused to use condoms. And when women in the brothel got pregnant the Didi would take them to a local clinic where she had a contact who performed abortions. After an abortion in the morning, Tamang says, it was common for those women to be forced to take clients by the evening.

According to a 2004 study done by Family Health International, an international NGO, 50 percent trafficked sex workers in India are infected with HIV/AIDS. “Maiti Nepal rescues about 60 girls and women each year from India, among which 30 to 60 percent are HIV infected,” confirmed Sarita Baskota, an information officer at Maiti Nepal.

Tamang lived and worked at the Purana Welcome for just over four years. She was rescued in 1997 when a team of Maiti Nepal investigators launched a rescue operation in several brothels in Pune, with the help of Indian police. The rescue team along with the police raided four brothels there. Tamang was one of the lucky ones. In all, 20 girls were rescued from brothels and brought back to Nepal after the raid. Maiti Nepal provided counseling, shelter and employment to all of the women who were rescued. The center also helped to press charges against those who were involved in girls trafficking.

After her rescue, Tamang and a group from Maiti Nepal visited her home village in search of her aunt Laxmi, with the hopes of arresting her for trafficking Tamang four years earlier. But when they reached Tamang’s childhood home, her mother informed her that her aunt never returned to the village after she took Tamang.

Law enforcement officials here acknowledge that it is often difficult to press charges against traffickers, as many are family members or friends of the women they sell. Most often, studies show, traffickers promise better employment or marriage to lure young women away from their families. A UN study done in 2000 revealed, unsurprisingly, that illiteracy, poverty, and family problems are the major reasons for trafficking.

According to the 1986 Human Trafficking Prevention and Control Act of Nepal, anyone convicted of selling humans are subject to 10 to 20 years in prison. And anyone caught forcing women into prostitution are subject to 10 to 15 years in prison. The law, however, has no provisions to punish intermediaries who purchase women for the purpose of trafficking.

Experts here say the law was insufficient in other ways, as it also lacks a provision to mandate compensation and rehabilitation for trafficking victims.

Under pressure from local and international NGOs, the interim parliament here, which has been in power here since January 2007, passed the New Human Trafficking Control Act on July 18, 2007. In the new act, prostitution and trafficking are further criminalized and provisions are made for awarding compensation and rehabilitation to victims. Advocates say the new law includes other important additions, like more stringent punishment to the public officers who help in trafficking. (Research shows that local police are often complicit in assisting traffickers.)

While the new law is a positive step toward addressing the problem of women trafficking in Nepal, the law alone does not guarantee that the problem of trafficking will be resolved, especially as enforcement resources are minimal. Women’s rights activist and member of parliament representing Nepal Communist Party (UML), Urmila Adhikari says, “We had [an] anti-trafficking law in the past but it failed. The fate of new law will also be the same if it is not enforced effectively.”

As human trafficking has emerged as one of the most pressing and devastating human rights issues in Nepal over last decade, government officials, advocates and police agree that legal enforcement has not been effective. Anti-trafficking campaigners say the human trafficking act is one of the most poorly enforced laws in Nepal. According to the women’s police cell, a wing of police department that investigates and prosecutes crimes against women, 128 people involved in acts of trafficking were arrested between 2006 and 2007. Among those, police filed charges in only 97 cases. In the previous year, between 2005 and 2006, 393 cases were filed, 243 of which are still under investigation. Since 2005, an estimated 400,000 women have been trafficked to India and only 87 people have been penalized for acts of trafficking. The court dismissed sixty cases last year.

Yuvraj Sangroula, a local attorney and director of the Kathmandu School of Law, says, “Weak Nepali laws and ineffective enforcement has served to encourage trafficking. The culprits have grown confident that the legal system will not punish them.”

Nepal is also party to dozens international legal instruments, including the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, CEDAW, 1979, which strictly prohibits girl trafficking. However, the implementation and enforcement of these legal instruments and treaties are also weak here. Sangroula says he blames lack of political will and commitment to stop trafficking. Other issues, like the open border between India and Nepal, also fuels the trafficking trade. “Trafficking is very easy because of open border between India and Nepal as there is no effective mechanism to regulate the 1,740 mile open border between the two countries,” said Sangroula.

Baskota, the information officer at Maiti Nepal, agrees. She says that because of the open border between the two countries there is no way to detect and apprehend traffickers as they cross into India. “Since Nepal and India share open border and no official papers are required to cross the border, the brokers take advantage [of this],” she said.

