Friday, March 19, 2010

rec.arts.movies.local.indian - 11 new messages in 4 topics - digest

rec.arts.movies.local.indian
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian?hl=en

rec.arts.movies.local.indian@googlegroups.com

Today's topics:

* UK RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS FORCED TO PROMOTE ABORTION, HOMOSEXUALITY UNDER SEX-ED
BILL - 5 messages, 4 authors
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian/t/dcfc2e198d269895?hl=en
* Dr Jai Maharaj is a sad Monkey - 2 messages, 1 author
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian/t/e19d9793a12a546d?hl=en
* SUPREME COURT'S SIT FRAMES CHARGES AGAINST TEESTA SETALVAD - 1 messages, 1
author
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian/t/d0832ece337bc83e?hl=en
* Honest questions about Islam- can you answer? - 3 messages, 3 authors
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian/t/0538da13757e7be7?hl=en

==============================================================================
TOPIC: UK RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS FORCED TO PROMOTE ABORTION, HOMOSEXUALITY UNDER
SEX-ED BILL
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian/t/dcfc2e198d269895?hl=en
==============================================================================

== 1 of 5 ==
Date: Wed, Mar 17 2010 7:14 pm
From: usenet@mantra.com and/or www.mantra.com/jai (Dr. Jai Maharaj)


U.K. Religious Schools Forced to Promote Abortion, Homosexuality under Sex-Ed Bill

By Hilary White
lifesitenews.com
Monday, February 22, 2010

London, February 23, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Britain's Labour
government clarified this week that an amendment to the Children,
Schools and Families bill, that says faith schools may teach the
mandatory Personal Social and Health Education (PSHE) program "in a
way that reflects the school's religious character," does not, in
fact, give the schools freedom to oppose abortion, contraception and
homosexual activity on moral grounds.

The clarification has been hailed by a local pro-life and pro-family
group as evidence that the spectre of "totalitarianism" has
reappeared in Britain.

A recent statement [1] from the Department for Children, Schools and
Families (DCSF), made in response to protests from homosexualist
groups against the government amendment, said, "Faith schools cannot
opt out of statutory [sex and relationships education] lessons when
it comes into effect in September 2011."

"All maintained schools and academies will be required to teach the
full programmes of study in line with the principles outlined in the
Bill including promoting equality and encouraging acceptance of
diversity. Schools with a religious character will be free, as they
are now, to express the views of their faith and reflect the ethos of
their school, but what they cannot do is suggest that their views are
the only ones."

The statement quotes Minister Ed Balls telling the Daily Telegraph
that religious schools should indeed be "forced" to teach pupils that
homosexuality is "normal and harmless."

Balls said, "If their faith has a view in scripture, they can inform
pupils of that. What they must not do is teach discrimination. They
must be absolutely clear about the importance of civil partnerships
[and that] bullying of homosexuals is wrong." This is in line with
previous statements [2] from Labour ministers that religious schools
will not be allowed to teach their religious tenets "as if they are
true."

On Tuesday, Balls told BBC Radio 4's Today program that in addition
to promoting homosexuality, religious schools will also be required
to promote abortion as a solution to unplanned pregnancy.

Until the passage of this bill, religious schools had the option to
teach children that homosexual activity, abortion and contraception
are wrong. But that situation, he said, "changes radically with this
bill."

"What this changes is that for the first time these schools cannot
just ignore these issues or teach only one side of the argument. They
also have to teach that there are different views on homosexuality.
They cannot teach homophobia. They must explain civil partnership.

"They must give a balanced view on abortion, they must give both
sides of the argument, they must explain how to access an abortion,
the same is true on contraception as well," Balls said. Balls backed
up [3] his insistence that faith schools will be forced to abandon
their religious beliefs, in a letter to the London Times.

Balls went on to thank Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the head of the
English Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, and the
Catholic Education Service (CES) for their support of the bill. It
was revealed [4] by the government last week that the CES had
actually assisted in drafting the legislation.

Balls said, "To have the support of the Catholic Church and
Archbishop Nichols in these changes is, I think, very, very
important, is a huge step forward. . . The Catholic Church, which I
really welcome, is supporting, for the first time, compulsory sex
education with an opt out at 15 [years]."

Anthony Ozimic, communications manager for the Society for the
Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN),
"People outside the UK must know that the British government's
ideologues are just as radical but even more cunning than the French
Revolutionaries."

SPUC is lobbying against the passage of the bill, and accuses CES of
collaborating with a radically secularist, anti-Christian government
that is bent on expanding abortion and homosexuality and suppressing
freedom of religious expression.

After the Catholic Education Service took credit for the government's
amendment implying that faith schools will be allowed to teach their
religious tenets, SPUC responded, "The only people likely to be
pleased with the press reports about the misinterpretation of this
amendment are the Catholic Education Service (CES), who want Catholic
parents and Catholic schools to think they are sticking up for them,
when in fact they are betraying their principles."

Paul Tully, SPUC's political manager, said that CES has only helped
the bill to pass by pursuing the amendment. "SPUC condemns the action
of the Catholic Education Service (CES) . . . The CES does not
represent Catholic teaching on sex education, and its betrayal of
Catholic families is widely lamented within the Catholic Church."

Anthony Ozimic said, "Compromise and accommodation with this
government will result, not in government concessions, but in
increased persecution of those who stand up for life and family.

"Catholics in particular have been placed in this grave situation by
an unholy alliance, forged by the fake Catholic Tony Blair, between
the English bishops and the Labour government. The spectre of
totalitarianism, which was seen from Britain in Eastern Europe during
the Cold War, has reappeared, this time in Britain itself."

[1] http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/news/index.cfm?event=news.item&id=response_to_comments_by_the_accord_coalition_about_the_children_schools_and_families_bill
[2] http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/mar/07030504.html
[3] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article7036662.ece
[4] http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10021203.html

More at:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10022306.html

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

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Since newsgroup posts are being removed
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this post may be reposted several times.


== 2 of 5 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 11:35 am
From: "regn.pickfod"


Ray Fischer wrote:
> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Your hatred is not a good reason.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nonsense.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Truth. Your hatred is not a good enough reason.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Robust social f
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Your hatred of homoseuals is obvious.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> To you, in your head.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> You want to imprison and persecute gays. That is hatred.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I want the laws changed and I want Homosexuals to comply
>>>>>>>> with those laws and _not_ go to gaol.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You want to imprison and persecute gays. Hiding behind laws
>>>>>>> that you want is chickenshit cowardice.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The laws were there many years before I was born.
>>>>>
>>>>> They do not exist now, bigot.
>>>>>
>>>> They have existed and they will exist again,
>>>
>>> People reject your kind of hate.
>>>
>>
>> It isn't hate,
>
> You lie in order to justify making people suffer.
>
> That is hate.
>

I tell the truth to help a known minority suffering a
mental disorder from perpetuating a lifestyle of
self destructive tendencies. `tough love'


>> The Homosexual lifestyle is so disapproved of there needs to be
>
> You sound like some nazi asshole spewing the usual nazi propaganda.
> Do you hate Jews as well?

You keep saying I hate people meanwhile you rain abuse down on me.
How very kind, considerate and tolerant you are not,
Fischer the Fascist.

As far as Jews go I think a culture exposed to persecution over the
Millenia should be able to handle their problems with the Palestinians
without shooting children to death.

I have questions about inconsistancies with the story of the
Jewish Holocaust and I don't think locking people in gaol for
asking questions about it is an appropriate response.


Which all draws away from the detail the Homsoexual lifestyle
is not accepted by mainstream society and Homosexuals can only
indulge their wanton pecadillos where they are protected by
undemocratic hate laws.
(not voted for and not wanted by the majority - these laws foisted upon us
are undemocratic)


== 3 of 5 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 8:23 pm
From: rfischer@sonic.net (Ray Fischer)


regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>Ray Fischer wrote:
>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Ray Fischer wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> regn.pickfod <regn@mysoul.cop.au> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Your hatred is not a good reason.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nonsense.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Truth. Your hatred is not a good enough reason.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Robust social f
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Your hatred of homoseuals is obvious.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> To you, in your head.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> You want to imprison and persecute gays. That is hatred.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I want the laws changed and I want Homosexuals to comply
>>>>>>>>> with those laws and _not_ go to gaol.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> You want to imprison and persecute gays. Hiding behind laws
>>>>>>>> that you want is chickenshit cowardice.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The laws were there many years before I was born.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> They do not exist now, bigot.
>>>>>>
>>>>> They have existed and they will exist again,
>>>>
>>>> People reject your kind of hate.
>>>>
>>>
>>> It isn't hate,
>>
>> You lie in order to justify making people suffer.
>>
>> That is hate.
>
>I tell the truth to help a known minority suffering a

You're a liar and a bigot.

>>> The Homosexual lifestyle is so disapproved of there needs to be
>>
>> You sound like some nazi asshole spewing the usual nazi propaganda.
>> Do you hate Jews as well?
>
>You keep saying I hate people

Your insistence that people should be made to suffer is hate.
But like the nazis you keep insisting that your hate is really for
the good of all.

--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net

== 4 of 5 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 8:28 pm
From: Greatest Mining Pioneer of Australia of all Times


Only the British National Party can save Britain from the terror of
Islamist colonisation and protect the identity of the British people,
said Sikh activist and the first ethnic member of the party, Rajinder
Singh, today.
Speaking after being given his party membership card, Mr Singh said
he
was determined to ensure that the BNP's "message was heard without
distortions and lies.
"All of the other parties follow policies which will result in the
Islamification of Britain," Mr Singh said.
"Already there are over 85 sharia law courts operating in Britain,
all
with legal force and recognised by the state.
"Sharia law is becoming entrenched in financial institutions as well.
This is the direct result of the policies followed by Labour,
Conservative and Lib-Dems who have encouraged Islamic immigration,"
Mr
Singh said.
"I know first-hand the results of Islamist colonisation. I saw what
happened to my homeland when it was overrun by Islamists and I do not
want that horror visited upon Britain.
"This is tied up very closely to the question of the identity of the
British people. I am a Sikh and proud to be so, and I respect and
support the right of British people to be proud of who they are, and
their right to remain the majority population in their homeland.
"No one in India would want that subcontinent to become majority
Chinese. The Indian people would reject that as colonisation, which
it
would be.
"The same goes for Britain," Mr Singh said, adding that there was a
huge difference between small-scale immigration and what is happening
today in Britain.
BNP leader Nick Griffin welcomed Mr Singh's announcement, calling it
a
"brave step for truth.
"Mr Singh, for whom I have the greatest respect and the pleasure to
have had as a friend for many years, knows the truth about the BNP,
and we welcome his support in the common struggle against the
Islamist
menace which threatens all lands and people."
ENDS


== 5 of 5 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 8:35 pm
From: rfischer@sonic.net (Ray Fischer)


Greatest Mining Pioneer of Australia of all Times <australia.mining-pioneer@neuf.fr> wrote:
>Only the British National Party can save Britain from the terror of
>Islamist colonisation and protect the identity of the British people,

Another skinhead bigot.

Ho hum.

--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net


==============================================================================
TOPIC: Dr Jai Maharaj is a sad Monkey
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian/t/e19d9793a12a546d?hl=en
==============================================================================

== 1 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 4:30 am
From: bademiyansubhanallah


BJP restructured: given RSS colour by its new leader Nitin Gadkari

NEW DELHI, March 16 (APP) Nitin Gadkari, a new young leader of
Bhartiya Janata Party gave his party a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
(RSS) colour when he inducted over a dozen Sang men in the new
organisational set up.

BJP, which was defeated in the last Lok Sabha elections is undergoing
organisational changes to give it a new face â€" a young face by
restructuring the party. Nitin Gadkari was also appointed as young
leader in the main opposition party a few months back.

Nitin Gadkari, who is also a man from RSS appointed emerging Hindutva
icon Varun Gandhi, known for his hate speech against Muslims during
last Lok Sabha elections as party's one of the fifteen secretaries.

