Over the top

In need of a game changer

by Erik Wilson

Two weeks ago, the State Restructuring Commission (SRC) submitted its report and recommendations regarding state division to Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai. The Commission’s report, or perhaps we should say reports (as there was no consensus), unleashed a new wave of protest from ethnic groups who felt that their interests were not being taken into consideration. The past two weeks have shown the SRC for what it truly is, a politicised body whose actions are largely representative of the political impasse that has plagued Nepal for the past five years.

Let’s run through what we know.

Firstly, federalism – along with integration of ex-combatants into the army, governmental restructure and land reform – is one of the main issues that must be resolved before the constitutional deadline in May. Ethnic federalism is seen by many as the key to Nepal’s problems, the tool with which to achieve the ambitious social promises put forth in the country’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2006. Indeed it was ethnic federalism that was meant to undo centuries of exclusion and marginalisation based upon caste, class and a whole host of other factors. Only now is it becoming clear how truly difficult that task is, and will be.

Secondly, we know that two main proposals were put forth on how the country should be federated. The plan, supported by the majority, would divide the country into 11 provinces along ethnic lines, granting property rights to the majority ethnicity in each area. The other proposal would divide the country into 6 provinces largely on north/south lines, allotting 2 southern provinces in the Terai for Madhesis and organising the remaining 4 along economic lines.

The majority plan was met with strong protest upon submission to the PM, especially from members of the Sherpa and Jadan communities, as no provision was made for a state for either community. In its failure to create a state for these ethnic groups, the SRC majority has potentially set the stage for a new fragmentation.

Thirdly, let’s face it, the promulgation of a new constitution is viewed as the yearned for pinnacle of Nepal’s peace process; the document that, once complete, will presumably usher in a new era for Nepal and its citizens, indeed the “New Nepal” sought by many. But ethnic federalism is part of that equation, and here it is 3 months before the constitutional deadline and the government has yet to decide on the proper way to debate the federalism plans, let alone actually begin discussing them. If the parties don’t start to move on this quickly the whole process could be in serious jeopardy.

So what don’t we know?

Firstly, as always, we don’t know if the political parties will be able to navigate their differences and general posturing with regards to the Prime Ministership in time to strike a deal on state structuring. Another deadline extension was requested recently, but with each passing week the May deadline draws closer and the likelihood of completing all these tasks diminishes.

Secondly, it seems uncertain whether the parties will amend the 11 or 6-province model to accommodate for the protesting groups. A previous plan had provided for 14 provinces (including provinces for the Sherpa and Jadan communities) but that was rejected in favor of the 11 province model.

Finally, and I would suggest most importantly – we don’t know how the new state divisions will be received by the Nepali people. We also don’t know how they will be implemented or if it will actually begin to counteract the long entrenched social exclusion and marginalization.

Watching the process unfold it would seem that the situation deserves a healthy level of skepticism. The reports have not been on time and the whole exercise is dangerously behind schedule. The fact that the report was met with protests upon submission should send warning signs to the political parties. Nepali citizens have been waiting since 2006 for a “New Nepal”, one that would confront the past and move forward with bold action. The notion of an ethnically federal state was to drastically change the rules of the game. As it’s going now, the rules may only shift instead of change and frustrations will likely rise anew.

by Ruchika Rai

I couldn’t help but compare him to the character played by Tim Roth in the popular American sitcom Lie to me – a professional lie-detection expert, who scans each and every micro-expression of the accused to reach the truth. Janak Chand, a 40 year old human trafficking inspector, who’s been in the field identifying and arresting (with the help of the local police) traffic victims and perpetrators for over 10 years now, is a man of few facial expressions. ‘In my job, it helps to pull a straight face. Nobody should know what I’m up to,’ explains Chand, who’s never had any formal training as a detective. He recently reported his 120th case of human trafficking to the local police, and has worked on various international and government anti-trafficking programs. Chand is currently working on the Ujjawala scheme of the government of India.

