Government Policies: What Works and What Does Not ================================================= Moderator: Shanmuga, Asha for Education. Shanmuga: There are groups here with different levels of knowledge of the laws. At one end we have people who deal with it on a daily basis. At the other end, there are others who dont even know what the policies are. For the benifit of everybody, we can start by enumerating the different laws. Then we can go into the details. Can we get a list of enforceable laws at national and state level? Stanly: [The conference brochure contained Odanadi's note which is being read out] There are international laws related to trafficking of women for commercial sexual trafficking. There are some constitutional provisions. There are separate laws for trafficking called Immoral Trafficking Act (1950). Juvenile Justice Act and IPC sections exist. International Laws: Universal Declaration of Human Rights ILO Convention on Forced Labor Convention on All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CIDA 1979, Article 2 and 6) Convention on the Rights of the Child Convention on Suppression of the Trafficking in Person and of the Exploitation of Prostitution of Others (1950, Article 1,2,3,4) Constitutional Provisions. Articles 21, 23, 23 Clause 1, 24, 38 and 45 Employment of Children Act 1938 Immoral Trafficking Act (1950) Section 3-9 Juvinile Justice Care and Protection Act IPC (359, 360, 362, 363, 365...) Shanmuga: These are primary for trafficking. There are a set of laws for Devadasi system. May be you [Mr. Manavade] can comment on what is available. Manvade: Devadasi Act exists but it is insufficient. [..inaudible..] Act says that dedication of a girl into the system is illegal. There is no definition of dedication....They have certain subsidy programs and self-employment programs for already dedicated women. Apte: Police are very important people who should be involved in ths work. Unfortunately in police training, the work with women and children is insufficient. The trend is changing but they are not sensitized to the problem of abduction etc. If a thief is to be caught, they are active. If a child or woman is missing, even crime against property is more important for them. This kinds of crimes happen not only in poorer communities but also at higher level. There are two important cases where college lecturer and a person from a high class was involved in trafficking. There are atleast 35 women who have been convicted for trafficking in Yerwada (Pune) jail. Anita: Another thing that was mentioned that if there was interstate trafficking, then you can ask CBI to conduct an enquiry. Preeti: That under the ITA. Shanmuga: This is across states. Preeti: Neednt be. In one of the cases, we filed right now, one of the options we have been given in the PIL is that if the Maharashtra police is not doing certain things in the next one month, then we can handover this case to the CBI for further investigation. If we find that the state machinery is not doing justice, we can use that directive to the CBI. With this one neednt go to the high court at all. Otherwise if you want the CBI to be involved, you need the highcourt telling CBI. Stanly: In every state there is a CBI chamber. They will register the case and look into it immediately. Preeti: When you are talking about policy and judiciary, one important thing is also for all of us to know certain supreme court ruling, which come in handy when you are doing certain FIRs. There is one ruling that says that the police neednt record your evidence. You can write the FIR and hand it over to the police in case the police refuses to file an FIR. You can then give it to the dispatch and when the case comes up for hearing, that same letter can be converted into an FIR. Every police station (beat or otherwise) should have a list of advocates. These rules definitely help us in the field. Shanmuga: Are there publications where these laws can be found? Preeti: Yes. I dont remember what it is called but the supreme court and every state highcourt has one. Every judgement comes. There is no compilation. Stanly: It is clearly mentioned that it is a punishable offence for the police if they deny the FIR. They can imprisoned for 2 years. Many people are unaware of this. If you have a problem with the police, at any time you can file a PCR (Private Complaint). The judiciary can ask the police officer to register. You can go to the SP. If the SP denies, you can take action against the SP and the officer. They can be imprisoned. Thats where the importance of the legal knowledge lies - CRPC, IPC etc. Anita: Are lawyers who are willing to take this up? Julia: There are very few lawyers who have knowledge of this - atleast in Goa. Trafficking is not important for them. Stanly: Always it is the state vs. the traffickers. Trafficking is crime against the state. The Public Prosecutor will have to handle the case. What we can do is to have our lawyer assist the PP. Unfortunately the PP has no knowledge or interest. Vasu: They are bribed several times. Preeti: It also depends on the relation of your lawyer with the PP. Your lawyer would have fought another case when this PP [happens to be the opposing party] [...missed some part...] Stanly: ..Policies are different and laws are different. There are very good policies - there is a recent program called Swadhar. It is a wonderful program. For the past 11 years, we have not taken any government assistance because they were not practical. It is very difficult to implement with the