Tarun Vijay, former editor of RSS mouthpiece Panchajanya, became one
of the six BJP spokespersons. Another RSS man, Ram Nath Kovind, who
headed the BJPs scheduled castes cell, was also appointed as a party
spokesperson.

Former general secretary (organisation) Sanjay Joshi, another RSS man
is expected to be taken in the party.

Ram Lal, a RSS swayamsevak will continue to hold a powerful position
of general secretary (organisation). Of the 10 general secretaries
appointed by Gadkari, four are RSS men. They include, besides Ram Lal,
Narendra Singh Tomar, Thavar Chand Ghelot and Jagat Prakash Nadda.

Some of the RSS men inducted into the party's organisational setup
include Bhagat Singh Koshiyari (vice-president), Kirit Somaya
(secretary), Kaptan Singh Solanki (national executive member) and Nana
Shamkule (national executive member). Vinay Katiyar, a hardliner, was
made a vice-president.

Senior party leader Yashwant Sinha could not find any prominent
position in the new organisational set up.

Bollywood actress Hema Malini and television actress Smriti Irani were
inducted as vice-president and secretary respectively. Actress Kiron
Kher (wife of Anupam Kher) was also brought in as a member of the
party's national executive with a purpose to draw crowd.

The new set up reflected the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief Mohan
Bhagwat's diktat on the need to give the party a youthful look.

For the first time as many as 12 women national office-bearers have
been appointed in a list of 36 that includes 11 vice-presidents, 10
general secretaries (not counting 2 joint general secretaries) and 15
secretaries.

http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=98718&Itemid=2

Opinion » Editorial
March 18, 2010 New-look Team Gadkari

Even as the Women's Reservation Bill struggles to stay the course, the
Nitin Gadkari-led Bharatiya Janata Party has demonstrated exemplary
support to the cause of female empowerment by allocating close to a
third of its party posts to women. This is a message as much to the
Bill's biggest and loudest champion — the Congress party — as to the
obstructionist Yadav troika of Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad, and Sharad
Yadav. Although the Congress was the first to decide in principle that
women should get a critical share of party posts, Congresswomen
continue to be a largely invisible lot. In allocating generous space
to women at various levels in the party hierarchy, the BJP has shown
that gender justice need not become hostage to legislative battles.
Team Gadkari also scores in bringing a blend of experience and youth
to the table. Old hands expectedly dominate the party's parliamentary
board while a fair sprinkling of young people, drawn from diverse
social backgrounds, have made it to the lower echelons of power.

When Mr. Gadkari beat competition from a range of heavyweight insiders
to become the BJP chief, not many thought him capable of finding his
way in the factional minefield that the BJP has become in recent
years. The new incumbent was inexperienced in realpolitik, and
moreover, the shadow of Jhandewalan loomed large over his appointment.
In the event, Mr. Gadkari has proved that he has a better grip of
politics and party affairs than most of the veterans. The confidence
has begun to show — especially in Parliament where Arun Jaitley and
Sushma Swaraj have emerged as formidable team leaders. It was at Mr.
Jaitley's instance that the Women's Reservation Bill came to be
debated before being put to vote in the Rajya Sabha. His speech in
support of the Bill reflected bipartisanship of a kind sorely lacking
in Indian political discourse. More importantly — without prejudice to
what this newspaper thinks about the BJP's disintegrative political
programme and ideology — it came across recently as a sober party
capable of making its point skilfully, without resorting to drama and
bad behaviour. There is also a flip side to the new thrust. Team
Gadkari includes the disagreeable and intemperate Varun Gandhi, who
has been rewarded with the prize post of party secretary. The
accommodation of the young man from a famous lineage, whose vitriol
against Muslims fetched him a prison stay during the 2009 general
election, is a concession to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. As long
as the BJP remains a child of the shadowy RSS, it will not be able to
resist the temptation to play communal politics — which has proved to
be its undoing again and again.

Keywords: Bharatiya Janata Party, Nitin Gadkari, Congress party, Arun
Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh

Comments:

While complementing Mr.Gadkari, the editorial couldn't resist the
temptation to have a dig at BJP's ideology, its RSS connection and of
course Varun Gandhi. Did BJP, while in power at the Centre, do any
harm to the Muslims. Of course there were the Gujarat riots during
that period. But what happened in Gujarat was not different from the
anti-Sikh riots by Congressmen after Indira Gandhi's assasination. But
the latter was long forgotten by the media, while Gujarat and one of
Varun Gandhi's election speeches remain a weapon in the armoury of the
media to beat BJP with. When nearly a billion people of the country
are reeling under the impact of prices of essential commodities going
through the roof, the media is not agitated. It allows the government
to get away with lame excuses and no action. But when a garland of
notes was given to Mayawathi by her supporters the media was busy
jeering at her. When the investigators called Chief Minister Modi as
part of the investigation of the Gujarat riots, a gleeful media had
nothing else to talk about for days. The media seems to think that the
opposition is a nuisance and a road block for progrss. The fourth
estate is clearly forgetting its mission. A post script: this writer
is not a BJP or a BSP supporter.

from: K.Vijayakumar
Posted on: Mar 18, 2010 at 12:30 IST

http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/article253979.ece

NEW DELHI, March 18, 2010 Sharad Pawar favours 33 per cent quota for
women
Gargi Parsai

PTI Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar at the Parliament House in
New Delhi. Photo: PTI

Putting at rest all speculation about his views on the Women's
Reservation Bill, Nationalist Congress Party leader and a key ally of
the United Progressive Alliance government, Sharad Pawar, said here on
Thursday that he favoured a 33 per cent reservation for women in the
Lok Sabha and legislative assemblies. ``The Bill should be passed [in
the Lok Sabha] as it is,'' he said.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Kharif Campaign, 2010,
here on Thursday, Mr. Pawar said there is no reservation for
minorities or the Other Backward Class under the Constitution.
``Therefore, first let the Bill be passed with 33 per cent reservation
for women. We don't want the quota to be reduced,'' he categorically
said.

To a question, Mr. Pawar said he did have a talk with Samajwadi Party
leader Mulayam Singh (who is insisting for a quota within quota or for
a reduced percentage of reservation for women) but as far as he was
concerned, he does not want the quota of 33 per cent to be reduced.

Asked about the controversy over the comments made by former Congress
spokesman Satyavrat Chaturvedi, Mr. Pawar said, ``that chapter is
closed. These things can happen.''

Asked if he was seeking an apology from Mr. Chaturvedi, who has since
been divested of his position as a Congress spokesman, Mr Pawar said,
``No.'

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article254505.ece

KOLKATA, March 18, 2010 Initiative to ensure menstrual hygiene among
rural women
Ananya Dutta

When women in rural areas are asked to spend Rs.15 on a packet of nine
sanitary napkins, they respond by saying they would rather continue to
use rags and spend the money on their husbands or children.

But the Gender Hygiene Programme (GHP) launched here three years ago
is attempting to change this attitude towards menstrual hygiene. The
programme, under way in five districts in West Bengal, involves self-
help groups (SHG) manufacturing inexpensive sanitary towels from
cotton and tissue paper. The napkins are then sold by the same women
to others in the village.

The set-up requires a capital of Rs.1,600 and assures the women
involved, an average income of Rs.900 a month. It may not be the most
attractive economic option available to an SHG, but it is self-
sustaining with a steady source of income. At the same time, it
promotes hygiene, said Dhrubajyoti Ghosh, GHP project director and an
environmental sanitation engineer.

The programme suffered hiccups with some partner non-governmental
organisations backing out or some SHGs closing shop and even had
issues with quality control, but after three years, the GHP has been
able to come up with a standardised product.

"The pads made by us are the cheapest option available and, at the
same time, are marketed without providing any subsidy," Dr. Ghosh
said.

Even though the Indian Council of Social Science Research is
responsible for research and the implementation of the GHP, and the
programme is backed by the State government. There is no subsidy
involved.

However, the government set-up is essential in promoting the programme
as ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers and women involved
with the Integrated Child Development Services are being roped in to
spread the message. The district administration in Bankura is now
trying to induct all 32,000 women from various SHGs as users.

"Implementing such a scheme requires both administrative backing and
political will," said Ashish Sinha, a Bankura district administration
official.

However, Dr. Ghosh felt the issue of menstrual health must have a
wider approach. "The total sanitation programme has been going on for
about 30 years, but there is a need to redefine sanitation."

No one has ever considered the safe disposal of menstrual fluids, Dr.
Ghosh said.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article253925.ece

March 18, 2010 Women's Bill

Women should not look at the reservation Bill as empowerment. Do we
seriously believe that a hard working woman will contest elections?
Will the political parties give her a ticket?

Only women with strong political and financial backgrounds will be
brought to the forefront and allowed to be a part of the legislature.
The plight of poor women will remain unchanged.

Pooja Panickar, Kozhikode

The political support for the women's quota Bill should not cease with
it being passed. Money and background should not be criterions in the
selection of candidates. Women from all sections, particularly
underprivileged sections, should be given chances; then only will the
need for having such a reservation be met. The problems of the
underprivileged sections will be addressed only when they are
represented.

Swarnalatha, Omalur

Reserving seats for women in the legislature is acting out of pity
instead of letting women come to power on their own potential. Hard
work will be degraded by a sense of entitlement. Let merit prevail
irrespective of sex.

Solung Khya Sonam, Itanagar

It is ironical that Parliament, which was debating the women's quota
Bill just a week ago, is now fighting over the currency garland
offered to a woman Chief Minister. Valuable time of the august body is
being misappropriated for such non-issues. Nobody seems to bother
about the unattended legislative business.

Newspapers should republish historic debates and discussions in
Parliament from their archives to pave the way for healthy debates in
Parliament.

Rajeswari Janakiraman, Chennai

http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/letters/article254055.ece

KOCHI, March 18, 2010 Divorced Muslim women entitled to maintenance
Special Correspondent

A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Wednesday ruled that a
divorced Muslim woman's right to claim maintenance under Section 125
of the Criminal Procedure Code did not stand "extinguished" if payment
under Section 3 of the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce)
Act 1986 had not been made by her former husband.

The Bench comprising Justice R. Basant and Justice M.C. Hari Rani made
it clear that a divorced Muslim woman would be entitled to claim
maintenance from her former husband till she remained a divorcee.
However, her remarriage or actual payment of maintenance or fair
provision under Section 3 of the Act shall "extinguish" her right to
claim maintenance under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

The court ruled that a pronouncement of talaq remained valid only if
attempts for reconciliation by two arbitrators in terms of Islamic
laws were made before such pronouncement.

If such efforts for reconciliation failed, it shall be decided that
there had been a "reasonable cause" for such divorce.

The reasonableness of such substantive cause for divorce could not be
justifiable by a court.

The court made this ruling while dealing with a Muslim divorce case.

The court observed that it was assumed that a Muslim man could
unilaterally end his marriage by pronouncing talaq without the
intervention of a court.

This provision was arbitrary. Though it might offend the notion of
gender justice, such practice was well settled in the country. Such a
divorce was considered perfectly valid.

The Supreme Court did not appear to have addressed the issue so far.
The obligation of hapless Muslim women to suffer polygamy and
arbitrary termination of marriage by pronouncing talaq without court
intervention appeared to offend the fundamental rights guaranteed
under the Constitution.

The court observed that these issues would have to be addressed by the
secular State.

The issues could not be pushed under the carpet by the legislature or
the constitutional courts. The court expressed the hope that the
legislatures would soon address the issue.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article254054.ece

NEW DELHI, March 17, 2010 Sushma: we'll attend all-party meet on
women's Bill with open mind
Neena Vyas

The Hindu The BJP will have an open mind on possible amendments the
govt. may propose before the Women's Bill is taken up in the Lok
Sabha, party leader Sushma Swaraj has said.

Related

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Fearing virtual revolt, BJP cracks the whip
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Remark being interpreted as willingness on BJP's part to dilute
provisions

In the Rajya Sabha the Bharatiya Janata Party may have dittoed the
Women's Reservation Bill as presented by the government, but it will
have an open mind on possible amendments the government may propose
before the measure is taken up in the Lok Sabha.

