Thursday, December 27, 2018

IF NOT NOW…WHEN?

The nation is resounding with voices for & against the Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Protection & Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018. My position on the Bill is well known so I will not take a neutral stand nor will I refute or try to dispel the arguments of those who are opposing the Bill. Their perception of truth is their reality and my perception of truth my reality.

I do not come from an academic background nor am I lawyer, my identity is the body of work that I have build for the last more than two and half decades. In these twenty-five years I have seen the vicious world of human trafficking at very close quarters. Having rescued with the assistance of the police over 20,000 women and children from sex trafficking I have been witness to their lives not as a journalist or an advocate but as a care-provider who was with them from the time they were being removed from the place of exploitation to the time they were taken to the police station, to the hospital, to the court and finally when admitted in my Protective Home and taking care of them for a period of time as specified by the Court or Child Welfare Committee which may range from 5-10 years in cases of children and 1-3yrs in case of adults.  

This essentially means that I have a fair understanding on how the victim behaves when she is rescued and over a period of time after a series of support services are provided how a slow and steady transformation happens in this person. 

In my 25 years of experience I have seen very few persons who willingly got rescued. Most often than not every victim resisted the rescue, she would give false names, will be very aggressive and violent and very often prone to self-harm behavior. Over a period of time with strategic psychosocial interventions and health care, the victim would gain trust in us and thereafter a new sinister world of deception, betrayal, and fraudulent means will open before us. The stories of how they were duped with promises of job, love or film roles or nightmares of how they were coerced by somebody closely known to them so that they can be commercially sexually exploited. This change was never overnight; it took weeks and months of consistent and persistent efforts by our care-providers which will trigger the need in a victim to become a survivor.

In the meantime another drama will open before us, outside the walls of our Protective Homes of those who desperately wanted these women & girls to get back to their fold. In a significant number of instances it would be under the garb of an advocate’/lawyer’ who would be threatening us of illegal detention or giving us lessons in constitution. We would see the same lawyers in the court corridors also representing the accused in similar cases. I have written umpteen times to District Judges and the Bar Association regarding the threats and intimidations we have faced in the hands of these lawyers. In fact if you visit the Nampally Court you will definitely come to know a set of lawyers who only take up these cases. 

It is through these instances that I personally understood that being in flesh trade is not usually a personal choice of a person. It is a well-organized industry and has many stake-holders and an individual trapped in this midst is controlled by many. It may not appear tangibly as an organized set up and pass off as something, which is an individual aberration, but practically it is well networked.  There is a closely guarded information network and the stakes are quite high. Otherwise how then will you explain, when a small group of telugu women supposedly impoverished and marginalized are rescued in Chandrapur, Maharashtra, before they are even shifted from Chandrapur to Hyderabad a whole of set of lawyers have already descended in the concerned court in Hyderabad! 

I have directly faced the opposition from these elements not only in physical attacks but also in other ways such as pressurizing my landowner to get me vacated from premises where the shelters were located. Thanks to these attacks, we have ended up having too many liabilities in the form of assets!!! The attacks continue in multiple forms, some direct some subtle. 
                      
But not all the women and children I have been party to rescue have been rehabilitated. There is a small but significant number who have chosen to go back to the same situation(including a child). Some of them have been re-admitted to my shelter. So I do recognize that there are people who are not willing to be rehabilitated and for reasons best known to them chose to go back to the same situation. But I am not willing to accept that it is by their own ‘choice’ as many would like to portray. For ‘personal choice’ is a liberating emotion and not a defeating expression. I have had umpteen number of such women telling me that ‘her life is over…don’t try to change’. I have seen the pain in those eyes and a sense of resignation to fate. In my lifetime I have also had the unfortunate experience of cremating many such women whose bodies were found on the streets. 

