================== Indrani Sinha Sanlaap , Kolkata ================== Indrani: Thanks to Asha for inviting me. I will talk about Sanlaap as an organization. We try to call it a movement. We believe in it. People who are working with Sanlaap believe that what we are doing is what needs to be done. We are part of this change. In 1987 when I was working with a funding agency, Oxfam, and decided to work with women, it was mainly working with women through small organizations trying to provide them with training, knowledge, capacity building, etc. and empower them. That was the idea with which five women came together and I think all of us had experience on working with women's empowerment in different ways. I think fate had something different for us. Because I was working with Oxfam, I knew people from before and for survival I had some consultancy. I got involved in study of sexual abuse of children. I did it as a group, taking help of the organization and in the process of establishing it. When you begin you don't have funds. This study was done for over an year. When we completed, we interviewed 1600 girls through different organizations, hospitals, nursing homes etc. We found that several of the girls come to the redlight areas after the abuse. That's how I went to the redlight areas for the first time. Girls were there for all sorts of reasons, and many of women who were there actually joined as minors. They were tricked, coorced, coaxed into it, and that was the first time I had heard about trafficking. I began asking those women as to how they were there. I found that most of them joined when they were 13-15. They came from a background where there was a lot of poverty, violence, and they were coorced, tricked, or got into a marriage eventually ending up in the redlight areas. I believe as a group - as an NGO we have to ask ourselves what do you want to do, what are you doing and where are you going - some of us [out of original five] said we want to work on this particular issue. Some others left. New people joined and surprisingly enough lot of young people joined. Lot of older colleagues told me if you go to the redlight areas, you wont get workers, staff or volunteers. When I really went to work, it was the young people who came and joined me. We have come a long way since 1987. I will quickly go through the activities - what we do - and why we do that. Formal Schooling and Drop-in Centers After the child sexual abuse study, we started two child dropin centers in two areas of West Bengal. One was in Kolkata (kalighat) and another in rural areas. We wanted to find out what happens in rural areas - is the redlight area any different there? Who are these people, what happens, what is the exploitation like and so on. We started these and we expected the women to come and share their problems. They did come to us and talk about harassment of the police, malkins, pimps and what kinds of abuses they had. Sometimes they had relationships with customers who became livein boyfriends who once again started abusing them or living off them. We were learning different kinds of things from them. When we talked to them about the kind of help they needed, they need help to work against abuse and harassment. Some of them asked what will happen to them when they get old. When we asked them what can be done, their first priority was their children. They do want their children in these kinds of situations. Sometimes when we do not have any alternatives and nowhere to go, our daughters get into prostitution and we live off them or else a son who gets into the area[prostitution?]. Preeti has talked about it. We then extended the hours of the dropin centers and started having programs during the evening. The programs came about gradually and need based. First, they wanted their children to go through formal education. Nobody wanted NFE. They wanted their children to go to regular and good school. But they drop out because there is nobody to help them with their homework, mothers are away in the evening and there is no place to sit down. They drop out also because there is a lot of stigma attached to their mothers or areas where they live. So when they go to schools, other children will stay away or some of the girls would say that teachers wouldn't say anything openly but would, say, spit in front of them. Seeing a boy/girl from that area was the worst thing. One, provide special coaching and a place to their home work. Many times they miss their dinner because mothers are not around. Sometimes mothers give them money to buy food. We could provide nutricious food - not a dinner - but atleast something that is nutricious and filling. They would stay until 9:30 PM. We extended to other classes - painting, karate etc. all those things that our children do. Whatever I learnt from raising children, I decided to try them because I did not have any other expertise. These dropin centers became popular, and we started getting requests from other redlight areas to come and start dropin centers in their areas. Right now we have sixteen such dropin centers in the city of Kolkata. In South 24 Parganas, we have three and one in Midnapore. These have been started with the only if there is interest from people in redlight areas because they have to provide the space, staff and electricity. We had three different programs: 1. Children going to formal schools 2. Support for adult local women - whatever we can 3. Daughters of these women who were specifically in danger. Shelters People who work in the redlight areas know - young girls are used for different kinds of things. Boys are generally used for buying cigarettes, alcohol etc. odd jobs. Girls asked by other adult women to dance in their (?) rooms. Sometimes you find these little girls have to dance naked - when the children are 4-5 years old, they don't even know that they are being abused in a way. At the end of the day they are given money. Some of girls are taken by pimps to other places, particularly in Bihar and UP during the marriage season, there are troupes are dancers who go and they take young girls. This is extra earning for women who is 40 years old and are not earning enough. Many of the mothers asked us to take away the girls because they cannot look after them. We conducted a study and moved the first 15 girls out of these redlight areas and started the first shelter home. We sent them to school, who can go. Many of the girls are older, 15/16, and you cannot send them to class 1 or junior school. We have to do NFE but we try our best not to. While staying over there, from 1990-93, we started finding out about trafficking and trafficking of young girls. Also the youth group, young girls and boys from that area, started coming together with our help, and talking about issues. The first thing they said is that they wanted to stop prostitution by minors. We started a second shelter then. We were asked by the government because it was becoming difficult to keep rescued HIV+ girls at government homes. Much later, we started another shelter home (one year ago) which is a working womens hostel for girls who have completed the schooling and vocational training. They are staying there and working at different places. Nine of them got admitted to a government hostel which is a big leap because the stigma is not there for them. Problems encountered while working in this domain You can continuously work with the government officials and police. You must also understand that government officials are continuously transferred. You have it every year. You have to work with panchayat because if you are campaigning against trafficking you have work with the panchayat. Panchayat is the body who can do it, can find out what is happening after a child marriage, who can create child protection units. You have to sensitize them because only they can stop it, and they work only when they believe in it and are motivated. In different metros, minor girls from WB are rescued and come to us, they come due to a highcourt order or from the order of CWC. The order says "restored them". If we do it immediately, they go back to the redlight area. This is a big problem. Many people ask why we want to have more girls, given that we already have so many. I know that this girl will go back. In one or two cases, we found that they do. The court procedure, we do not have the time to talk about the intricracies, is lengthy and becomes abusive. The restoration followup is a big problem The children get restored to Manipur, Bangladesh etc. and we have four workers for this purpose. How do we do this? When we talk about networking, unless each and every organization think we have to do something we cannot have people do this. What do we do with HIV+ children? The government and the families do not want them. The family tells the girl sometimes that the girl is HIV+ and she has been in prostitution, then why not earn some income as long as she can? They themselves suffer. It is really difficult to their motivation back. Some of them are really doing well. They are working and with other NGOs, corporate sector. They are also our campaign partners and staff. What worries me is that we have so many child marriages in our villages. This is a big issue that we need to fight. Every organization needs to work on this be it food security or health. The government has to take this up. That's the kind of pressurizing/lobbying we need to do. Traditional/socially accepted prostitution: Young girls 7-9 years old are getting into this. We just rescued 3 girls - one is already into it, two of them are being taught about it. Their mothers are in the prostitution. When the court case is progress, some of mothers come and take the children back. Some of the judges and lawyers - if they are not motivated enough - they will want the mother to get the child back. Police asks us why we are bothered because it is their tradition. They come from Rajastan, UP and MP. We need to work in these states. Rescued girls who are mentally challenged, particularly those who are HIV+. There are several organizations who work with mentally challenged rescued girls but not if the girls are HIV+. We have a campaign program, we have a documentation unit and we publish journal in regional languages. There is lots of research that is going on. But unless until and every organization feels that it their issue, every department thinks that we need to do something, trafficking cannot be stopped. We have had instances where the panchayat head claims that trafficking does not happen in their village, and a girl stands up and says it has happened to her. That's the kind of situation we are in. They deny saying that the girl is bad or that she has run away. We have brought up the girl saying that by the time they are 15-16 she must get married to somebody and when she