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj was
categorical on this when asked whether the party would stick to the
position it adopted in the Rajya Sabha or approach the subject with an
open mind, if and when an all-party meeting was called.

"We will go to the all-party meeting with an open mind," Ms. Swaraj
said, refusing to discuss hypothetical questions what the party's
stand would be if there was a proposal to dilute the 33 per cent
reservation to 20 or 25 per cent or if the issue of sub-quotas for
backward caste women or other groups were to come up.

The "open mind" remark has already begun to be interpreted as a
willingness on the part of the BJP to dilute the provisions. For, the
party has in the last few years been a strong votary of increasing
women's representation by making it mandatory for political parties to
give at least 33 per cent ticket to women, an idea rejected by the
Left and described by Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun
Jaitley as a non-starter for increasing women's representation.

The BJP has been very clear that it will not support any sub-quota for
Muslim women as it is opposed to any religion-based reservation. On
the backward caste quota, the party will take a stand as and when, and
if at all, the issue comes up. Now there are no quotas for backward
castes and therefore there cannot be a backward caste sub-quota for
women.

Party leaders are worried that while the BJP is trying to take some
credit for supporting the women's Bill in the Rajya Sabha — without
its support the Bill could not have been adopted — it would invite the
charge, as would the Congress, of short-changing women if it were to
agree to any dilution.

On Wednesday, Ms. Swaraj and Mr. Jaitley, in a joint statement, said:
"The BJP was committed to the Bill. The BJP lent a loud and clear
support but also wanted the dignity of the House maintained … and it
was the Opposition-dominated House that had approved the Bill despite
mismanagement by the government." .

But the party's worry now is that many of its MPs do not want it to be
proactive on this subject. They have in fact charged the leaders with
"helping the Congress" push the Bill through, when there was no need
for the Opposition party to do so. If the issue were to be prised open
once again at an all-party meeting or at a series of consultations
with parties, the BJP would have to calibrate its stand, keeping its
commitment to the Bill and yet not be seen to be actively pushing it
as its MPs do not want that.

As of now, the party leadership is not only supporting the 33 per cent
reservation Bill but is also justifying to the hilt the rotation of
reserved seats. Mr. Jaitley, in fact, was one of the few speakers who
lauded this aspect of the Bill, much to the annoyance of fellow BJP
MPs.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article253976.ece

New Delhi, March 17, 2010 No dissent note by Lalu Prasad on Women's
Bill
Special Correspondent

THE HINDU Congress Spokesman Jayanthi Natarajan is confident that the
Women's Bill will get passed in the Lok Sabha in its original form.
Related
NEWS

Sharad Pawar favours 33 per cent quota for women

Sushma: we'll attend all-party meet on women's Bill with open mind

Politics of Women's Reservation Bill
No proposal to dilute women's Bill: Congress

The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad did not give any dissent
note to the Women's Reservation Bill when it was discussed in the
Parliamentary Standing Committee.

In fact, Mr. Prasad, who is a member of the Committee, attended only
one meeting, the Congress said on Wednesday. However, the dissent note
over reserving 33 per cent for women in the Lok Sabha and State
Assemblies came from two members of the Samajwadi Party.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal, the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj
Party have been opposing the Bill from the beginning and insisting on
a quota for the backward class and Muslim women within the quota.

"Only two members from the Samajwadi Party, Virendra Bhatia and
Shailendra Kumar, gave a note for reducing the quota from 33 per cent
to 20 per cent. A similar demand was made by some members of the
Congress also, but unofficially,'' a party leader said.

At a routine party briefing, Congress spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan
said the Women's Reservation Bill would not be diluted and it would be
brought and passed in the Lok Sabha in its original form.

"We are fully confident that all our allies will be with us and the
Women's Reservation Bill will be passed in the Lok Sabha,'' she said,
ruling out any reduction in the quota despite the Nationalist Congress
Party suggesting that a reduction could lead to a consensus.

"No pressure from allies"

Denying pressure from the allies to reduce the percentage of
reservation, Ms. Natarajan said it would be discussed with the allies.
But the government was committed to passing the Bill in the present
form.

She said the Standing Committee on the Bill had considered all aspects
and come to the conclusion that the Bill should be passed as it was.
Any changes, if required, could be introduced subsequently.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article253928.ece

Volume 22 - Issue 24, Nov. 19 - Dec. 02, 2005
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

LEGISLATION

In defence of women
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI

A new Bill proposes amendments to the existing laws to widen the scope
of the definition of rape and to deal with other forms of sexual
assault on women and minors.

SHANKER CHAKRAVARTY

Girija Vyas, Chairperson of the National Commission for Women,
addressing the media at Parliament House in August following a gang
rape on a bus in Najafgarh.

IN 1996, the minor daughter of a government employee was molested by
her father and his friends. The incident evoked public outrage and
drew the attention of women's organisations, lawyers' groups and
concerned individuals to the need for a system to deal with child
molestation and child rape, but nothing much happened in the case. It
was not rape, the court averred, as there was no "penile-vaginal"
penetration. The culprits were punished under Section 354 of the
Indian Penal Code (IPC), which provided for a maximum punishment of
two years.

Laws relating to rape and sexual assault have remained more or less
unchanged since the introduction of the IPC in 1860. It was only in
1983 that some amendments to the rape law was made. Now, for the first
time, a comprehensive piece of legislation covering almost every
aspect of sexual assault against women and minors has been drafted at
the initiative of the All India Democratic Women's Association
(AIDWA). It is called the Criminal Law Amendment Bill. It is based on
the 172nd report of the Law Commission to amend laws relating to
sexual assault in Sections 375, 376, 354 and 509 of the IPC, the
relevant sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, and
the Indian Evidence Act. When it becomes law, the legislation will be
called the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2000.

The Bill recommends changes in the CrPC and the Evidence Act in order
to make the procedures fair and sensitive to victims of sexual
assault, including minors. The National Commission for Women (NCW) has
backed this legislation. At a two-day national consultation organised
by the NCW, the draft Bill was discussed in detail in the presence of
women activists, lawyers and senior police officers from various
States.

Broadly based on two Bills, one framed by the Law Commission in its
172nd Report, 2000, and the other drafted by a sub-committee of the
NCW in 1992, the Bill drafted by Kirti Singh, president of the Delhi
unit of the AIDWA, seeks to redress almost all the weaknesses in the
present law. Women's organisations have found from experience that the
existing laws neither define nor reflect all kinds of sexual assault
undergone by women. There is a standard notion of rape - the
penetrative one - while other forms of penetration by other parts of
the body as well as by objects have never come under the ambit of
sexual assault. Neither has protracted sexual assault or incest been
addressed adequately. Recognising these lacunae, the Supreme Court in
Sakshi versus Union of India had suggested that the legislature bring
about the required changes. Subsequently, the apex court directed the
Law Commission to examine the law and suggest changes.

The draft Bill seeks to do away with outdated notions of "outraging
the modesty" of women, embodied in some sections dealing with
molestation and eve-teasing. Supreme Court advocate Kirti Singh, also
an advocate of the Supreme Court, said that the Bill was a complete
overhaul of the IPC sections concerned. The 1983 amendments did not
question the patriarchal definition of rape. Talking to Frontline, she
said that the piece of legislation sought to incorporate the notion of
rape as experienced by women themselves, and not what a man perceived
rape to be. Every aspect, be it penetrative sexual assault or non-
penetrative sexual assault as applicable to every possible category of
victim and even marital rape, has been covered in the Bill. It is a
progressive piece of legislation with extensive procedural amendments
applicable to every kind of sexual assault. The Bill is particularly
sensitive to sexual assaults on minors.

THE definition of rape under Section 375 has been enlarged,
incorporating international legal standards. The offence is now called
sexual assault rather than rape, at the suggestion of the Law
Commission and the NCW sub-committee. However, the Bill drafted by
AIDWA has a more nuanced approach to sexual assault, defining it as an
offence committed by a man against a woman, rather than making it
gender-neutral. It also distinguishes this from child sexual assault,
which can be committed on a child of either sex by a man or a woman.
Sub-sections within Section 375 deal in detail with forms of sexual
assault on women as well as minors.

Significantly, the Bill redefines consent whereby the absence of
resistance cannot be deemed as consent. Consent is only the
unequivocal voluntary agreement by a person to engage in sexual
activity. This is important because under the existing law, if a woman
alleging rape does not have any injuries on her person, she is often
disbelieved and the absence of her consent is not considered at all.
Also, while raising the age of consent to 18 years, the Bill makes the
provision that consent would be a valid defence if the complainant was
between 16 and 18 years and the accused not more than five years
older. The Bill, therefore, recognises the prevalence of consensual
sexual activity between young people.

The Bill recognises new categories of aggravated sexual assault, in
addition to the already existing ones on custodial rape introduced in
1983. Under the existing law, punishment for the general category of
rape is a minimum of seven years in jail and 10 years for custodial/
aggravated rapes. The Bill now provides for cases of sexual assault on
a minor below 16 years, on a pregnant woman, and on a person afflicted
with mental or physical disability. Also included is sexual assault by
a person in a position of economic, political or social dominance and
aggravated sexual assault of a persistent nature that has the
potential to cause bodily harm.

One other important and somewhat debatable aspect is that the Bill
proposes to take away from the courts the power of discretion to award
less than the statutory minimum punishment. The Bill calls this a
"seemingly harsh amendment", but considers it necessary in the context
of courts awarding much less than the statutory minimum punishment for
reasons that the women's movement has found unjustifiable. And there
have been cases where no reasons were cited at all when courts awarded
light sentences. During discussions on the Bill at the NCW convention,
there seemed to be no overwhelming support for the death penalty for
those accused of sexual assault.

The Bill also deals with marital rape and proposes punishment for rape
within marriage. It proposes the deletion of Section 354 of the IPC
dealing with molestation, on the grounds that it does not make a
distinction between an adult and a minor. Instead, it has suggested
introducing Section 376 D to deal with all possible ramifications of
unlawful sexual conduct. The Bill holds that molesting a minor and an
adult are two different crimes and the punishment accordingly should
be different.

Instead of the definition of molestation as "sexual assault committed
with the intention of outraging the modesty of a woman" in Section
354, the Bill defines molestation as "touching with a sexual purpose
and without the consent of the woman". A higher punishment has been
recommended for molestation of minors by people who may be de jure or
de facto guardians of the victims.

Similarly, the Bill redefines Section 509 which deals with sexual
harassment. As in molestation, sexual harassment is now punishable
only when it is done with the intention of outraging the modesty of a
woman. The Bill states that words and gestures made with a sexual
purpose are punishable and that sub-sections under the redefined
Section 509 would deal with such offences committed against minors as
well.

Asha Sinha, Inspector-General of Police, CID, Jharkhand, said that one
reason for the non-registration of cases of sexual assault was the
insensitivity of both the police and the public. She explained that
sexual assault was seen as a social crime and so successful handling
of such cases was not usually seen as a reflection of policemen's
performance. The police in Jharkhand recently started a grievance cell
and she recommended fast-track courts and compensation for each
category of violence against women.

It was learnt that Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil, who was present
on the first day of the convention, expressed his appreciation of the
comprehensiveness of the Bill, which is expected to be tabled during
the winter session.

Almost 10 years have passed since the infamous Jhaku case, as the 1996
incident came to be known, but assaults against minors continue
unabated. An analysis of the rapes committed over the past decade
shows that 30 per cent of the crimes have been committed against
minors.

Statistics of the National Crime Records Bureau show that in 2003,
there were more than 15,000 cases of rape and 32,000 cases of
molestation. There is reason to believe that many crimes against
women, including rape, do not get reported or registered because of
the stigma that the victims could attract. Many cases do not reach the
trial stage for lack of evidence.

The proposed amendments are expected not only to increase the
reporting of sexual assaults, but also to facilitate speedy trials and
convictions. While women's groups are aware that law by itself may not
be able to bring about the required drop in the rate of crimes against
women, they hope that the amendments, if passed by Parliament, will go
a long way in challenging social stereotypes.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2224/stories/20051202002910500.htm

Volume 18 - Issue 14, July. 07 - 20, 2001
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

WOMEN'S RIGHTS
An inequitous proposal

A proposed Bill on the removal of ceiling on monthly maintenance
payable to wives and other dependents as laid down in Section 125 of
the CrPC leaves Muslim women out of its purview.