corruption. This time the central government created a good program - a program by Ministry of HRD from women and children in difficult circumstances. They give 25Lakhs for home and day-to-day expenditure, pocket money for the girls etc. Preeti: The other aspect is prevention. If somebody in the source districts would like to work on preventing traficking, they can get support. It is a very progressive policy. They have social provisioning - for salaries of social workers and rent for your office etc. Government has given holistic thought. Stanly: There are three programs under swadhar - Institutional program, Sensitization program and Rescue and others program. Preeti: Reintegration. With the Swadhar program, you can work with other government projects under the same department - particularly VORA (Vocational Training and Rehabilitation). It does not have a set of [predefined] rehabilitation programs. It can be individual. Unfortunately of the 19 proposals which had come - I am one the committee (?) - they have just copied the language from the main program without giving a thought to it. Only 4 were approved. I would like people who are working on the ground - who say we dont have enough support - this is an excellent program to write proposals. Julia: Is the victim directly benifiting from the sensitization program? Stanly: The victim and the society at large. To propogate the thoughts of anti-traficking, this is the first time the government is empowering the NGOs and people to execute the laws of the land. Julia: My question was for the victim - will there be any support for rehabilitation of the victims after rescue? Stanly: Yes, it is a package. Shanmuga: All the people here should learn more about the Swadhar program. We have atleast one person who is part of the committee [Indrani Sinha]. If there are any more questions about Swadhar, we can take one more. Sridhar: Most of us are not aware of the government programs. If the more experienced members can take it upon themselves to compile the programs, probably a resource book, that will be useful. Stanly: I think Anindit can contribute on this. Anindit: We are mostly focusing on the laws. Swadhar is definitely a bigger policy. There are other areas as well. For instance, SAARC convention created a SAARC peoples forum. They put major pressure on government to work on various aspects. We can work with the government at not just at a law enforcement level - police, judiciary - but also at a senior level. Most of the projects in Swadhar at very institutional building. I am not saying that it is not important, but at some level the effort to innovate is not there. We are not innovating fast enough as the traffickers. Looking at policies should not be just for funding part. The good part is that Swadhar is the first time when the civil society is actively taking decisions - not the IAS, IPS. They are also members but people also have equal say. Looking at the problem more innvotively will probably help because Swadhar is a great program. I am also trying to look at SAARC/regional forums for policy building. We do have a lot of laws. Shanmuga: To summarize the thoughts - we can work with the government to: 1. impose the laws and judiciary 2. to come up with a policy not only to help the victims but also to reduce the number of victims. The thought that Sridhar is that a startup kit about laws and information would be helpful. Preeti: We [Prerana] have compiled two books (1) All UN conventions and laws related to CSE (2) Latest UN conventions and protocols along with certain suggestions to bring about amendments to the Immoral Traficking Act. If you want it write to us. We can send it by post or electronically. We have this issue of Sex Tourism. Goa government has come up with an ad talking about Goa Childrens Act which touches upon this topic. One of the biggest growing site of commercial sex exploitation is this sex tourism. Thats an area that we can discuss at some point in time. Julia: The Goa Childrens Act made with the help of NGOs - has listed the rights of child at various aspects. Sridhar: In terms of publications, you [addressing Preeti] mentioned about UN conventions. Preeti: If you are a signatory and you have ratified the convention, you can use the conventions in a court of law. We used them in one of our PIL. Shanmuga: Does it work? Preeti: Yes. In the Rajastan case (?) sexual exploitation at work place, that [UN] convention was the major convention that was cited. It is now compulsory for every government organization to have a committee that will look into sexual harassment. Shanmuga: Once we have supreme court ruling that itself becomes the law. Preeti: Yes, it becomes Case Law. Vasu: The lower courts are taking cognizance of the conventions. One child labor issues, in Karnataka, they have quoted Conventions on Child and ILO convention on Child Labor. In terms of Sex Tourism, while developing the State Plan of Action for Children in Karnataka, the Department of Women and Child Welfare and the Department of Tourism are coming together...