gets married because the bridegroom is from UP/MP and is not asking for dowry, we marry her off. Later when she gets trafficked, we say she is a bad girl. The problems of trafficking is the lack of awareness. We need to talk about this in the schools, rural areas. We need to look into girl children, how they are being brought up, what is the kind of information they have about trafficking, what happens [during trafficking], manifestations and so on. Rehabilitation is also difficult. We just completed a study of 400 girls whom we have rescued and repatriated/restored, not even 40 girls are employed in a way where she can say that she can take care of herself. Hansa: who provides the space for the dropin centers? What is the resistance to these drop in centers from brothel keepers and pimps. Indrani: WB has the history of youth clubs - all over. The boys will come together and do community activities (organize durga puja, play football etc.). These are everywhere. They can rent a room, create something on the footpaths etc. In redlight areas we have noticed that there are certain open spaces, which is everybodys. If the women come together and say that this space has to be used for this purpose by this organization, then it will happen. We enter like a needle and expand. Here we don't find resistance because if there are 1000 women, there are only 10-12 madams, and if you do things that they want you to, they are your strength. People have asked us about threats. It happens but it has never affected our work. We have 220 staff members and 60% are working in redlight areas. Even in the courts, pimps have showed us guns/knives. They know that these people are not going to move and women are in our support, that is the biggest support. I think if in a redlight area, if me or my staff is harmed and he/she shouts, all these women who will come for us. That is the strength. Hansa: Do you ask the brothel keepers not to have minors or atleast counsel them? Indrani: Yes. Not only that. The youth group in that area does that. Hearing this from the outsider and from one of them, that is more effective. For the last 2 years, we have been working with the youth group and it is very effective. Ramesh: How many cases have you filed against traffickers? Indrani: We are looking through at least 65-70 cases in the last 1 years. In the last 5 years, only 3 cases were really taken up and there was only one conviction. It is very sad. Parashu: We have resuced more than 400-450 girls. Now all the pimps, police etc. are all afraid of Odanadi. Realizing this the brothel madam, the brothel madams are showing more love and affection, and that's how they are trying to entice all the young girls into the prostitution. It is very difficult to handle this situation. Now they have become more clever - giving more comforts than any organization like Odanadi can give. We have come to know of this through police officials. This has become a problem for us. If they are treated good, they how are we going to rescue the child. What will happen is since the girl is trafficked anyway, after 3 years she will be out on the street. Indrani: Police can pose a problem. Lot depends on the kind of motivation you can provide. If you take her [victim] home, then she will think that at home I dont have food, and I am already stimatized here. Nobody wants here. Everybody is telling me that "why dont you go back?". Then she might. There we say the order should say that she must stay somewhere where she can be motivated, she can be given be given options - thats when she is minor. But with adults, any adult can comeback [to the brothel?] and say that it is my right. In Delhi particularly, rescued women at 25-28. Why do they come out and why are they brought out? The police say that we knew that she was adult but she wanted to come out. Many of them want to come out because they have debt. She will say that she wants to get out and once out she will go back and join another madam or may go to another city. That way the Rs. 10000-20000 that she owes, she doesnt have to repay. So there are different kinds of dynamics that are at work. Every court case is different from the other. Even the human beings are different from each other. She might take umpteen number of hardship and she will say that. A recent case - a girl from traditional prostitution. She was brought to the area by her mother. She grew up doing prostitution. She takes 15-20K from rich costumers with whom she goes to their resort 2-3 times a month. She doesnt have to go to the prostitution everyday. She decided to come out because she felt it was wrong. She had a different kind of motivation. What I have seen is if the girl is under 15-16 and if you can provide her an option, a space where has dignity, she is going to change. You need to give her time. Ashis: Can you tell us something about your documentation center? Indrani: We have a documentation unit - 14 news papers from which we document all the cases issue wise and do an analysis of that. Thats ready information from all over india, and is available for everyone to use. We also publish one bengali news paper every month for a campaign which is continuously used. We also publish a bi-monthly called Junaki - there we talk mainly about trafficking and related issues. We have a huge range of information material on traficking, laws etc. for researchers and students. We really want to make it a bigger