T.K. RAJALAKSHMI
in New Delhi

IN a move that could benefit women faced with the prospect of divorce
and possible destitution, the Union Law Ministry has decided to
introduce a Bill that would seek to amend Section 125 of the Code of
Criminal Procedure (CrPC). The amendment would remove the existing
ceiling of Rs.500 on the monthly maintenance payable for such women,
and for dependents such as parents and children. The ceiling was fixed
in 1955 and retained in CrPC, 1973. The amendment would also seek to
expedite the grant of interim maintenance.

RAJEEV BHATT
A group of Muslim women. The issue of maintenance for them has to go
beyond political considerations.

An increase in maintenance has been a long-standing demand of women's
movements and was articulated as early as in 1974 - in the Committee
on the Status of Women in India report. The CSWI report, "Towards
Equality", stated: "The inclusion of the right to maintenance in the
Criminal Procedure Code has the great advantage of making the remedy
both speedy and cheap. The underlying principle is to prevent
vagrancy, which usually leads to commission of crimes. From this point
of view, it seems unjustified to limit the total amount of maintenance
for all dependent persons to Rs.500."

Amendments to provisions in four acts, namely, Section 36 of the
Indian Divorce Act, 1869, Section 24 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955
and Section 39 of the Parsi Marriage and Divorce Act 1936 and Section
39 of the Special Marriages Act, will be made so that applications to
the court for interim maintenance are disposed of within 60 days of
their filing.

However, once again there is silence on the issue of payment of
maintenance to Muslim women. The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on
Divorce) Act, 1986 that became law in the wake of the Shah Bano
judgment, had stirred a debate over its adequacy with regard to
payment of maintenance for Muslim women. The Supreme Court in Mohd
Ahmad Khan v Shah Bano Begam and others held that if a divorced woman
is able to maintain herself, the husband's liability ceases with the
expiry of the period of iddat (three menstrual courses after the date
of divoce, that is, roughly three months), but if she is unable to
maintain herself after the period, she is entitled to have recourse to
Section 125 CrPC. This decision led to a controversy and in order to
dilute the judgment in the Shah Bano case, the Muslim Women's Bill,
later to become the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce)
Act, 1986, was passed. Women's organisations are critical of the Act.
They are opposed to it primarily because it denies Muslim women the
option of exercising their rights under the provisions of secular
legislation, which the CrPC is.

Women's groups and secular-minded people hold the view that it is
unfair to continue to deprive Muslim women the benefits of the secular
provisions of the Acts. The first time around, the Muslim Women's Act
had deprived Muslim women, on grounds of religion, of the rights under
Section 125 CrPC. The Act was seen as violative of the principle of
equality before law. According to "Judgment Call", a document
published by Majlis, a legal advocacy centre based in Mumbai, the Act
provided two sets of remedies depending upon the jurisdiction of the
High Court. While in some States she was entitled to a fair and
reasonable provision, in addition to maintenance during the iddat
period, in others her right to maintenance was confined to the iddat
period. The 1986 Act has been challenged in the Supreme Court. The All
India Muslim Personal Law Board (AMPLB) has, however, defended it.

Given the circumstances under which the Act came into being and the
mixed support it received from members of the Muslim community as well
as organisations of women and advocacy groups, it was evident that the
issue would be resurrected. In fact the debate over a uniform civil
code, reforms in personal laws and the applicability of secular
legislation to everybody never really died down. When minority
politics and issues took firm shape in the 1990s following the
demolition of the Babri Masjid, the issue of providing for fair
maintenance to divorced Muslim women was put on the backburner.

The Centre for Women's Develop-ment Studies (CWSD), while welcoming
the removal of the ceiling on maintenance and other legal reforms,
regretted the continued exclusion of Muslim women from "benefits under
a law that they had enjoyed since 1898, particularly when these
amendments are contemplated to be extended to the Hindu, Parsi, Indian
Divorce and Special Marriages Acts." The Joint Women's Programme (JWP)
and the Muslim Women's Forum wanted the benefits to be extended to
Muslim women. JWP secretary Jyotsana Chat-terjee said that the
organisation would make a representation to the Law Minister on this
issue. The All India Democratic Women's Association has held that
while the space for secular legislation should be expanded, existing
personal laws should undergo reforms so as to become more gender-
just. Indu Agnihotri of AIDWA recalled that a private member's bill in
the Lok Sabha, moved some years ago by Sushila Gopalan of the
Communist Party of India (Marxist), had sought the removal of the
ceiling on maintenance.

AIDWA in a statement welcomed the Law Ministry's initiative and
suggested that the law be strengthened by providing that, in the event
of conflicting claims about a husband's income, the wife's statement
should be accepted and the onus would be on the husband to disprove
it. It suggested changes in the disqualifying norms for receiving
maintenance.

Regretting the exclusion of Muslim women from the purview of the
proposed amendments, Sona Khan, a Supreme Court advocate, questioned
the constitutionality of the 1986 Act. One of the advocates who
appeared in the Shah Bano case, she told Frontline that the denial to
Muslim women of benefits available to other divorced women under
secular provisions was discriminatory. She maintained that Section 127
(3) (b) CrPC ensured that if a woman received any relief after
divorce, under any customary or personal law, "she shall not be
entitled to the benefit of seeking maintenance under Section 125."
Khan claimed that the dower or mehr (a consideration for entering into
the contract of marriage and payable by the husband) that the Muslim
woman had a right to receive either at the time of marriage or anytime
later, has been unfairly equated with the right to maintenance under
Section 125. The Shah Bano judgment had interpreted and justified the
secular provisions by using the provisions under personal and
customary law, and according to Khan the judgment is law even today as
it has not been overruled by the Supreme Court. Even the dower, Khan
held, was most of the time waived by the wife on the first night of
marriage.

DEFENDING the Muslim Women's Act, 1986 is the AIMPLB. Hasina Hashia,
member of the AIMPLB and an associate professor in Jamia Millia
Islamia university, is categorical that Muslim women are not entitled
to maintenance beyond the iddat period and that Section 125 CrPC
cannot apply to them. Section 5 of the 1986 Act lays down that only if
the divorced woman and her former husband exercise their option to be
governed by Sections 125 to 128 of the CrPC will their case be
considered under it.

Hashia told Frontline that accepting maintenance beyond the iddat
period was haraam (illegitimate) under the Shariat as all relationship
between a man and his wife would have ceased. After that she could be
supported either by her relatives or the Wakf Board. She said that the
AIMPLB was demanding a lower ceiling for maintenance for Muslim women
and that if a lump sum could be decided depending upon the income of
the man, it would not go beyond the tenets of Muslim personal law. The
concept of Mata (a parting gift to serve a social purpose) as espoused
by some sections of the Muslim intelligentsia could be explored. The
Board is yet to have a final opinion on this concept, which finds
mention in the Koran.

All solutions, Hashia maintained, are to be found within the
parameters of the Shariat. She recommended the setting up of Dar-ul-
Qaza or Islamic courts to resolve disputes of all kinds.

Sabiha Hussain of the CWDS, who has done a considerable amount of work
relating to issues of Muslim women, said frivolous excuses were often
given for divorcing Muslim women. She quoted a study conducted during
1998-99 involving 10 Muslim women from a mixed socio-economic
background in Bihar. Some had been divorced for not cooking what they
had been asked to cook, yet others were divorced for not possessing
good looks and so on. Some of them did not get maintenance even for
the iddat period and at the time of divorce, no witnesses were
present. Only two got back their mehr after three months of the
divorce.

A seminar in May organised by the CWDS and the Majlis on the issue of
maintenance rights of Muslim women debated the provisions of the
Muslim Women's Act, 1986 vis-a-vis benefits under Section 125 CrPC.
While some like Flavia Agnes of the Majlis felt that a fresh look at
the Act was necessary, others felt that the Act needed to be
interpreted in such a way as to make it more gender-just given the
Indian social realities. The seminar, which witnessed divergent views,
finally recommended that personal laws of all communities be
strengthened in order to make them more gender-just and to weed out
gender discrimination; that the Muslim Women's Act, 1986 be
strengthened to uphold positive and gender-just interpretations and
that the ceiling on the amount of maintenance payable under Section
125 CrPC be removed.

The issue of maintenance for Muslim women has to go beyond any
political considerations and it is the executive's responsibility to
ensure that no community is discriminated against in the formulation
of a legislation. The silence on the issue of Section 125 CrPC vis-a-
vis Muslim women's maintenance points to the fact that considerations
other than respecting the personal laws of a community have been at
play. It reflects the government reluctance to open what it sees as a
veritable Pandora's box. What is surprising is that it does not seem
to care much about the sentiments of the minorities while dealing with
other issues concerning them.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl1814/18140890.htm

Volume 17 - Issue 06, Mar. 18 - 31, 2000
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

A committed fighter
Geeta Mukherjee, 1924-2000.

T.K. RAJALAKSHMI

THE death of Geeta Mukherjee, veteran parliamentarian and Communist
Party of India (CPI) member, has had two immediate consequences. In
political terms, the CPI has lost a gritty and indefatigable
representative; and for young communists there is one few er of the
old guard to emulate. Geeta Mukherjee had undergone heart surgery in
1990 but that did not deter her from continuing with her party and
parliamentary activities. She was the Deputy Leader of the CPI in the
Lok Sabha.

K. RAMESH BABU

As chairperson of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the
Women's Reservation Bill (which provides for the reservation of one-
third of the total number of seats in State Assemblies and Parliament
for women), she was determined to see the bill rea ch its logical
conclusion. On March 3, a day before she succumbed to a heart attack,
Geeta Mukherjee vehemently protested on the floor of the House against
the Bihar Governor's decision to invite the National Democratic
Alliance (NDA) to form the governm ent in the State. She condemned the
action as "undemocratic".

Close friends recalled that though she was unwell, she wanted to
attend Parliament in the wake of the developments in Bihar and the
controversy over the Gujarat government's decision to allow its
employees to take part in the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh (RSS). Although she was equally committed to other issues, her
chief preoccupation since 1996, when she took over as chairperson of
the Joint Select Committee, was to ensure the passage of the Women's
Reservation Bill. She even reported ly turned down a ministerial berth
in the I.K. Gujral government on the grounds that she wanted to
concentrate fully on the bill. She strived to carry everyone along
with her on the Women's Bill issue, including those who wanted a
separate quota for Othe r Backward Classes (OBCs). With her strong
political convictions and ideological commitment, Geeta Mukherjee was
liked by people across party lines.

Mukherjee, went to school in Jessore, now in Bangladesh, was born as
Geeta Roy Choudhary in a middle class family. Her father was a Rai
Bahadur, a title bestowed upon him by the colonial rulers. As a
student, Geeta Mukherjee joined the Bengal Provincial Students
Federation (BPSF) in 1939. At that time, the BPSF was leading an
agitation demanding the repatriation and release of persons imprisoned
in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. She was the secretary of the
Students Federation from 1947 to 1951. Geeta Mukherjee studied Bengali
literature and graduated from the Ashutosh College in Calcutta. In
1942, she joined the CPI and married Biswanath Mukherjee, who was
already an established student communist leader. Geeta Mukherjee first
came into the limelight during the postal workers' strike of 1945. On
July 29, 1945 she addressed a rally, where she was the only woman
student speaker.

When the Communist Party was banned in 1948, she and Biswanath
Mukherjee were detained without trial for six months in the Presidency
Jail, Calcutta. Geeta Mukherjee was best known for her active role in
the student, peasant and women's movements. For ma ny students of the
1960s, she was a role model. She remained with the CPI after the
Communist Party split in 1964. She was elected to the West Bengal
Assembly, in 1967 and 1972, from Tamluk constituency in Midnapore
district. In 1978, she was elected to the Lok Sabha from Panskura and
represented that constituency since then.

