Investigation Into Trafficking Of Women

From the Indian Express:

While hearing a PIL on trafficking of women, the Calcutta High Court on Friday said the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is an appropriate agency to conduct a probe in this regard, considering that it involves international racket.

The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice J N Patel and Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharjee also asked the CBI to appear in the case.

This comes after Advocate General Bolai Roy, who appearing on behalf of the state government, told the court that a probe conducted by the CID found that an inter-state as well as international rackets were involved in trafficking of women, and consequently the state police took help from the Interpol.

Rise in Trafificking In China

From VOA News:

More than three decades after it began, China's one-child population control policy has some unintended consequences. Because of a traditional preference for boys, thousands of couples abort female fetuses, and the Chinese government says that last year, 119 boys were born for every 100 girls.

The shortage of young women is pushing some families turn to human traffickers to find wives for their sons. The traffickers often go to neighboring Burma, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea to buy or kidnap women.

Members of Burma's Kachin Women's Association comfort three young women sold to Chinese families by human traffickers. The women, aged between 16 and 18, came to China with the promise of a better life. But they found themselves sold as brides to men in rural areas for as little as $700, and kept as virtual prisoners.

Increase in Human Trafficking

From Thaindian News:

Every month at least 500 girls each are trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh to India through the eastern corridor, and the figures are rising, says award-winning Kolkata-based documentary filmmaker Ananya Chatterjee-Chakraborty.

Chatterjee-Chakraborty has won the Ladli-United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) award for her 89-minute documentary on women and child trafficking, “Understanding Trafficking”. She will receive the prize from President Pratibha Patil May 11 in the capital.

“Some of these girls are sold to brothels while some are forced into farm labour. The best looking ones are sent to the Middle East. The next best category goes to Mumbai,” Chatterjee-Chakraborty, who is also a writer and teaches in St Xavier’s College, Kolkata, told IANS over telephone.

Interpol estimates say trafficking in women and children is a $1 billion global industry that continues to grow every year. Nearly 200,000 girls of Nepali origin work in Indian brothels.

Nepal: V-Day

From Republica:

In V-day ´V´ stands for Valentine, Victory and Vagina. V-day is a renowned global movement to stop violence against women and girls including rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sexual slavery.

To support this movement Eve Ensler´s award-winning play ´The Vagina Monologues´ is going to be staged by V-day Nepal at Nepal Academy Hall, Kamaladi on March 7, from 6 p.m. onward.

The event is a not-for-profit charity show. The funds generated by the event will be contributed to Biswas Nepal, a strong local group working against women and girls trafficking and abuse.

Pakistan: Ban Bride Price

From the Daily Times:

Legal experts Sunday demanded that the NWFP government immediately ban bride price and effectively implement the National Plan of Action 2005 to combat women trafficking in the province.

The demand came at a two-day consultative workshop on countering women trafficking organized by the Community Appraisal and Motivation Programme (CAMP) in collaboration with DFID (UK Department for International Development) and UNDP (United Nation Development Programme) under the Gender Justice and Protection Project (GJP). The workshop covered both legal and humanitarian aspects of women trafficking.

Niaz Muhammad and Anis Badshah Bukhari, member inspection team and additional registrar Peshawar High Court respectively, highlighted the legal aspect of women trafficking and demanded that all sections pertaining to the punishment of perpetrators must be amended and due role of police and other agencies be included so as to address the issue comprehensively. Federal Ombudsman Director Mashood Mirza said that every year hundreds of thousands of women and children were trafficked both locally and internationally to use them in heinous crimes like prostitution, bonded labor and inhuman sports like camel race. Human rights activist Rakhshanda Naz lamented the poor performance of Pakistan in the TIP report of 2009 that placed it on tier 2 watch list.

“Early child marriages, IDPs influx and rapid surge in poverty in the recent past have also contributed to the trafficking of women and girls,” she said. CAMP Chief Executive Naveed Ahmad Shinwari said that drastic reforms in laws and inter-institutional coordination among the law-enforcement agencies and CSOs would help curb the issue.

Ugandan Women Rescued

From New Vision Online:

A GROUP of Ugandan women who travelled to Iraq in the hope of finding jobs but ended up in exploitation have been rescued and returned to the country by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

An IOM official in Kampala said 14 Ugandans have been rescued from exploitation in Iraq and returned to Kampala between September and October this year.

The rescued Ugandans, all women, have also been given assistance to reintegrate into the community and assisted to start businesses to generate incomes. The identities of the women were not revealed.

The official said Ugandan women travel to Iraq under the understanding that they would work as supermarket attendants but they end up working as servants in homes, often working long hours without remuneration.