So when I am advocating for ‘‘Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection & Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018, I am doing it because I genuinely believe it will bring systemic changes and will ensure victims get their rights due to them. I also believe for too long the State has shied away from taking a bold step to fight the organized criminal mafia that operationalizes the human trafficking networks. For far too many decades the Governments have subtly promoted this crime and allowed millions to perish. I do believe this has finally ended and there is somebody taking the courageous step to stand up for victims. Is it history? Yes I do think so… For centuries what you called as a ‘necessary evil’ today is finally challenged. There is at least one set of voice in this country which refuses to tolerate this dehumanizing trade in human beings.      

So here are the 10 reasons why I think you should support the safe passage of the ‘Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection & Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018 in the Rajyasabha (It was already passed in Loksabha in July 2018):
  1.  For the first time the Bill in its operational sense recognizes human trafficking as an organized crime and ensures a specialized Police body ie. National Anti Trafficking Bureau is set up which will be mandated to tackle inter-state and cross-border trafficking of persons. Till date there is no such legal statute, which provides this mechanism. An attempt was made few years back to designate CBI through an executive order, which failed due to lack of funds and political will. With a legal statute there is no way this can fail if the attempt is made
  2. While Sec 370 provides the operational definition of human trafficking many purposes of exploitation was not considered in 2013 (Criminal Law Amendment Act). The Bill ensures that all purposes including forced labor, begging, exploitative surrogacy, cyber-pornography is included and that is why it is comprehensive.
  3. Not only this Bill recognizes that a victim is subjected to inhuman pain & torture which is likely to cause a lot of damage in their minds and body, it puts in place safe spaces (Protective Home & Rehabilitation Home) that allow the healing to happen and mandates ‘rehabilitation’ as a right of the victim. This is perhaps for the first time that rehabilitation becomes such a core component of legal document.The Bill also ensures that foreign nationals trafficked to India are given all support for safe time-bound repatraition.
  4. It also recognizes that there are women in flesh trade who might not be trafficked and who are unwilling to be rehabilitated and provides a provision for voluntary exit through the intervention of a Magistrate.
  5.  The Bill also recognizes that not only the traffickers sometimes even the stakeholders mandated to provide protection are capable of victimizing a victim. Lack of accountability and dereliction of duties is a penal offense as per the Bill.
  6. At one end if the victim’s right to reintegrate is recognized at the other victim’s right for justice is mandated through a series of victim friendly criminal justice procedures including putting in place ‘victim witness protection’, video-conferencing and special courts
  7. The Bill recognizes mere rhetoric does not move anything on the ground and mandates budgetary provisions for rehabilitation, interim relief and compensation.
  8. While emerging trends such as cyber trafficking has not been covered in depth the Bill ensures that it takes into account the ever-expanding scope of human trafficking through cyber space. It puts in place both preemptive and deterrent clauses.
  9.   One of the major aspect that the Bill recognizes is that when a victim is rescued it might appear to be a local problem but it has state and national level implications if probed in the right manner. Hence all implementation mechanism from the local to the national level is put in place as legal statute.
  10. Finally the Bill recognizes that no human being deserves to be trafficked and puts in place a whole set of components targeting vulnerable groups to prevent the crime.              

No doubt there are many who will benefit if this Bill is stalled but there are million more who will benefit if the Bill is passed. While genuine fears can be resolved and addressed sooner or later but the millions of lives endangered can wait no more. 

I am standing before you as the voice of millions who want to be liberated from slavery and seek support from the State to create a safe mechanism to remove them from those dungeons of hell-holes to a world of options and opportunities.

I stand before you on behalf of millions whose human rights have been violated by commercial vested interests and who need justice for closure. 

I stand before you as a human being who is deeply anguished and angry about the growing impunity of criminals who believe even a 3 year old child should not spared.

There is a time in history, when you have to make a choice, on where you stand…this is that moment…If not now, When      


  

Sunday, November 25, 2018

MY RESPONSE TO GUARDIAN


Reference: 'Prison would have been better': Women Cry Foul over celebrated Indian Charity, an article by Joshua Caroll, through a grant from Pultizer Center on Crises Reporting published by 'The Guardian' on 23rd Nov,2018, 07.00 GMT 

At the outset I wish to state that I will be tackling all the unfounded malicious lies stated in the article, in the appropriate court of law. This response is for the million of well-wishers, supporters of the mission and also for those who just read the article and do not know what to make of it.