Ritu Raj Bhandari, the joint-secretary of the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare in Kathmandu, says girls trafficking is a disgrace to the whole nation. He says he realizes that the government has not been able to do much to help solve the problem. “Government lacks enough budget, manpower and enforcement mechanisms to implement the laws,” he said.

Publicity around the issue of human trafficking is increasing, as are the number of organizations dedicated to stopping trafficking here.

Still, the reality of trafficking remains grim. Even with tougher laws and international pressure, trafficking is a major source of income here and penetrating trafficking networks can be almost impossible. Officials at Maiti Nepal, say traffickers work in highly sophisticated networks of organized crime. Many women are sold by their families into complex trafficking rings, so it is often difficult to pinpoint the source of a sale. Moreover, as technology and communication systems develop here, ways to lure, transport and sell victims has also changed.

Baskota, of Maiti Nepal says, in the past, traffickers used to mail photographs of the girls to be trafficked to brothel owners for their approval. Now, photos are commonly emailed and traffickers and brothel owners are known to communicate via cell phone and text messaging to speed sale arrangements.

As questions over technology, enforcement, and border issues remain at the forefront of the trafficking debate, many advocates here choose to focus on rehabilitation instead. Tamang is one of 55 women who has been rescued from an Indian brothel and then reintegrated into society by Maiti Nepal, which is funded by international donor agencies and INGOs.

But even rehabilitation statistics are bleak. Research indicates that as many as 40 percent of women rescued from brothels return to prostitution because they are shunned by family and society.

Experts and advocates say that rehabilitation for trafficked victims will go a long way toward decreasing social stigma, increasing awareness, and changing the quiet acceptance of the problem.

For Tamang, who has been out of the brothel for ten years now, says her life is finally getting back on the right track. “After spending a hellish four years and losing everything I had, I am now back,” she said. Today Tamang says her life is dedicated to giving voice to other victims “Many other women like me are still being victimized and their pains remain unheard of.”

Press Institute for Women in the Developing World September 26, 2007

 

967 Cases of Atrocities against Dalits in Gujarat

Dalits in Gujarat eclipsed under Modi: Meira

Claiming that the Dalits were “eclipsed” under the present dispensation in Gujarat, Union Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Meira Kumar on Monday criticised the Narendra Modi-led government for the “atrocities” meted out against Dalits and other backward sections of the society.

“The present government in Gujarat has a poor track record in tackling crimes against the backward sections of the society,” Kumar said addressing the day-long ‘jan-mitra shibir’ (conference of party workers) organised by the scheduled caste cell of Congress.

She claimed that Dalits were “eclipsed” in Gujarat at present.

“In the year 2005, there were a total of 967 cases of atrocities against Dalits in Gujarat where many were murdered, raped, burnt and seriously injured,” Kumar told the gathering of party workers who had assembled from different parts of the state.

“This year in just six months, there were a total of 412 cases of atrocities registered against backward classes including Dalits,” she said adding the figures she was quoting were sourced from the Social Justice department of Gujarat.

“In many of these cases FIRs are yet to be registered,” Kumar added

Press Trust of India, Gandhinagar, July 3, 2006

 

Hindu Woman commits suicide as husband refuses to have sex

June 01, 2007

From correspondents in Jharkhand, India, INDIAENEWS

A woman committed suicide in steel city Jamshedpur reportedly because her husband refused to have sex with her.

According to local media reports Friday, 22-year-old Moida Besra committed suicide by hanging herself from the ceiling fan Wednesday night. Her husband Ranjeet Besra said he was shocked to find his wife hanging from the ceiling fan when he woke up Thursday morning.

‘My wife wanted to have sex Wednesday night but I was not in a mood to have it. When she insisted I chided her and asked her to get rid of her demand,’ said Ranjeet.

‘I was in an inebriated condition as I had attended a party. I was feeling sleep,’ he said.

‘I had never imagined that my refusal would force my wife to end her life,’ said Ranjeet. Police have sent the body for post mortem and are trying to find out cause of the death.

 

Indian viagra recovered from Hindu Parliamentarian

April 23, 2007

New Delhi, April 22 (IANS) A quantity of locally-made Viagra and sex stimulants were recovered from the baggage of suspended Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Babubhai Katara during search following his arrest at Delhi airport for trying to fly a woman and teenager to Toronto on the diplomatic passports of his family.