Geeta Mukherjee was elected to the National Council of the party in
1978 and to its National Executive in 1981. She was elected one of the
national secretaries of the CPI at the 17th Congress of the party held
in Chennai in 1998. Geeta Mukherjee thus bec ame the first woman
secretariat member of any Indian communist party. Paying tributes to
her on the occasion of the International Women's Day on March 8,
women's organisations observed that under her chairpersonship the
report of the Joint Select Committ ee of Parliament on the Women's
Reservation Bill was completed in record time.

Geeta Mukherjee participated in various agitations including those
taking up the cause of women beedi workers. However, she took
particularly strong positions on gender issues. Amarjeet Kaur, general
secretary of the National Federation of Indian Women ( NFIW), the
women's wing of the CPI, said that on the dowry issue, Geeta Mukherjee
was keen that CPI cadres practised what they said in public.

An Executive Council member of the NFIW since 1965, Geeta Mukherjee
was also a member of the National Commission for Women in 1988 and of
the National Commission on Rural Labour in 1986. She was also a member
of the Press Council.

Geeta Mukherjee always wanted the mass organisations of the party to
keep her posted on the issues and developments so that she could raise
them in Parliament, Amarjeet Kaur said. Before raising a question, she
ensured that she had a good understanding o f the subject.

In Geeta Mukherjee's life, there was no contradiction between theory
and practice. A diehard optimist, she was a person of humility,
simplicity and absolute ideological conviction. Her colleagues recall
that despite the split in the Communist Party in 19 64, the political
upheavals in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s
and early 1990s, Geeta Mukherjee's commitment to the people's
democratic revolution remained undiluted.

Geeta Mukherjee wrote some books for children. Bharat Upakatha
(Folktales of India) and Chotoder Rabindranath (Tagore for Children)
are two of them. She translated in Bengali Bruno Apitz's classic Naked
Among Wolves. She loved poetry and used to read and recite Kazi Nazrul
Islam and Rabindranath Tagore.

A passionate and compassionate political activist, as described by
President K.R. Narayanan, Geeta Mukherjee has left a void not only in
the communist movement but also in the women's and other democratic
movements in the country.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl1706/17061060.htm

Volume 23 - Issue 25 :: Dec. 16-29, 2006
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU

WORLD AFFAIRS

Sex and the state
RAFIA ZAKARIA

The euphoria surrounding Pakistan's new law on "protection of women"
ignores the fact that the Hudood laws are still intact.

ANJUM NAVEED/AP

President Pervez Musharraf with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on
December 5 at a women's conference in Islamabad, where he promised
more legislation to protect the rights of women.

ON November 16, Pakistan's National Assembly passed the patronisingly
titled "Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2006". The
Bill, which has since been passed by the Senate, was introduced to the
populace in a televised address by President General Pervez Musharraf,
who called it a "major achievement". International media, continuing
their affair with Pakistan's "enlightened" dictator, also celebrated
the new law as a much-awaited respite for Pakistan's rights-
impoverished female population. In their euphoria for a "good news
story" emerging from an otherwise troubled region of the world, few of
the commentators bothered to look at the concrete provisions of the
Bill. Even fewer bothered to consider whether the celebrated Bill
would assuage the scourge of jurisdictional confusion that exists
between the Sharia and civil courts.

The Bill purports to amend clauses in the controversial Zina and
Hudood Ordinances, which were promulgated by General Zia-ul-Haq in
1979. As per the provisions of the Bill, only sections of which have
been released to the public, rape or zina bil jabr will be tried under
the Pakistan Penal Code instead of under the Zina and Hudood
Ordinances. This change of jurisdiction, politically spun as rescuing
rape victims from the arduous requirement of "producing four adult
male witnesses" to accomplish a prosecution, is meant to draw
attention away from the fact that the Zina and Hudood Ordinances have
not actually been repealed. Adultery continues to remain a crime
punishable by death and minorities and women continue to count as half
witnesses in hadd cases. The celebrations surrounding the passage of
the Bill also ignore the fact that the Council of Islamic Ideology, a
constitutional body set up to review the Zina and Hudood Ordinances,
explicitly stated in its 2006 report that "piecemeal amendments to the
Zina and Hudood Ordinances would not bring them into accord with the
Koran and Sunna".

Furthermore, the effectiveness of the jurisdictional changes
introduced by the Protection of Women Bill is further reduced by the
fact that it introduces the new crime of "lewdness" or "fornication"
to the Pakistan Penal Code. Section 496B, Clause 7, of the Pakistan
Penal Code, now forbids consensual sex outside of marriage and
requires those engaging in it to be punished by five years'
imprisonment and a fine of Rupees 10,000. In a lackadaisical attempt
to deter false charges, lawmakers have also chosen to include a "qazf"
provision in the law that would impose the same punishment on those
making false charges of fornication. Happily citing this provision as
a built-in mechanism against misuse, lawmakers knowingly chose to
ignore the fact that the same provision exists in the Hudood
Ordinances against those bringing false charges of adultery and has
never once in 27 years been used to punish someone making a false
accusation of adultery. Capitalising on the political tractability of
the existing jurisdictional confusion, government proponents of the
Protection of Women Bill also tout its "firewall" provision that will
ostensibly prevent rape victims from being tried under the fornication
clause if they are "unable to prove their rape charges".

In an editorial published in Daily Times, Asma Jehangir of the Human
Rights Commission of Pakistan termed the Bill "a victory for no one".
In her astute discussion of the provisions of the Bill, she pointed
out that the unamended portions of the Zina and Hudood Ordinances
continued to discriminate on the basis of sex and religion and
economic status. Pointing to the law of Qisas and Diyat, which was
also left untouched by the Bill, she says: "Murder can be waived or
compromised but zina can still be punished with stoning to death. A
person who can pay his way out of death penalty or manoeuvre a
compromise can be set free but lesser offences can beget
imprisonment."

Her emphasis on the class dimension of vulnerability to legal abuse at
the hands of the state is an important basis for evaluating this new
Bill. Records of women imprisoned under charges of fornication or
adultery under the Hudood Ordinances reveal that it is Pakistan's poor
women who are most frequently victimised by the state's unchecked
power in legislating morality in the name of Islam. Therefore, while
the promised jurisdictional changes under the Bill may place a
placating Band-Aid on a festering wound, they fail to address the
reality that a poor woman who chooses to file a rape charge still
faces incredible challenges that are rudely ignored by this
politically inspired piece of legislation. The case of Mukhtar Mai,
the courageous gang-rape survivor from Meerwala, is a testament to the
limited utility of the legal changes sought by the law. The very fact
that her rape case was tried not just in a Sharia court or a civil
court but also in a "special terrorism court" shows how jurisdictional
rules can easily be superseded by governmental directive in an
essentially undemocratic system where courts in general have limited
legitimacy.

Judging legal changes in Pakistan by evaluating the legitimacy that
Pakistan's legal institutions actually possess goes against the
predilection of elite Pakistani scholars and their Western
counterparts bent on celebrating General Musharraf as the heaven-sent
liberal scion saving Pakistan from the mullahs. The elite in Pakistan
have little or no reliance on the legal system as a means of dispute
resolution. The poor, intimidated by the jurisdictional morass created
by the hodge-podge of civil courts, federal Sharia courts and special
terrorism courts, lack the material resources and, understandably, the
will to navigate a system whose primary aim seems to be to serve the
objectives of those in power. In the unlikely event that a poor person
is able to secure a conviction from a court, few if any mechanisms
exist for it to be enforced against the other party, particularly if
they happen to be powerful or command material resources. Predictably,
the most high-profile cases ever tried in Pakistani courts are those
brought by those holding the reins of government against former rulers
accused of corruption. Ultimately, Musharraf's rise to power with the
aid of unilateral constitutional amendments sharpens the irony of his
being celebrated as someone responsible for instituting the rule of
law in a militarised state.

The leniency of the Pakistani public to the legal or constitutional
usurpations of power of the Musharraf administration is ultimately
also a product of the self-perpetuating cycle of institutional
weakness that maintains the status quo. In a simplistic yet
illuminating calculus, the Pakistani public, fed up with the slew of
corrupt civilian governments of the past decades, supports the
military administration because it maintains law and order through
force. In turn, the military administration, adept at maintaining its
hold over Pakistani politics, refuses to pour the billions of dollars
of aid money it regularly receives into the court system, which if
truly legitimate and powerful, could check the military's claim to
power. The legal system thus remains impoverished, under-funded and
ultimately powerless, while the current administration can manipulate
world opinion through the pretence of legal changes to gain political
mileage. The hollowness of the legal institutions ultimately enables
them to be symbolically manipulated as agents of change and harbingers
of the rule of law while never actually threatening the omniscient
hegemony of the military. One recent instance that demonstrates the
farcical status of Pakistan's courts in curbing state power is the
imprisonment without charge of dozens of women belonging to the Baloch
Bugti tribe in a government effort designed to force their husbands,
fathers and brothers out of hiding. Of course, the legal basis for
such an action, which no court could possibly sanction, has yet to be
explained.

Even more depressingly, the military is hardly alone in perpetuating
this cycle. Past civilian administrations, led either by Benazir
Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif, have been equally reticent to strengthen a
court system that might ultimately be a check on their own power. In
the context of the Protection of Women Bill, the liberal Pakistan
People's Party(PPP) as well as the Muhajir Qaumi Movement(MQM) has
joined the Musharraf administration in supporting the changes and
heralding the birth of what is being called a new configuration in
Pakistani politics. Indeed, supporting the legislation bears political
rewards for both, since it marks their recognition of the reality that
in the eyes of the aid-giving West, being "enlightened" means
supporting President Musharraf.

The louder the mullah-dominated Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) protests
against the Bill, the more resplendent the bounty of dollars of which
the Musharraf administration, and now even the PPP and the MQM, may
partake of. This new coalition of corrupt authoritarian liberals
against religious zealots is particularly worrisome if one remembers
the denouement of the Iranian Revolution which was presaged by just
such a Western-supported political configuration. And what about the
Pakistani women in whose name these reforms are undertaken? Stuck
between Musharraf and the mullahs, they must accept the meagre scraps
of half-hearted changes promised by the Protection of Women Bill, or
shudder in fear of an MMA government that will relegate them to their
houses and force them into burqas.

To keep this fear alive, since it stands to benefit so much from the
ominous threat it represents, the Musharraf administration has done
little to thwart the passage of the Hasba Bill in North West Frontier
Province. This new Bill, which was adopted by the NWFP provincial
government days before the passage of the Protection of Women Bill in
the National Assembly, revives the medieval institution of "mohtasibs"
or "moral police". In yet another parallel system of justice, these
mohtasibs will now patrol the streets of the province to insure that
"society is guided by the Sharia". Vigilante groups have already begun
the process by standing guard outside universities and turning away
women students not covering their heads as well as harassing
minorities under a variety of pretexts.

Human rights organisations in Pakistan and abroad have denounced this
"give and take" attitude of the Musharraf administration that has now
become proficient at maintaining liberal pretences and legitimising
itself as the bastion of anti-extremism, while also appeasing the MMA.
Civil society organisations such as the Aurat Foundation, the Women's
Action Forum, Sungi and ANAA have all protested against the Bill.
Minority rights organisations such as the National Solidarity of Equal
Rights have highlighted the reality that Hudood laws left untouched by
the legislation prevent non-Muslims from being either full witnesses,
judges or even lawyers in cases brought under the Hudood Ordinances.
According to Amna Buttar, president of ANAA, "the new law removes a
noose but fires a bullet" in continuing to retain the many provisions
that may be used to persecute women in the name of regulating sex and
morality. This equivocation, which sees legislating on sex as a means
of ensuring the moral life of society, ignores the reality that moral
wrongs when legislated upon by the state give the latter inordinate
power in making the lives of ordinary citizens completely vulnerable
to unchecked and indiscriminate intrusions and abuses of power.