As this is going to be slightly long, let me summarize the content:
Context & timing of the article
• Legal framework of rescue & rehabilitation
• Prajwala Shelters - A Protective Home
• Legally mandated protocols for a Protective Home
• Media & Protective Home
• Malicious allegations of violence

1. Context in which the article is written
Many anti-trafficking crusaders in India have worked relentlessly this year to advocate for the Trafficking of Persons( Prevention, Protection & Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018 which was passed in Lok Sabha ie. the Lower House of the Indian Parliament on 26th July 2018. So they are much aware of the context in which such malicious allegations are being made and the consequence it might have for the advocacy efforts.
This context setting is for all those who are unaware of the prevailing challenges in bringing this much-needed legislation and the pivotal role that Prajwala as an organization and I as an individual have played in advocating for this legislation.      
In 2004, Prajwala filed a Public Interest Litigation(PIL) 56/2004 in the Supreme Court, praying for Victim Protection Protocol in rescue and rehabilitation of sex trafficked victims. In 2015 while disposing the PIL, the Honb’le Court passed an order that a comprehensive legislation to combat trafficking as proposed by Ministry of Women & Child Welfare should be drafted and an Organized Crime Investigating Agency should be established in 6 months. Soon after the Ministry set up an Inter-Ministerial Committee and started the lengthy process of drafting the comprehensive legislation. After a series of drafts, finally in early 2018, a finalized version was brought out, ‘The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Protection & Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018. After a lot of effort the Bill was passed in Lok Sabha/Lower House on 26th July 2018.  This Bill is proposed to be tabled in the Rajya Sabha/Upper House of the parliament this winter session in December 2018.
The ‘sex workers’ lobby have vehemently opposed this Bill on several grounds including calling it ‘Protectionist’.  It might be also pertinent to mention that a few people claiming to be working on anti-trafficking have also opposed the Bill on some flimsy grounds which in my personal opinion has more political agenda than actual substance.
What is there in this Bill that is worrisome for many? The Bill makes first of all, rehabilitation a right for any rescued trafficked victim. Further it not only provides for a rehabilitation fund but also mandates to set up short term and long term Protection and Rehabilitation Homes respectively. It also for the first time, makes all Protection Homes accountable and makes any victimization or dereliction of duties in Protection Homes a criminal offence.  
Why is the sex workers lobby worried?
They are worried because they fear that all ‘sex workers’ will be picked up and admitted in these homes. It is a needless fear, if one reads the Bill without prejudice, it is crystal clear that it is meant only for trafficked victims and in case there is a voluntary worker, Sec40 allows the person to submit an affidavit to the Magistrate for release.

As the winter session of the parliament comes closer, there is a compelling need for this lobby to discredit the most proclaimed Rehabilitation Model in India which is the Prajwala’s Model.

Hundreds of Judges, Police Officers, Government officials have visited this model and it has become the reason for several states trying to work out a modality to replicate this model.
Government Of Telangana requested Prajwala to co-manage their Government Home located at Kukatpally in order to replicate this model. Several other states are also now looking at replicating this model.
   
2. Legal framework of rescue & rehabilitation/care & protection
Rescue of women & girls in prostitution is done as per Sec 16 of the Immoral Traffic Persons Prevention Act(ITPPA), 1986. It is purely a Police activity.
In recent times, many NGO’s including Prajwala have assisted the Police in rescue work as per the Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines of setting Anti Human Trafficking Units which is located in Crime Investigation Department (CID) which is a specialized unit taking up only sporadic rescues once or twice a year.
The normal local police conduct rescues in brothels and other places of sexual exploitation throughout the month without taking any support of any NGO.
So the dramatic opening remarks of the article itself is a pathetic figment of fertile imagination, it cannot be a rescue done by the police. Imagine doing this kind of thing on a public road in this era of social media when everyone in India has a mobile phone. The Hyderabad City Police will have a tough time if they conduct themselves like this.     
Post rescue, for further care and protection of the victim it is only a Court that can direct a victim to be admitted in a protective Home under Sec 17 of the ITPPA.  
    
