Stories from India

From hell to hell

 

Rani Begum, DelhI / After her 15-year-old daughter,

Nagina, went missing a year ago, she has

approached everyone, but to no avail / Photo: Arvind Jain

 

For many children rescued and sent to reform homes, it is a case of out of the frying pan into the fire.

Reform homes are notorious for exploitation of children and corruption. Here, children are beaten up, underfed and made to work in the houses of the authorities where they are exploited, and even sexually abused. Delhi has 16 reform homes, which can house 1,600 children. That 80 children escaped from the reform home in Alipore last year indicates the pathetic living conditions in these places.

Authorities at the children's home in Maharanibagh in Delhi showed expenses for 100 children when it had only 29. The BBA investigation revealed that the authorities were siphoning off money. The children at the home, too, said they were mistreated.

Police stations in every district are required to have child welfare committees and provisions to look after rescued children. But only under 30 per cent of the districts have such provisions. In its recent report, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights admitted that children are subjected to exploitation at reform homes.

 

 

Dubious agencies

 

Sunita, Dholpur, Rajasthan / She does not know if her

son Ravi, missing since November 2003, is alive or dead / Photo: Arvind Jain

 

When Priya, 14, was rescued from a family where she was employed, she had bruises all over her body. "I was employed in a family where I was often beaten up, made to work for long hours and sleep on the bathroom floor. I was not allowed to go outside. When my aunt called on, my employer stood near the phone so that I didn't complain," said Priya, who had landed with the family through a placement agency in Delhi.

Many minors like Priya are lured by touts and sold to placement agencies which send them to work in families and commercial establishments. The agencies, which lure minors from remote areas of UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Nepal, also subject them to sexual abuse. No reliable data is available on the number of such agencies in India. But in Delhi, out of 2,400 agencies supplying domestic help, only 24 are registered. The matter was exposed by an NGO using the Right to Information Act.

Subsequently, around 100 girls employed as domestic help were rescued. Most of the girls were subjected to inhuman treatment, not paid wages, made to work 16 to 18 hours a day and sexually abused. "The placement agencies disregard all norms. Most of them operate through touts who lure children and their parents with a better life. Once they get custody of the children, they send them to work in families, where their suffering begins. In fact, placement is a euphemism for selling children. Poor and illiterate parents often fall into this trap," said Bachpan Bachao Aandolan activist R.S. Chaurasia, who filed the RTI application on the placement agencies.

The agencies operate in places like Sonepat, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai and 'give placement' to around 50 to 100 girls and children every month. In July last year, the Delhi government issued a notification asking the placement agencies to register, but except for six agencies, they ignored the directive.
In February, the government told the Delhi High Court that it would form a high-level committee to draft guidelines to prevent trafficking and child labour, but nothing happened.

 

 

Lethal account

 

Notes from the past: Justice M.S. Liberhan

handing over the report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

as Chidambaram looks on

 

LIBERHAN REPORT

The commission's findings could be a two-edged sword for the Congress

By Soni Mishra & Kallol Bhattacherjee

A bag waited for Home Minister P. Chidambaram in Delhi on July 1. It contained the report of the Liberhan Commission on the Babri Masjid demolition. Asked to comment on the report, he said he was a "slow reader". Not a surprising answer, as making the four-volume report public could lead to political turbulence.

The government seems to be in no mood to table the report in the ongoing Parliament session. "We have six months' time to study the report," said a Union minister. One reason why the government is wary of tabling it is that the mosque was demolished when the Congress was in power at the Centre. Over the years, the Congress has tried to distance itself from the memory of Narasimha Rao, the then prime minister. Party leader Rahul Gandhi once said that had a member of his family been at the helm, the masjid would not have been razed.

While the report could be ammo for the Congress to attack the BJP, which is in disarray after the poll defeat, it could also leave the Congress with some answering to do. Fresh from an election in which Muslims seemed to have favoured the Congress in UP and Bihar, the party would not want to infuriate the community.
The concern in the Congress was palpable when an official in the PMO said, "The Prime Minister is worried about the report." Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the report could not be tabled without an action taken report. Congress spokesman Manish Tewari felt there were other issues of national importance. There is also a feeling in the Congress that the report could result in a regrouping of the BJP.

The All India Babri Masjid Action Committee (AIBMAC) put the onus on the Congress. "The 'shilanyas' took place under Congress rule, the locks were opened under Congress rule, the demolition took place under Congress rule. So, it is the moral responsibility of the Congress to release the report at the earliest," said AIBMAC chairman Javed Habib. He said the Congress was playing safe in view of the coming Maharashtra Assembly elections.

The Samajwadi Party has a lot to worry, given its alliance with BJP rebel Kalyan Singh, who was UP chief minister when the masjid was razed. The SP is said to have decided not to nominate Kalyan Singh's son Rajvir for the bypoll to the Ferozabad parliamentary constituency, which Mulayam's son Akhilesh vacated to retain the Kannauj seat.

The report led to a change in the hardline Hindutva image of expelled BJP leader Uma Bharti. She will hold meetings across the country for the socially deprived sections and backward castes in the Hindu community. Posters project her as a non-saffron figure. "I have always been pro-poor and supported interests of the backward castes," she said. She is not keen to avoid responsibility for the masjid demolition, though. "Hindutva benefited its soldiers. Now, it is time for the soldiers to pay for enjoying the fruits of power," she said.

There is a feeling in the BJP that some party leaders might benefit if the report hurts senior leaders L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. But BJP leader Venkaiah Naidu said public opinion would favour its leaders after the report is tabled.

No amount of whitewashing by Bharti and Advani could wipe off the fact that they were present in Ayodhya on December 6, 1992, said CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury. Said he: "The demolition brigade of the Babri Masjid was very constructive while evading justice for more than 17 years. Now, it is time they face the music for the law and order situation they unleashed on the country with their actions."