There are several Indian and Nepalese NGOs working towards the prevention of human trafficking, as well as rescue and rehabilitation of victims at the Indo-Nepalese border. They hire locals from the area’s villages to keep an eye on people crossing the border. These self-trained human trafficking inspectors, around 20 of them at the Terai border, have contributed substantially towards curbing human trafficking in the area. Most of them fall in the age group of 20-40 years; few of them attended college.

Their day starts early in the morning as the border gates open from 0600 -0700 hrs, and later around 1200hrs, as well as 1700 hrs. Meera Samant, a human trafficking inspector and a mother of two, who lives alone in Gadda Chowki (Nepal) as her husband serves the Nepal army, finishes her household chores and drops her children to school before she starts her work at the check post at 1100 hrs. ‘I have a female and two male colleagues. We make sure that we co-ordinate work shifts in a way that there’s always a female inspector at the post throughout the day,’ said Meera.

As most trafficking cases pertain to women and children, these female inspectors, most of them from Nepal, are very crucial for interrogating suspects. ‘We visually scan all the people crossing the border and looks out for discrepancies like too many women travelling alone, or a young couple that doesn’t look married and yet the woman is adorned with too much jewellery (to not catch the attention of these detectives), and the like,’ explained Meera, while she took me on one of her routine checks at the border gate. The women she found a little out of place, were first asked some simple questions about their native village, and further enquired about where and why they were travelling to India. ‘If they are being trafficked, with or without their consent, there’s always going to be some loopholes in their details,’ she elaborated.

Raj Nath, a resident of Pachpakhariya village of the Uttaranchal border, and an experienced human trafficking inspector, who recently reported a case of human trafficking where the trafficker and the victim were in two different vehicles, was first introduced to the anti-trafficking industry by sheer coincidence. Nath is now touted as one of the best connected people in the area. ‘We’re not very different from the traffickers or the victims – we come from the same socio-cultural background, speak the same language, and even look similar, which helps us in the job. It’s been 8 years since I first joined an NGO as a trafficking inspector; today, I can confidently say that I know all the villagers who live within 10km from the border,’ said Nath, while constantly keeping an eye on the human traffic crossing the border gates, even as he spoke to me. ‘I depend heavily on local tongawallahs and shopkeepers for tips that I explore further to catch potential victims,’ he added.

The traffickers, especially the experienced ones, always come up with an itinerary that has minimum possible check-post stop time, and the inspectors believe that their biggest disadvantage is the lack of time to check each and every human being crossing the border. While on one of my field visits, Pooja Chand, a 23-year-old newly inducted trafficking officer, happened to catch a major trafficking case by sheer coincidence. A bus had arrived barely two minutes before the gates were to open, and she suspected that the move might be planned in advance, by the driver, to hide something illegal. She then got onto the bus for a headcount, and found that there were two extra people travelling without a ticket. Later when she called the police officers and forced the driver to reveal the details, they found that two girls, from Rasuwa district in Nepal, were being taken to Delhi by a trafficker. The girls were obviously given fake job prospects and told to keep a low profile as they didn’t have adequate proof of identity. ‘If it was physically possible to check each and every person, we would catch many more trafficking cases,’ claimed Pooja.

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Circles of Sexuality (March 2008 issue)

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‘How can we report victims who refuse to believe that they’re victims?’

By Ruchika Rai

Nepal-India border. Image: flick user jackol, CC license.

I didn’t expect to witness human-trafficking gangs being busted by anti-trafficking workers on the Indo-Nepal border in the Terai, and I was proven right. My first blow came after just two days in the field, when I saw eloping couples being passed off as trafficking cases in the record books of desperate social workers. As a vagabond journalist, the border area had always been of much interest to me; after all where can a person better study the confluence of cultures than in this ‘open’ haven of trade and crime. Nonetheless, the current status of human trafficking in two of the countries where the practice is most common seems a tad different from popular perception.