3. Prajwala Shelters- A Protective Home
Prajwala Shelters are legally termed as ‘Protective Homes’ which is licensed under Sec 21 of the Immoral Traffic Persons Prevention Act, 1986 (ITPPA).
ITPPA currently is the only legislation that addresses both sex trafficking and prostitution.  As per this law, a person in prostitution when rescued under Sec 16, is then produced before the Magistrate who will pass an order to keep her in a Protective Home. After the statutory enquiry period, if the Magistrate feels that the person requires care and protection then an order is passed for a longer stay in a Protective Home for a period not less than 1 year and not more than 3years.
The license is issued by the Government after a rigorous due diligence and renewed every year. A Committee comprising of the Revenue Divisional Officer, Deputy Commissioner of Police, District Welfare Officer and District Child Protection Officer visit the home, study the standards of care, interact with the residents and then submit their report to the Government based on which the license is renewed.
Prajwala is the first licensed Protective Home in Andhra Pradesh & Telangana and continued to be the only one for many years till recently.  
Prajwala has time and again questioned the Government of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh regarding the number of unlicensed homes under the Ujjwala Scheme and has even filed a Public Interest Litigation in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh & Telangana about the lack of Government run Facility for sex trafficked victims and the poor standards of care in the existing homes.  

4.Legally mandated protocols for a Protective Home
Any victim is admitted or released from a Protective Home only by a ‘Court order’ and in case of a minor victim, by the legally competent body ‘Child Welfare Committee’(CWC). It is only through a Court Order or a CWC order that a parent or family is permitted to meet the victim.
Prajwala is perhaps one of the only organizations, which diligently follows this legally mandated protocol. Hundreds of advocates from Andhra Pradesh & Telangana can testify that.  
Authorized stakeholders regularly visit the Protective Home to prepare victims for court procedures including trial. The victims themselves have to appear before the court for recording their statement, identifying the accused and for the final trial. 
With the approval of the court, Prajwala Protective Home provides telephone access to victims within 24hrs of their being admitted in the home.
Prajwala Protective Home diligently practices all the Minimum Standards of Care as specified by GO MS 16 issued by Government of Telangana & Andhra Pradesh. The Assessment Report by competent authorities for license renewal submitted to the government will testify that.

5. Media & Protective Home
As per Sec 228 A of IPC, Sec 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015 and Sec 23 (2) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 (POCSO) identity disclosure of any adult or child victims of sex crime or sex trafficking is not permitted.
Prajwala’s Protective Homes are mandated by the law to ensure no victim (child or adult) living in the Protective Home is exposed to the media.
No journalist, local or international has been permitted to enter any of the Protective Homes that Prajwala manages.
On a case to case basis and with mutual respect, a few select journalists have visited the Prajwala Administrative Office and have mostly interacted with me. I reserve the right to chose whom I speak to and definitely the moment I know a person is prejudiced against me, I do not entertain that person.
The survivors released by court orders and now living independently are at liberty to speak to media. Many survivors involved in sensitizing the community on the dangers of sex trafficking are covered by the media during their public programs every month. The third Saturday of every month is observed as Swaraksha Day or  Anti Human Trafficking Day by the Government of Telangana and hundreds of survivors address public gatherings which is always covered by the media.    