In the final analyses, the debate surrounding the Women's Protection
Bill must focus on the status of the rule of law in Pakistani society.
The duplicitous rhetoric of curbing extremism by promoting militarism
masks the grotesque mess of parallel jurisdictions and inaccessibility
to justice for both male and female citizens of Pakistan. The Asian
Development Bank reports that Pakistan received $1.1 billion in United
States aid to fight the "war against terror" last year and is
scheduled to receive another $900m this year. A total of $3.7 billion
has been given to Pakistan by the U.S. since January 2002. It is safe
to assume that not a cent of this bounty has been used to revive
Pakistan's weak and failing legal institutions. Unless Western powers
realise that victory in the war against extremism hinges not on
propping up authoritarian regimes but on long-term investment in
strengthening democratic and legal institutions, Pakistani women will
continue to bear the unjust burden of misogyny and discrimination.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2325/stories/20061229000306200.htm

Volume 24 - Issue 05 :: Mar. 10-23, 2007
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU

LEGISLATION

Self-help doubts
T.K. RAJALAKSHMI

Opposition grows to the microfinance Bill on the grounds that it,
among other things, excludes the big players in microfinance.

G. KRISHNASWAMY

In Hyderabad, the office of the Mutually Aided Cooperative Thrift &
Credit Society, which helps members of self-help groups.

THE heightened allocations to the social sector and the rhetoric of
women's empowerment notwithstanding, a Bill meant to guarantee
financial services to women and other disadvantaged sections has run
into rough weather. The Ministries of Women and Child Development and
Rural Development are not in agreement with certain provisions of the
Micro-Financial Sector (Development and Regulation) Bill, 2007, which
they believe has been drafted in haste.

The main objective of the Bill is to provide for the promotion,
development and orderly growth of the microfinance sector in rural and
urban areas so as to offer an enabling environment to ensure that the
people, especially women and certain disadvantaged sections, have
universal access to integrated financial services of banks.

Another objective is to regulate the functioning of microfinance
organisations. In its previous avatar it was known as the National
Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Amendment) Bill, 2006. The
Bill was first drafted in 2000 with the objective of giving a
legalised structure to microcredit and microfinance organisations.

According to a note prepared by the Department of Economic Affairs
(Banking Division) in the Finance Ministry, the Bill was formulated
after consultations with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the National
Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), and the Indian
Banks' Association (IBA).

The logic was that "many microcredit-providing institutions such as
MFIs [microfinance institutions] and SHGs [self-help groups] have been
repeatedly stressing the need for regulation of this sector in view of
its rapid growth and fear of less-than-credible institutions dealing
with the poor and illiterate people." But the main problem with the
Bill is that it excludes the big players in microfinance.

The Bill demonstrates perhaps that the talk of "inter-sectoral"
convergence is just rhetoric. It also brings out the lack of inter-
Ministerial discussion and deliberation.

For instance, the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), set up in 1993 under
the Ministry of Women and Child Development to provide credit to poor
rural women, has been left out from the to-be-constituted microfinance
development council (MDC), whose objective is to advise NABARD on
matters relating to microfinance.

The council will have two women nominees, who may not necessarily
represent the Ministry of Women and Child Development. This, said a
senior woman bureaucrat, was ironical as 90 per cent of microcredit
borrowers were women. Women and Child Development Minister Renuka
Choudhary said the Bill was inimical to the interests of poor women.
Excluding the RMK was a big surprise, considering that it has
benefited 5,68,000 women so far. The Bill has also run into trouble
from women's organisations and those closely involved with SHGs.

The All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA) believes that
while the microfinance Bill ought to be rejected outright, there is
also a need to look at the working of SHGs over the past two decades.
According to AIDWA, unlike women's and people's science groups, the
Government of India and other high-profile NGOs viewed SHGs as banking
institutions whose savings needed to be mopped up in order to ease the
burden of public investment.

Among the problems facing SHGs, it said, was the exclusion of a great
number of poor people from the formation of SHG federations because of
definitional problems and the lack of representation of women in the
decision-making processes. Said Sudha Sundararaman, general secretary,
AIDWA: "Instead of replacing formal credit institutions, the SHGs are
designed to function as groups to ensure efficient transactions and
repayments on a limited credit-based agenda. This works against the
inclusion of issues such as domestic violence, sexual and reproductive
rights and political participation. Such issues are then addressed by
women `in spite of' rather than as a legitimate agenda of the SHGs."

Main objections

The main objections to the Bill are that it excludes from its purview
non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and companies registered as
not-for-profit under Section 25 of the Companies Act; these two
categories of companies deal with 90 per cent of microfinance. The
Bill, instead, seeks to regulate societies, cooperative societies and
trusts registered under State laws, also called microfinance
organisations (MFOs), which handle only 10 per cent of such services
in the country.

These smaller organisations could also get into trouble, given the
conditionalities such as profitablity, 15 per cent capital adequacy
ratio (that is, the capital base of the organisation should comprise
at least 15 per cent of its outstanding loans), three years'
experience and NABARD certification.

Nevertheless, the Cabinet and the Group of Ministers has cleared the
Bill and it is likely to be tabled in the current session of
Parliament.

The concern among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved with
SHGs is that MFIs, profit-oriented as they are, may introduce
practices that might corrupt the SHG model itself. They also feel that
the conditionalities are harsh considering that even commercial banks
were required to have a capital adequacy ratio of only 8 per cent.

Thomas Franco Rajendra Dev of the Mahalir Association for Literacy
Awareness and Rights (MALAR), a federation of SHGs in Kanyakumari
district, said repayment rates were, by and large, very good and that
was one reason why MFIs wanted to enter the picture in a big way and
that too without many regulations.

He said MFIs in Andhra Pradesh used coercive methods to make women
repay their loans and added that he knew of many instances of such
harassment. He said that in the last seven or eight years, a lot of
SHGs and microcredit institutions had been formed with the sole
purpose of obtaining and disbursing loans. Only in some States,
especially Kerala, where linkages had been made between literacy,
political empowerment and economic empowerment within SHGs, the
poorest among the women had benefited and emerged as a force.

Incidentally, estimates of the number of SHGs in the country range
from seven million to more than a crore. The demand for micro-credit
is estimated to be close to Rs.1 lakh crore. Until December 2006,
24.82 lakh SHGs had been credit-linked with a cumulative bank loan of
Rs.13,720.82 crore. As on January 25, 2007, about 24.33 lakh SHGs,
with a bank loan of Rs.10,895 crore, had been formed under the
Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana of the Ministry of Rural
Development. Last year alone, Rs.65,000 crore was disbursed as
microcredit.

V. RAJU

At Sattenapalli in Andhra Pradesh's Guntur district in July 2006, a
victim of harassment by microfinance companies is consoled by National
Commission of Women member Nirmala Venkatesh. The companies wanted the
girl to repay the loan taken by her mother who is no more.

But there are doubts whether it can help rural poverty. Franco
Rajendra Dev said it was an illusion that microfinance alone would
eradicate poverty; it had to be accompanied by other measures,
including land reforms, which was the experience of both Kerala and
West Bengal. The Integrated Rural Development Programme, which began
in 1979, he said, failed to reduce poverty, as it was unconnected with
the other causes of poverty.

He said that within MALAR, which was based on the People's Science
Movement model, nearly 10 per cent of the women had improved their
quality of life; handloom weavers had become owners of looms, pottery
workers had turned owners and women had opened grocery shops and got
into lease cultivation.

While this was a positive outcome, the main problem was the small net
profit in these ventures and the challenges of the market. There was a
lot to learn from the Kudumbashree model in Kerala, where the poorest
of the poor among women were identified under the Asraya scheme and
marketing outlets were provided for their SHG products. In West
Bengal, too, 16 government departments were involved in SHGs in one
way or other. There was a separate Ministry for SHGs as well. The
marketing of the products was allowed through the public distribution
system (PDS).

Critics of the Bill accused the major players of charging high rates
of interest and resorting to other irregularities, including inhuman
methods of recovery, which, in States such as Andhra Pradesh, even
drove women to commit suicide. The majority of the borrowers were
women, organised into SHGs or otherwise. Last year, the Collectors of
East Godavari and Krishna districts submitted a report each to the RMK
about women committing suicide because of harassment by the MFIs. Most
of the suicides were reported from Guntur, East Godavari and Krishna
districts.

In Krishna district, of the 19 unnatural deaths of women in 2005-06,
10 were confirmed to have committed suicide. In general, the district
administration's observations were that MFIs imposed a non-
transparent, flat rate of interest instead of a simple interest on the
diminishing principal amount; the periodicity of repayment was weekly
instead of monthly, the insurance policy of MFIs was such that
premiums were collected without giving any policy; and they used
methods of recovery that were demeaning to women, including making
them stand in the hot sun, locking up their homes and even advising
them to commit suicide.

In raids on the local offices of some of the MFIs operating in the
district, signed cheques, blank, signed plain sheets of paper, and
home-site pattas and land title-deeds were seized.

Contentious proposal

One of the proposals in the Bill is to allow MFOs that have a capital
base of Rs.5 lakh to mobilise thrift. Such a move, critics argued,
would restrict the expansion of the capital that was being created by
SHGs. They said group savings were normally used in an emergency, but
if MFOs were allowed to mop up the thrift, the purpose of SHGs would
be defeated and women would find themselves again at the mercy of
moneylenders.

Sources in the RMK said the word "thrift" was a clever way of defining
"public deposit" as the RBI had not prescribed any "safety norms" for
banks that accepted public deposits. This could allow unscrupulous
MFOs, as also moneylenders who could register as MFOs, a backdoor
entry and accept not only savings from people but also lend at very
high rates of interest. Another worry was that caste and communal
organisations could enter the fray, especially if the Bill allowed
them to collect deposits through thrift.

The Bill does not provide any cap on the rate of interest, especially
when there were known instances of MFIs charging flat rates of 15 to
30 per cent and using unethical means of recovery. On the other hand,
there was a cap of Rs.50,000 on borrowing. There were objections to
NABARD functioning as the regulatory body because it was
insufficiently manned in the districts and there could be a conflict
of interest as it was a promoter of SHGs and NGOs. "A promoter cannot
be a regulator," said Franco.

Yet another criticism has been that State governments were not
consulted during the formulation of the Bill despite the fact that
many of the MFOs were registered under State laws.

The controversy over the Bill also comes in the context of a
widespread SHG movement comprising mainly of poor women in the
villages. The experience of the SHGs has been a mixed one, depending
on the level of political awareness and rate of literacy and social
and political organisation in the States. The possible enactment of
the microfinance Bill has caused consternation among groups working
with SHGs.

A two-day national consultation organised by Nirantar, an organisation
that deals with gender and education issues, debated the implications
of the Bill as well as the role of the SHGs.

More than 40 organisations from 19 States participated. The conference
discussed a study prepared by Nirantar, titled "Examining empowerment,
poverty alleviation, education within self-help groups" and a broad
consensus emerged on the positive and the negative outcomes of the
experiences of women in SHGs.

The study was done among 2,750 SHGs, the majority of them formed under
government programmes, in 16 States. The survey revealed that the
benefits had not percolated equitably to all women and most of them
had not received any capacity-building inputs for the past two years.
The experience differed from State to State and on the level of
political consciousness as well.

At the consultation itself, the consensus was that the microfinance
Bill would do more harm than good to rural women. It sought a wider
consultation with all the stakeholder before the Bill is passed.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2405/stories/20070323002409700.htm

Women's Reservation Bill

The Women's Reservation Bill is the one subject that has been most
talked about and the least acted upon. Now, one can easily visualise
that the Bill stands the 'brightest' chance of getting drowned in the
din and noise of tehalka.com. But the singular d isservice meted out
to the women's issue has, unfortunately come from no less a person
than Chief Election commissioner, M.S. Gill. (See his interview in
Frontline dated March 16, 2001.)

To quote Gill: "My solution is simple. Instead of amending the
Constitution every other day with all the negative points it involves,
have a simple amendment in the RPA (Representation of Peoples Act)
where all you would say is this: all parties that hav e their
recognition and privileges of the Commission shall retain these only
for so long, at every election they fight in every State they put up X
percentage of women candidates."

With this simple solution, Gill wants us to believe that the
proportion of women which is only '8 per cent in Parliament and
Assemblies over the last 50 years' will overnight jump from 8 to 15 or
20 per cent, even if a little less than 33 per cent of th e ticket is
given to women by the political parties.