place. Getting space in Kolkata is expensive. It is being used by researchers from all over the world. Vasu: On the legal aspect. You said that 65 cases are handled. Why couldnt you be successful to systematic action against the culprits? Indrani: A lack of motivation among the judges, public prosecutors etc. We have 9 lawyers, who are not full timers. Recently one case in which we were opposing the bail for the trafficker: (some lawyers who have been working for us for long are motivated and they know what needs to be done even if we are not there) in this case we were there [present] and the staff who was responsible she was there and she found that she was not appearing in the court and he wanted his assitant to stand up in the court. Our staff got annoyed and asked him to stand, but he did not. The bail was rejected because we had worked with the judge before. But when she went and asked why he didnt appear, he said that there was a lot of pressure from people from high above - from the government and politicians and I had to step down. They [politicians] had felt that the bail will be granted if he [prosecutor] does not appear. It is so important to go to the right person. [Otherwise] Everytime we have to take our certificates, rewards and papers to the judge at any time during the day or night, and beg him to read the documents. We have go and coach this person, and only if the person is motivated, he will look into the interest of the child. Stanly: As far as legal proceedings are concerned, you cannot impress the judge. Also, it is always the state vs the culprit. You can have your lawyer support the public prosecutor. Our experience is - and we have been successful in handling trafficking networks - the trafficking network is not in Kolkata, Delhi or Kamatipura. It starts from the grassroots in remote village in Mysore district and leads into Kamatipura. The girl is not a virgin girl who is sold in Kamatipura. She has to sell her body in many trasit areas and she becomes wasted. They she goes to Kamatipura and gets sold for Rs. 8000-16000. This is the root. If you make a very good document[s], then only you can enter the legal system and nobody can play. Preeti: There is a technical reason for why cases do not stand in the court under the IP Section and Immoral Trafficking Act. They first come to Magistrate Court. In the Magistrate's Court, when the perpetrator has applied for bail, you get to know only when the police tells you. The court will never tell you. The moment the case goes to high court, you dont have to depend on anybody. But in magistrate-sessions court, you are always dependent on the local police station. In the city of Bombay, you have redlight area divided among three police stations. There are different IO[Inspector?]. If the IO is good, he will positively ring you up and tell you that he [perpetrator] is applying for bail. If the IO is new with whom you have not had the time to sensitize and work with, he will not not inform you - not because he is not in favor of you but he doesnt see the need to inform anybody. The perpetrator gets bail, and the police declares that he is absconding. Everytime there is a trial, the culprit is absent. The trial keeps getting postponed. The other technical point is evidence is very important - how you draft the FIR. Many times I feel activists should have three day worshops on only learning how to draft an FIR. The next training should be on how to facilitate a Panchnama. If these two are done properly, the case will not stand in the court. Inspite of all that conviction [arrests?], you do not get the conviction rate. Indrani: Lets not forget that there is lot of curruption. It is with police, lawyers and public prosecutors. Parashu: Normally PPs are very corrupt. Preeti: You really have to train him and run through the entire charge sheet with him. Stanly: We have to sit for one or two days in the police station as victims making the FIR. Preeti: A police station takes 8-12 hours to draft an FIR. Parashu: Odanadi normally uses many activists in the police station. We follow up with chargesheet as well. Anita: To expand on this, you [Preeti] mentioned that you cant impress the judge and you [Stanly] said that it is possible. I am not sure if the issue got resolved. Preeti: It is possible in the Magistrate Court but not the High Court. You cant meet the High Court judge. If you are an interested party - not a part of the legal process - then you can take an appointment. This can happen only in the first round. Indrani: In the high court - how ROMA has worked in Delhi, [she got an entry] through the public prosecutor in the Usha Mehra's case. [Usha Mehra is the judge] Preeti: In that case it was possible because Usha Mehra called the parties to her chamber. Then you can negotiate. Anindit: I do agree with the point that police can make things worse. But would it be then our (civil society) policy to look at this (?) procedure where we exclude the police? Stanly: I agree with your point. In the end we have to go to the police. We cant do their job. This is to make the case stronger. Some are very good officers but most of them are not giving high priority to this and some are controlled. We cant quite blame them. [At odanadi] For certain period we will develop evidence, and after that we involve the police so that they will have to do their job. [..Informal discussion on legal issues continued...]