6. Malicious unfounded allegations of violence
There are at least 30-40 survivors who are easily accessible directly to any media personnel every month without even my intervention. These survivor leaders (now reintegrated in the society) have made a choice to join the movement to combat sex trafficking and address large public gatherings all over the State of Telangana, every third Saturday of the month. They do not hide their faces or want to be anonymous and speak publicly in front of thousands, about the ordeal they have faced as a victim of sex trafficking.
So why did this journalist ignore all of them and found these seven anonymous women to speak with. Who are these seven anonymous women, where are they now and who is backing them to speak such malicious lies?
It is definitely not a victim, who has recovered and is now a survivor and safely reintegrated to the society. In all probability these are women who might have been admitted in our Protective Home and now who have gone back to prostitution.
Is it rocket science to understand that such women will defend their choices of going back to prostitution by defiling all the care and support provided to them? And if they are back with their pimps and criminal network of prostitution, they will only speak what each pimp/broker or trafficker wishes.
For every trafficker in this country, Prajwala Protective Home is hell for it takes away their revenue, destroys their business and crushes their industry.
Some times in a court you even see a newly rescued girl/woman crying and pleading before the Magistrate to send her to jail (this is at the behest of the traffickers). The reason for such a curious plea is that if you are sent to jail you can get bail and get back to prostitution/flesh trade. What a quick fix solution for the sex traffickers! Ironically the heading of the article also starts with this! 
Now come to the allegations made by two activist. We had three instances (2014, 2016, 2018) which is all duly reported to the Police, where young female traffickers posing as victims have infiltrated into the Protective Home with the one point agenda of creating large scale damage to the Home.
One such instance is quoted in this article where an anonymous professional working on women’s issues and an activist has met 13 women in the jail. These women were arrested on 17-10-2016, after a failed attempt to burn down one of the Protective Home on the night of 16-10-2016.
The case was registered, Cr No 472/2016 under Sections 147,148,307,324,427,342 &120 (B) r/w 149 IPC  by the Pahadi Shareef Police Station. 
While I don’t even want to comment on why this activist or the anonymous professional never sought my clarification or the Government’s till date on this matter. The CCTV footages which is the key evidence in this case, gives you the actual happening of the attack where these 13 women after 9 pm, when most of the other residents had retired for the day, went on to destroy and damage the Home, burnt down chairs and tables, broke laptops, attacked the kitchen and with the oil taken from there, tried to burn down one of the buildings and the gate. All this without any provocation, when my staff were closing down for the day!
It is beyond me currently to explain the deep damages of sex trafficking and sex crime on the body, mind and soul of a victim and what are the holistic efforts that assist a victim in the road to recovery to counter the half-baked comments being made in the article about the self-harm behavior of the victims or the psycho-therapeutic efforts of life-skills and livelihood training.
In due course when these issues will come before the court, I will be submitting all the evidences and also questioning the motive for anybody including an individual, an International Center or a prestigious newspaper to spread such cheap, malicious and vicious lies. What do they gain by defaming the Prajwala Model for Rehabilitation?
   
In Conclusion…
I take pride in saying that the care and protection provided in Prajwala is the best, for we stake our lives to ensure that each child or woman rescued from commercial sexual exploitation is taken care with compassion and empathy, provided all the immediate and long term support required to help them on to the road to recovery within the framework of the law.
Hundreds of my child survivors are now studying medicine, pharmacy, law, and management.  They study in reputed institutions. Thousands of adult survivors are reintegrated into the society, with viable economic options and a significant percentage of them are married with families of their own. Any human being who has visited any of our Protective Home can directly testify the standards of care we strive to maintain.

While I take this article, published in a reputed international newspaper, as a part of a larger conspiracy to destroy the anti trafficking mission, I wish to reiterate and reaffirm that this cannot deter or distract me or my colleagues from our mission.

It appears that the article attacks the Indian Anti Prostitution Law and the so called ‘Shelter-detention’. If anyone aspires to change a law, the right course of action is to go through the courts or the parliament and not discredit or defame the efforts of law abiding organizations like Prajwala.   

It is definitely shocking and anguishing for me as an individual to know that people/persons/International Institutions/International Papers will stoop to such levels to push their agenda; that grants are given to write a one sided, biased piece and there are also reputed papers to carry this story.

And finally, do you think the Indian and other Governments, State Governments, International Institutions, Funding Agencies, Individual Donors, Awards Committees, Judges, Police Officers, Civil Servants and the millions who support our mission for decades have not done their due diligence and only this journalist who has not even seen my Administrative Office, the seven anonymous women, the anonymous professional and two activist have done their diligence about my Protective Homes!!!

And now I want to see how many of them will carry my response to this story!