The Frontline correspondent who interviewed Mr. Gill has chosen to
describe his solution as 'unique'. Unique indeed - not as a solution
but as a way of scuttling the whole issue.

Gill, at least for the record, asserts that gender justice is
certainly his priority but not higher than his loyalty to the
Constitution. He does not want the fault of political parties to visit
on the Constitution. So he wants the Constitution to be lef t
undisturbed by gender considerations. He ascribes the fact of women
not being given the ticket to an adequate extent to the fault of
political parties. He declares: "The flaw is that women are not
getting space in the political parties. Guaranteed spac e. Assured
space."

Gill's solution can at best only guarantee party ticket for women in
elections. It will certainly not ensure their presence in Parliament
or Assemblies unless a specific number of constituencies are mandated
to return only a woman as the representative.

We have on hand our own experience with regard to the elections to
local bodies. Only the 83rd amendment to the Constitution has given
the women the guaranteed and assured space in the local bodies. Not
before. Not otherwise than by reservation.

The delay over passing of the Bill is of course a matter of serious
concern not only to women, but also to all those who genuinely seek
women to be empowered. But, it cannot be an alibi for pushing through
a non-serious and frivolous proposal, from which ever quarters it may
emanate.

W.R. Varada Rajan
Received on email

http://www.flonnet.com/fl1807/18071290.htm

Volume 24 - Issue 25 :: Dec. 22, 2007-Jan. 04, 2008
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU

COVER STORY

Lacunae in law
V. VENKATESAN

India's legal response to violence against women has by and large been
characterised by the absence of sympathy for the victim.

RAJESH KUMAR SINGH/AP

At a rally in Allahabad on December 8 to create awareness about the
Domestic Violence Act.

The World Human Rights Conference in Vienna recognised gender-based
violence as a human rights violation in 1993. In the same year, the
United Nations, through a declaration, defined violence against women
as any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to
result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to a
woman, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary
deprivations of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life.

In 1995, the U.N.'s Special Report on Violence Against Women added
"violence perpetrated or condoned by the State" to this definition.
Because of the social group to which she belongs, in times of war,
riots and ethnic, caste or class violence, a woman may be raped or
brutalised as a means of humiliating the community to which she
belongs. Male perception of the female sex and women as the property
of men contributes to this extreme form of gender violence.

It may be worthwhile to look at India's legal response to the first
two of these three major forms of violence, namely, violence against
women in the private and public domains, and discern what many
observers have noted as the absence of attitudes sympathetic to women
among those enforcing or interpreting these laws.

Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which defines the rape of
a woman by a man, has an important exception: sexual intercourse by a
man with his wife, the wife not being under 15 years of age, is not
rape. Thus "marital rape" as an offence is outside the purview of
Indian criminal law.

The introduction of Section 376A in the IPC somewhat limits this
exception. Under this Section, a man who has sexual intercourse with
his wife who is living separately from him under a decree of
separation or under any custom or usage, without her consent shall be
punished with imprisonment up to two years and shall also be liable to
pay a fine.

Comparison with the punishments prescribed in the IPC for other
categories of rape brings out starkly the bias in the law in favour of
judicially separated men. The IPC prescribes a minimum sentence of
seven years for those convicted in non-custodial rape cases and 10
years in the case of custodial rapes.

The Law Commission has rejected proposals to repeal the marital rape
exception on the grounds that it would amount to "excessive
interference with the marital relationship" (Review of Rape Laws,
172nd Report, 2000, Chapter 3, page 14).

Clearly, some of the ingredients of Section 375 apply also to marital
rape. These include the commission of the offence by the man against
the victim's will and without her consent. The assumption that a woman
forsakes her right to refuse consent for sexual intercourse with her
husband as long as the marriage persists has been questioned by many
feminist scholars. Such an assumption would inevitably mean that the
law treats women as the property of their husbands.

In R v. R (Rape: Marital Exemption) (1991), the House of Lords widened
the scope of criminal liability by declaring that a husband could be
charged as the principal offender in the rape of his wife. This
decision obliterated the protection of the husband from such
prosecution under the doctrine of marital exemption. The wife was
supposed to have given a general consent to her husband as a natural
implication of the marriage. This has now become an outmoded view of
marriage in the U.K.

Cruelty by husband

Section 498A – inserted into the IPC in 1983 – is a major legislative
measure to tackle cruelty by a husband or relatives of the husband.
Under it the offender could be punished with imprisonment for up to
three years and also be liable to pay a fine. The Amendment Act, which
introduced this Section in the IPC, had the objective of combating the
menace of dowry deaths. Section 498A covers both physical and mental
abuse. It is felt that Section 498A's scope is limited as it is silent
on other kinds of cruelties involving psychological, economic and
sexual abuses. The Section defines cruelty as any act that drives a
woman to commit suicide or cause grave injury or danger to life.

The same Act also introduced Section 113A to the Indian Evidence Act
to raise a presumption regarding the abetment of suicide by a married
woman, if the suicide took place within seven years of her marriage.
Her husband or such relative of her husband would be presumed to have
abetted her suicide in such a case.

In 1986, the Dowry Prohibition (Amendment) Act introduced Section 304-
B in the IPC to define dowry death. The court shall presume that an
accused person caused a dowry death if the death of the woman is an
unnatural one and it happened within seven years from the date of
marriage. The woman must have been subjected to cruelty, relating to a
demand for dowry, in the immediate period before her death.

The Domestic Violence Act, enacted in October 2006, provides for,
among other significant reliefs, the right to residence in the shared
household, the right to protection orders, and the mandated return of
Stree-dhan (dowry), besides giving courts the power to restrain the
alienation of assets. It defines violence in all its dimensions, from
the physical to the sexual and the economic. This definition was taken
from the U.N. Model Code on domestic violence and from the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women, to which
India is a party. It applies to not only married women but also women
in live-in relationships and daughters/mothers facing violence in
domestic relationships.

One year on, the Act is not exactly a success story. Lawyers
Collective, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), which was largely
involved with this law in its formative stages, undertook the task of
evaluating enforcement using available data. Its report shows that the
main users of this law are women in matrimonial relationships. A few
widows have used it to prevent dispossession, and some young girls
have prevented forcible marriages by fathers.

The major breakthrough the law achieved was the declaration of the
right to reside in the shared household. The law makes a clear
distinction between the ownership of the shared household and the
right to reside in it. What the law does is to grant the right to
reside and not to be dispossessed, except by authority of law.

Indira Jaising of Lawyers Collective wrote in an article published in
Indian Express on October 26: "This provision suffered a major setback
at the hands of the judiciary. The Supreme Court, even before the ink
on the Act was dry, declared in a judgment (S.R. Batra v. Taruna
Batra) that a woman could claim this right only in relation to a
household owned/rented by her husband. This means that if her husband
lives with his parents and she has her matrimonial residence there,
she cannot claim right to residence there. The judgment not only
overlooks the law itself, it also overlooks the existing social
reality of the joint family, which continues to be the predominant
pattern."

The report prepared by Lawyers Collective documents how several courts
have refused relief to women on the basis of this judgment. It
demonstrates that in India women have lesser protection than tenants,
who cannot be evicted except by the procedure established by law.

Anti-rape law

Under Section 375 of the IPC, a man is said to commit rape if he has
sexual intercourse with a woman under any of the six specified
circumstances. They are: i) it should be against her will; ii) without
her consent; iii) when her consent has been obtained by putting in
her, or in any person whom she is interested in, the fear of death or
of hurt; iv) when she consents believing that he is her husband,
whereas he is not; v) when she consents by reason of unsoundness of
mind or intoxication or administration of stupefying substance; or,
vi) when she is under 16 years of age. The provision also says that
penetration is sufficient to constitute the sexual intercourse
necessary for the offence of rape.

Researchers have found serious gaps in using this provision to secure
the conviction of alleged rapists. Pratiksha Baxi says in her article
in the book The Violence of Normal Times (edited by Kalpana
Kannabiran, Women Unlimited, New Delhi, 2005), that the popular
perception that women commonly lie about being raped inflects medical
jurisprudence and in the testimony to rape.

She points to one of the medico-legal propositions that acquires an
axiomatic status that an able-bodied adult woman cannot be raped by an
unarmed man. According to her, in the trial courts, the view is that
women have the natural ability to resist rape by crossing their legs.
Here, she says, the male body is not thought of as a weapon, and
women's ability to resist is seen as given in nature.

When she conducted interviews with experts at the Forensic Science
Laboratory, she found that the practice of using lie-detection tests
on raped women was common. She added that medico-legal textbooks did
not prescribe the use of lie-detection tests on raped women, and to
the best of her knowledge the documentation regarding such tests did
not enter at the trial or appellate level.

For the victim, the process of testifying itself adds to her trauma.
Pratiksha Baxi notes that it makes her relive the rape and humiliates
her. Trial court Judges, she finds, recognise emotional distress
produced by the testimony not as a sign of suffering but as a sign of
complicity in a lie.

She adds: "The cross-examination of the victim itself produces trauma.
It attacks the reputation and veracity of the victim. It makes her
relive the rape and humiliates her. The production of trauma by the
law itself is a serious issue that severely compromises the mental
health of rape survivors."

Another issue in establishing rape is the ethics of the two-finger
test. The test was evolved as an answer to the medico-legal problem
that in some cases the hymen might remain intact (especially in female
children) despite repeated instances of penile penetration. The answer
was found in partial penetration, which denoted penile penetration of
the vaginal orifice irrespective of whether the hymen was ruptured or
not.

The test is performed by a technique that is in a mimetic relationship
to the act of penile penetration. The test replaces the notion that
the presence or absence of the hymen can by itself signify virginity
or its absence. It is a technique that verifies whether the hymen is
broken or not, and whether it is distensible or not.

The substitution of the erect penis, Baxi points out, rests on the
precarious desexualisation of the clinical practice. She adds:

"The line between the two-finger test (as if it were a surgical
procedure) and assault is a thin one, which is determined by whether
the medical examination is carried out with or without the consent of
the patient. Medical jurists have been aware of the mimesis in their
emphatic recommendation that doctors must secure the patient's consent
for this test. Consent then converts assault into a medical test."

Baxi further asks: "The issue of consent is constitutive, for to
refuse the test is interpreted as evidence of a false complaint. It is
not clear what this consent entails. Did it imply consent to allow the
medical jurist to penetrate her with her consent or is it consent
towards allowing the state to produce signs of her own subjection?"

And, how are the results of the test interpreted? When two or more
fingers are easily admissible in the vagina, the patient might be
characterised as being "used to sex" or "habituated to sex". The word
habituated, Baxi says, lies in the realm of interpretation, deriving
its meaning from the medico-legal domain, for the word does not appear
in any statute. The words "habituated", "habitual, or "used to sexual
intercourse" continue to appear in appellate judgments and animate the
legal discourse in trial courts.

Baxi argues that if the hymen acts as a sign it does so
retrospectively after the technique is deployed on the victim's body.
Thus while the "natural" state of the hymen is not reliable, it is a
technique which allows for a verification of the actual by
substituting the penis with two fingers.

The interpretation of the findings of the two-finger test provided in
the medico-legal certificate of the victim is transcribed as
"habituated to sex" or "used to sex". If a victim is categorised as
habituated, it is assumed that she must have experienced regular
sexual intercourse and this sexual intercourse must have been
consensual.

Baxi quotes a defence lawyer who had been practising criminal law in
the trial court as saying that if doctors give a certificate saying no
sign of injury and write that she is habituated, the advantage of this
goes to the accused.

Thus, medico-legal techniques such as the two-finger test result in
symbolic re-rape of victims. The phallocentric law insists on doing
mimetically to the victim what the accused rapist did to her, in order
to know that rape was real.

Outraging modesty

Section 354 of the IPC provides for a punishment of up to two years
with fine to anyone who assaults or uses criminal force on any woman,
intending to outrage her modesty. But the provision does not define
modesty.