[inaudible] Shanmuga: Just to continue on the publications side, much of the discussion was about laws. are there similar policies/laws in other states? at central or state level? Stanly: We have ... program in Karnataka Preeti: There is an attempt put together by The National Commission on Women to put together all state policies. So may be we can wait and watch. I know that a decision makes 2 months back on this - related to children and women. Vasu: We [Child Rights Trust] have two publications. National Law School (?) has compiled all laws related to children. They have done in the light of Womens...Act (?). The second one is - Indian Council for General Service (??) brought out a book called Child and Law. It is a compilation of case laws and previaling rules and regulations. It is a very good text to apply in the field. Apte: There is another book written by Asha Bajpai. It is a good book called Child Rights in India. Anindit: There are NGOs in Kerala who have produced books. Vasu: There is a lot of material in English. Apte: We have translated law books into Marathi and prepared something - not a compilation yet. It could be. From MARG Delhi they have published 10 books and we have translated them into Marathi. Shanmuga: Whats the status in Andhra Pradesh? Dr. Subbaramaih: [...inaudible...] Shanmuga: To repeat, there is Mathamma Act that is part of Devadasi Act, but due to lack of knowledge and interest of government officials, it has not been implemented as yet. Is there something in terms of policy? Preeti: AP is one of the first states to have a concrete state policy on CSE - a very concrete policy. The Maharashtra government is looking at the AP policy as a model. Shanmuga: What about other states? UP? Ajeet: The UP government has a policy and has setup a committee on child prostitution. They had set it up after a lot of pressurizing. I am a member of the committee, and they send us letter about the meeting after the meeting is over. There are so many laws and I see a problem with the implementation. Whatever the law is even if that is implemented in a proper way in which we dont victimize the women, that is a good. Shanmuga: Tamil Nadu? Chandravel: Nothing specific. Shanmuga: We have a list of laws and policies, is there something you need help as a group or do you feel that there are things that are would require work that is beyond the capacity of any single organization? Ajeet: I can give one example. Women Protection Home in Varanasi where the women were abused. What we did was to sit on a dharna for 4-5 months and had two big rallies - the last one being attended by about 10000 women. We got up only when a CBI enquiry was ordered. I can tell you the result of the CBI enquiry. What can one organization do? It really worked. Everybody got involved and was pretty spontaneous. People's movements work on these things. Anjali: What was the result? Anindit: The CBI cleared the peopple but the result was that CBI came into the picture. Ajeet: They tried many tricks including bribes but it didnt work. Atleast we got until CBI. At that point we need to talk about the bigger system and a revolution is needed. Anita: You are saying that the civil society has to get involved. Ajeet: Exactly. The civil society has to be involved in creation and implementation of the policy. Shanmuga: You can make documentation etc. but unless the civil society responds to this, they dont have a meaning. He also interpreted the extent to which the civil society works. It has worked to the extent that the CBI enquiry happens but it doesnt work that the minister gets punished. You look at success in steps. Ajeet: The young IPS investigator who was investigating the case, cases are being filed against him and he is being crucified now. Sridhar: What do you do when policies dont work? E.g., commutation of the sentences? What can/should we do? Parashu: We have bring proper witness or statement before the judge. Inspite of all the dharnas and revolutions, the primary aspect of victim coming forward with proper descriptions is important - then only the policy will work. In some cases we failed but we ultimately success. Now a days we succeed because we go to friendly judge. [paraphrased] [Stanly talked about the importance of time. As time passes most of the witnesses turn hostile.] Preeti: When we talk about policies - national, state etc. - they dont mean much until the services dont follow. The government has found this a nice way to calm the activists for 2 months or so. It is to a great extent an eyewash unless you use it forcefully for advocacy. It has to be taken to the next stage - allocation of money, planning etc. If the government says we will look into the problem of child trafficking, we have to ask the government to define how they are going to look into this issue. Vasu: ..involves planning, bugdeting and officiating (?). Probably ...by the Andhra experiences, you can expect some kind of change. Anjali: We havent addressed the issue of what to do when the sentence is commuted? ??: The only things we can do is to go to the high court and supreme court. Anita: Eventually it comes to the public. Ajeet: Last year they thought of cleaning out the redlight area in Benaras like in Hyderabad. All the 3-400 women fought it up. Chowkies were setup and we cordoned off the area. We filed a writ and won it. We involved the human rights commission as well. Forget about civil society, even if the women fight back in a strong way, they get justice. Indrani: Like Ajeet said, we have policies and laws and when we want to clean out a place, we use the law. In 1987, there were 13-14 places in Kolkata where prostitution happened. They didnt look into the law when it became 27 places. More and more place coming up. They badly implement the law as well. They never do it in a way in which they need to ask the human rights questions of the individuals staying there. Shanmuga: There are several things that came up: 1. Factual level - laws and polices 2. Different positions that people are taking.