The Ujjawala Scheme of the Government of India, Women and Child Development Ministry, was rolled out in 2007-08 to prevent trafficking and promote rescue and rehabilitation of trafficking victims. Meera Samant, a Nepali anti-trafficking inspector who works under the Ujjawala Scheme, was my mentor at the Banbassa check post (Uttaranchal). The first piece of information she shared with me laid open the dim reality of anti-trafficking work. ‘Organised trafficking almost always happens through the easily accessible illegal routes between the countries, and most cases that you will find here are pertaining to women who emigrate willingly. How can we report victims who refuse to believe that they’re victims?’ she answered, puzzling me further with her question.

So does that mean there has been a decline in human trafficking? There is more than one answer to that.

According to a research paper titled ‘Myths About Human Trafficking’ by Ronald Weitzer, Professor of Sociology at George Washington University, ‘ activists and some government officials in the US claim that Human Trafficking is now the second largest criminal enterprise in the world, after drugs, as the profit generated by the industry is pegged at a staggering $5-$12 billion, annually.’ However, the author cautions against the ‘dubious nature’ of such estimates, – ‘US State Department reported in 2010 that only 0.4% of the estimated 800,000 victims have been identified and assisted worldwide.’ He adds that the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has also put forth similar numbers, and claimed that 5000 to 10,000 women from Nepal are trafficked for sex work every year. The above statement begs us to ask why there is such a discrepancy between the estimated number of victims and the number of ones that are being identified.

Having said that, there’s still some trafficking taking place in the area, even though not on the same scale as the agency estimates suggest. So who are these people, and why are the millions of dollars currently flowing into the anti-trafficking industry of India and Nepal not able to help the situation? The old story of poor ignorant village girls being hoodwinked by city boys has no relevance anymore because even the smallest villages in Nepal are sensitised by social workers against human trafficking.

Rita Bhattarai, co-ordinator of Maiti Nepal, an NGO that works across the country and even oversees to help victims of trafficking, explained the situation: ‘Villagers do attend community awareness programs on the subject, but abject poverty and lack of entrepreneurship still results in sizeable exodus of human population. We conclude that women end up falling prey to dubious job and marriage offers oversees, and are often later forced into prostitution. However, the biggest problem for us is a sheer lack of testimonials by victims, who hardly give any details about the sexual exploitation or violence they go through.’

Families don’t accept women who once go missing or end up in prostitution. The fear of social rejection forces victims to keep encounters of sexual abuse discreet. Neha Shreshtha was only 16 years old when she decided to follow Dharam Ram, a mechanic in Delhi, to the city, only to end up being sold by him for Rs 20,000. ‘I was confident that he loved me and wanted to marry me, and so, I defied all social norms to elope with him. He did marry me, but that didn’t last for long. He then decided to get rid of me and make some money so he sold me to Raman Lal, a resident of Laxmi Nagar in Delhi, who runs a small general store,’ she said, counting on my promise to keep her identity safe. She later allowed me to use her real name, ‘I don’t think any of my acquaintances can read English. It doesn’t matter if you print my name,’ she mumbled, more to herself than to me, as if rejoicing at the fact that she still had places to go where an anonymous existence was possible. She has been hiding in her village for the last three months, and needs to find a safer place before her second master, who bought her from Lal for Rs 25000, turns up at her house.

Organised trafficking, therefore, shouldn’t really be the single-point agenda for social workers on the border. Exploitative international marriages and jobs that affect a chunk of the population, and are often recorded as human trafficking, need to be combated separately. Activists in the area believe that creating a culture of registered marriages would prove to be a great step in the direction. Similarly, job registration should be made more stringent and emigrants should be tracked right from their villages. If girls from Neha’s village were to decide to follow her footsteps and go abroad for work, they should be well geared to return safely too. Besides, criminalising prostitution has also resulted in a social stigma surrounding human trafficking, which pronounces the victim to be a culprit. Families and relatives of victims clearly need more insight into the matter too, so that rehabilitation is possible for anyone who once goes off-track.