An unspecified number of other Ugandans are still under exploitative conditions in Iraq, according to the Geneva-based organisation.

The stranded Ugandans are part of hundreds of African and Asian migrants lured to Iraq by recruitment agencies who promise them jobs in supermarkets, construction sites and domestic labour.

The migrants are coerced to sign false employment contracts, and their passports are confiscated and they become victims of exploitation, according to IOM.

Mid this year, Makindye West MP Hussein Kyanjo told Parliament that Ugandan women taken to Iraq with promises of lucrative jobs ended up trapped in slavery and forced sex.

The MP reported that the stranded girls were taken to Iraq by a company, which has offices in Muyenga, a Kampala suburb.

From the Jerusalem Post:

Rising numbers of Iraqi women are being sold into sexual slavery every year because of the waning economy and security situation. Human rights organizations are highlighting the plight of Iraqi women and young girls, sometimes as young as twelve, exploited by criminal gangs for profit.

"The women trafficking trade is at its height," Houzan Mahmoud, representative abroad of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq said. "There has never been a situation as extreme, and it's frightening. Many of them have been trafficked to neighboring countries like Syria or the Gulf states or trafficked internally inside Iraq from one city to another."

The Baghdad Women's Organization estimates that at least 200 Iraqi women are sold into slavery every year, although the US-basedHuman Rights Watch estimates that the numbers are in the thousands. The organization warns that the figures may be higher if Iraqi refugee women in neighboring countries such as Syria and Lebanon are also counted.

With relatively few rights, the ability of Iraqi women to reintegrate into society after prostitution is limited. The women are often ostracized, attacked by their community and harassed by the authorities with charges of immorality.

The Fate of African Women & Children

From Mmegi Online:

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) last week published a report on core labour standards in the Southern Africa Customs Union (SACU) countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland.

"According to the USDoS Trafficking Report 2008, one local non-governmental organisation (NGO) received reports from Batswana women that they were forced to provide sexual services to tourists at some safari lodges.

NGOs report that Botswana is a transit country for the trafficking of eastern African women and children to South Africa. Botswana is a destination for Zimbabwean women who are employed as domestic workers.

The report further states that even though the Penal Code of Botswana prohibits involvement of girls or women in production of prostitution and pornography, child prostitution has been reported particularly at truck stops and transit points in the large towns. However, the law does not protect boys from the same crimes.

It highlights that child labour exists in Botswana as boys are reported to manage cattle herds in isolated areas, sometimes staying without proper food and shelter for days, "whereas girls are largely involved in domestic labour, usually taking care of other children".

India: Scheme to end Trafficking in Women

From the Times of India:

The ministry of women and child development, government of India, has formulated 'Ujjawala', a new comprehensive scheme for the prevention of trafficking and rescue, rehabilitation and re-integration of victims of trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation (CSE).

The object of the scheme is to prevent trafficking of women and children for CSE, to facilitate rescue of victims from the place of their exploitation and place them in safe custody, to provide rehabilitation services both immediate and long term by providing basic amenities/needs such as food, clothing, medical aid, counselling, legal aid, guidance, vocational training and shelter, to facilitate reintegration of the victims into the family and society at large and to facilitate repatriation of cross-border victims to their country of origin.

Uganda: Empowering Women

From Frances Emorut @ New Vision Online:

OVER 600 women in Hoima district were on Friday sensitised on marriage and property laws to make them aware of their rights.This follows complaints by the resident district commissioner, Martha Asiimwe, and the district chairman, George Tinka Bagoonza, that many women flocked their offices complaining of husbands abandoning them.

“Most of the complaints brought in my office are about marriage and property. Some women complained that their husbands abandoned them and ran to Kampala,” Bagoonza said.

He was addressing women at Holping Hotel in Hoima district during a sensitisation workshop organised by the Uganda association of women lawyers.

Rhonah Babweteera, a lawyer, told the women that they had a right to share property equally in case the marriage was dissolved.

She advised women not to allow relatives to grab property when their husbands die, saying the property belonged to them and their children.

Asiimwe commended the association for the help they rendered to the Hoima women.

Nepal: Human Trafficking

From Sindh Today:

Four Nepali women, three of whom were being trafficked to Muscat, have been arrested from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur district, officials said here Sunday.

One of the four women was part of a human trafficking gang and she was taking the other three to Muscat. They were nabbed by the anti-human trafficking cell of the police from the railway station Saturday evening while they were headed to New Delhi, from where they were to take a flight to Muscat, an official said.

They were caught with the help of NGO Manav Seva Sansthan, which aids the police in curbing human trafficking.

A couple of months ago, police in Gorakhpur had arrested five Nepali women along with a pimp who was trying to send them to the Middle East.