“We recovered some sex stimulants from the MP’s baggage. He might have kept it for his personal use,” a senior police official told IANS on condition of anonymity.

Katara was arrested on Wednesday with one Paramjeet Kaur and a 15-year-old boy, Amarjeet Singh, who were posing as his wife and son.

The locally made sex stimulants were recovered from his baggage along with his other belongings. The police claimed they had recovered at least three passports from Katara’s possession and were checking the authenticity of the documents.

The officials said Katara could also be involved with some women. However, a senior police official said: “Though we recovered the pills from the parliamentarian, we are not investigating the matter “.

“Keeping such things is not a crime, everyone has the freedom to use them,” he added.

The arrest of the BJP MP from Dahod in Gujarat blew off the lid of what now appears to be a well-planned international human trafficking racket.

The Gujarat lawmaker was planning to fly out Paramjeet and Amarjeet to Toronto just as he had done on three occasions earlier using the same modus operandi in the past few years.

However, his plans went to nought when a woman passenger of the same Toronto-bound plane lost her passport and blamed the airport staff for it.

The Air India staff launched a search immediately to trace the missing passport. When checking the passports of Katara and his “family”, they found that the photographs did not match the face of the passengers.

“They informed the immigration officials and an enquiry was begun immediately,” a Delhi Police official said.

“During the course of investigation, the suspicions of police were aroused when Kaur uttered her real name when asked instead of giving the name of Katara’s wife, Shardaben, as given on the passport she was travelling with,” he added.

He revealed that both Katara and Kaur came out with two different tales after being questioned separately by immigration officials.

Initially Katara claimed that he was travelling with his wife, but upon persistent questioning admitted that the woman was not his wife. He revealed that Paramjeet Kaur was travelling on his wife’s passport and he had got her photograph affixed on top of his wife’s.

The airport authorities cross-checked and found that Katara’s wife was still in Gujarat.

The BJP MP was arrested with his clients under charges of impersonation, travelling with forged documents and cheating of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The case was later handed over to the Crime Branch of Delhi Police.

To lawmaker had done his homework properly before executing what would have been his fourth stint at human trafficking. As per the deal, Katara and his two clients were expected to board Air India flight 187 scheduled for Canada. The clients had fixed a Rs.2.7 million deal with Katara, which was to be paid to the MP after their arrival in Toronto.

Sensing no fraud, and wishing to cause no inconvenience to the honourable MP and his “family”, the airport authorities had immediately released the three boarding passes to facilitate a smooth journey. Indian MPs and other important politicians are allowed easy passage at the airports due to their VVIP status.

“Our initial investigations indicate that Katara had used a similar modus operandi to smuggle some people to London and the US in the last two years,” the police official said.

Police have voiced suspicion on the role of immigration officials in the human trafficking racket. They maintain the diplomatic passports of Katara’s wife and son were found to bear post-dated arrival stamps here, despite the fact that the woman and the boy accompanying Katara were yet to take the outgoing flight.

The three were produced in a city court and sent on police remand.

On Saturday, Sunder Lal Yadav, a travel agent, was arrested with Katara’s aide Rajendra Kumar Gampa and their female accomplice Kiran Dhar from the city.

While Gampa, a part-time office assistant of the MP, was held on charges of forging documents and passports, Yadav was charged with arranging visas, police said.

Kiran Dhar allegedly “trained” women travelling with MPs on forged passports on how to behave and speak at the immigration counter and on flights. “She taught women how to carry themselves while travelling with the MPs,” Deputy Commissioner of Police Neeraj Thakur said.

Sunder Lal Yadav told Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau that lawmakers Mohammed Tahir Khan of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Ramswaroop Koli also of BJP were also at the heart of the racket that involved sending people abroad on the diplomatic passports of politicians’ family or forged documents provided they coughed up big money.

Yadav, who apparently knew many MPs as he stayed in the house of one of them, said Ram Awadh, a former MP who is no more, was also linked to the scandal.

Yadav said he and Gampa had met the BJP MP thrice to facilitate the travel of Paramjeet Kaur and the 15-year-old boy with Katara.

“Going by the admissions so far, this clearly looks like a major racket spanning several states and has been running successfully for many years with the connivance of top politicians,” a senior police officer told IANS.

With more skeletons tumbling out of the cupboard, police officials said the full picture of the trafficking syndicate was yet to unfold.

IANS