The Supreme Court, in a recent judgment, defined modesty in this
Section as follows: "Modesty is an attribute associated with female
human beings as a class. It is a virtue which attaches to a female
owing to her sex. The act of pulling a woman, removing her sari,
coupled with a request for sexual intercourse, is such as would be an
outrage to the modesty of a woman; and knowledge, that modesty is
likely to be outraged, is sufficient to constitute the offence without
any deliberate intention having such outrage alone for its object."

As rape is constituted, only penetration is present. In cases where
sexual assault does not lead to penetration, the prosecution is
inclined to invoke Section 354 against the accused, which results in
milder punishment.

Section 511 of the IPC deals with punishment for attempting to commit
offences that are punishable with imprisonment for life or other forms
of imprisonment. It provides that when an offence is attempted to be
committed for which no specific punishment has been provided for in
the code, an offender will be punishable with half the longest term of
punishment that is prescribed for committing the respective offence.

In other words, a court can convict the accused for attempted rape.
Yet courts have in general been reluctant to do so even when the
accused has been caught while attempting rape. Ranjana Kaul, a member
of the Delhi Commission for Women, points out in an article that they
often rely upon the technicality of the absence of penetration to rule
out attempt and have invariably imposed on the accused the relatively
minor punishment of imprisonment up to two years for molestation.

"The emergence of sexual harassment as a wrong and a form of
discrimination against women has been articulated exclusively by the
Indian courts, and has not been enacted into any statute," says Ratna
Kapur, in her book, Erotic Justice.

Sexual harassment

The inability of Section 354 of the IPC to address adequately the
claims of sexual harassment ultimately led to the filing of a class
action petition in 1997 in the Supreme Court. The petition was brought
by certain social activists and NGOs to assist in finding suitable
methods for the realisation of the true concept of "gender equality"
and to prevent sexual harassment of women in all workplaces through
judicial process, to fill the vacuum in the existing legislation.

The Supreme Court held in this case (Visakha v. State of Rajasthan)
that sexual harassment is a clear violation of the rights under
Articles 14, 15 and 21 of Constitution. One of the logical
consequences of such an incident is also the violation of the victim's
fundamental right under Article 19(1)(g) "to practise any profession
or to carry out any occupation, trade or business". Such violations
attract the remedy under Article 32 for the enforcement of these
fundamental rights of women.

The court defined sexual harassment to include such unwelcome sexually
determined behaviour (whether directly or by implication) as: a)
physical contact and advances; b) a demand or request for sexual
favours; c) sexually coloured remarks; d) showing pornography; or e)
any other unwelcome physical verbal or non-verbal conduct of a sexual
nature.

The court directed all employers or persons in charge of the
workplace, whether in the public or private sector, to take
appropriate steps to prevent sexual harassment, and create mechanisms
for the settlement or prosecution of complaints. It laid down 12
guidelines in this regard and declared that these would constitute the
law of the land until the legislature took further action.

Ironically, Parliament took almost 10 years after the Vishaka judgment
to prepare a draft Bill on sexual harassment. The draft Bill, the
Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2007,
is yet to be introduced in Parliament.

REFERENCES

1. Ratna Kapur, `Erotic Justice'; Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2005.

2. Kalpana Kannabiran (ed.), `The Violence of Normal Times'; Women
Unlimited, New Delhi, 2005.

ONLINE

http://www.cflr.org/

http://www.idrc.ca/uploads/user-S/10286562430Violence_Against_Women_in_India_By_Sheela_Saravanan_(ISST)_.pdf

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=33866

http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/qrydisp.aspx?filename=13856

http://prsindia.org/docs/draft/draft_sexual_harassment_bill.pdf

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2425/stories/20080104242502000.htm

Volume 16 - Issue 17, Aug 14 - 27, 1999
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

SOCIAL ISSUES

'Dowry deaths' in Bangalore

Investigations by a women's group in Bangalore point to a high
incidence of unnatural deaths among newly married women following
dowry-related incidents, with the persons responsible for them largely
being acquitted.

PARVATHI MENON
in Bangalore

HOARDINGS put up by the traffic police at prominent places along
Bangalore's traffic-congested roads exhort reckless drivers to go
slow. Grim statistics loom over traffic snarls - 704 men and women
died in traffic accidents in the city in 1997, 726 in 1998, and 168
until June 1999. Reckless driving is truly a problem in India's sixth
largest metropolis, and the seriousness with which it is being
addressed is gratifying to the citizens of the city.

There is, however, another category of deaths that occur on a daily
basis in the city, for which no such public recognition or concern is
awarded. These figures far outnumber traffic-related deaths (or indeed
any category of avoidable death). They are exclusively of women -
mainly young, newly married women. In police records they are
classified under three specific categories, which invoke different
sections of the law. They are "dowry murders" (committed by the
woman's husband or members of his family for additional dowry or non-
payment of promised dowry); "suicides" (forced or voluntary, but in
most cases related to dowry demands); and "accidents" (a majority
classed under "stove-burst" or "kitchen-accident"). Deaths under these
three categories add up to an alarming figure. In Bangalore city,
1,133 women died in murders, suicides and accidents in 1997, 1,248 in
1998, and 618 till mid-July 1999.

K. GOPINATHAN
A police officer examines the body of Bhagyamma, a young mother who
hanged herself in Kengeri, near Bangalore. In her suicide note, which
she wrote on her legs in order to avoid its detection until the police
arrived, Bhagyamma blamed her husband for her death.

On an average, therefore, almost one hundred women have been dying
violent deaths every month in the privacy of their homes. And these
are the official figures. When 44 persons died of plague by September
1994 in Surat, the epicentre of the plague outbreak of that year, the
epidemic assumed the proportions of a national crisis. Yet, public
acknowledgement of the unnatural deaths of young women in Bangalore
city is restricted to perfunctory two-line news items in the daily
newspapers, where they are reported as "accidents" or "suicides" over
"dowry harassment". Thereafter, they drop from public consciousness
into the anonymity of a police or court 'case'.

A dowry murder comes under a distinct class of violence. Motivated
mainly by greed, the crime is committed within the four walls of a
home on an unsuspecting wife by her own husband or his family; there
are rarely any eyewitnesses who are prepared to give evidence against
the murderers. The large number of these deaths is an indication that
the law is not a sufficient deterrent for those who commit these
crimes. Nor have these grotesquely violent murders sparked the kind of
social outrage that could pressure the government and its law-
enforcing machinery into acting swiftly and firmly in enforcing the
law. The scale of this problem, its causes and consequences, have not
been adequately acknowledged by the state and its agencies, the media,
or the public at large.

"Such figures certainly impress upon us the need to relook at what we
understand by the police classification of 'unnatural deaths'," says
Donna Fernandes of Vimochana, a women's organisation which first
uncovered the horrifying dimensions of the problem in Bangalore. "Our
investigations have proved that for large numbers of married women,
the right to live in safety and in a climate free from intimidation
and violence is under great threat. Why is there this social unconcern
when women are dying in such large numbers?"

DOWRY-RELATED violence against married women by the families they
marry into is a phenomenon that is on the increase all over the
country, particularly in urban areas where such violence gets reported
on. Women's groups have been engaging with this issue at various
levels in different parts of the country. In the absence of comparable
data from other cities, it may be premature to conclude that the high
incidence of unnatural deaths of young women in Bangalore is, in some
way, a problem specific to this city. What has put Bangalore on the
map of cities with a high incidence of dowry-related atrocities
against women is an exceptional research-cum-social-intervention
project by Vimochana. This study has, for the first time, quantified
this problem and put it firmly in the public realm. Vimochana's
sustained two-and-half-year campaign on the issue of unnatural deaths
of women resulted in the setting up, on April 7, 1999, of a Joint
House Committee on Atrocities against Women to investigate these
deaths and make recommendations for their prevention. The Joint
Committee, which was chaired by BJP MLA Premila Nesargi, presented its
report on July 1.

There are therefore two detailed public documents on the phenomenon of
the high rate of unnatural deaths of women in Bangalore - the
Vimochana documentation and campaign material and the House Committee
Report. There is also detailed, month-wise statistics compiled and
maintained by the State Crime Records Bureau, which Vimochana has
collated and analysed in its study. Together these provide a reliable
database on the numbers of women dying; the classification of their
deaths by the police (whether murder, suicide, accident); the ways by
which they die (burning, hanging, poisoning, and so on); the reasons
for the death; the nature of the police investigation into each of
these cases; the reasons for the slow pace of judicial redress; and
the reasons why so many dowry death cases end in acquittal of the
accused. Vimochana's database, which it began compiling from early
1997, also includes a detailed register of the women who are admitted
into the burns ward of the Victoria Hospital, their ages, marital
status, reasons for death, and case details.

Unnatural deaths and stove-bursts

In the early phase of the study, as it collated police statistics,
Vimochana noted a major anomaly between its figures and those of the
police. It found that a large number of deaths were being classified
in police records as "accidents" under "UDR" (Unnatural Death
Register). The category of "dowry deaths" in a technical sense only
included those cases that had been booked by the police under the
relevant sections of the law . The "accident" cases that were closed
for want of evidence, however, were largely due to "stove-bursts" or
"kitchen accidents". On the basis of its follow-up investigations with
the families of the victims of these so-called accidents, Vimochana
came up with some startling findings that changed the whole perception
of this social problem, the assumptions that underlay it, its causes
and the course that remedial action must take. Vimochana alleged that
a large number of murders and suicides, punishable under law, were
being made to look like "accidents" by the husband and members of his
family. These cases were closed by the investigating police officers
for want of hard evidence of a crime. When a professional eye looked
at the whole category of unnatural deaths (and not just "dowry
deaths"), the number of women dying in suspicious circumstances rose
sharply. Vimochana's contention is that a large number of the cases
simply escape detection and punishment in the prevailing social
conditions.

K. BHAGYA PRAKASH
A burns victim in a Bangalore hospital. There is evidence to suggest
that a large number of murders and suicides of young married women are
made to look like stove-burst "accidents".

Frontline attempted an independent assessment of some of the findings
of the Vimochana study, as well as of the House Committee Report. Data
provided to Frontline by the police department for Karnataka as a
whole show that out of 3,826 deaths recorded as accidents in 1997,
1,715, or around 50 per cent, were connected with fire accidents,
including stove and cooking gas cylinder bursts. V. Gowramma, a
Vimochana activist and the recipient of this year's Neerja Bhanot
award (which was instituted in memory of the 23-year-old Pan Am
airhostess who died showing exemplary courage in helping passengers
escape during a hijack attempt in Karachi in 1986), says: "We found
that of 550 cases reported between January and September 1997, 71 per
cent were closed as 'kitchen/cooking accidents' and 'stove-bursts'
after conducting investigations under Section 174 of the Code of
Criminal Procedures." When the cause of death in a majority of
registered dowry death cases is due to burning, such a high rate of
"stove-burst" accidents involving daughters-in-law can hardly be
regarded as natural or coincidental.

"It is an unfortunate fact that in a strictly legal sense, an
accidental stove-burst is not an offence under the law," Bangalore
City Police Commissioner L. Revannasiddaiah observed to Frontline.
"However, what is the use of an investigation if it does not arrive at
the truth? If there are two or three stove-burst accidents in a day,
in which only daughters-in-law die, we must look behind the formal
facade and take up investigations immediately." Noting that the police
are now trying to do this, he asked: "Have you ever heard of a mother-
in-law or a husband dying in a stove-burst?"

Since September 1997, two Vimochana volunteers have been posted
permanently at the burns ward of the Victoria Hospital, where most of
the serious burns cases in the city are admitted. "About seven cases
are admitted on an average every day, with the numbers going up to ten
following certain traditional festivals, when it is the practice for
women to be sent to their natal homes with additional demands for
dowry," explained Donna Fernandes. "The burnings usually take place
past 1 a.m., well past cooking time, which itself throws the 'stove-
burst' theory into doubt. Women come with burns of 70 per cent and
more, and on their death leave behind babies and small children."

There are several reasons why murders or forced suicides often get
registered as a "stove-burst". "The first reaction of a woman who has
been burnt by her husband or his family is to say it is a stove-
burst," says Rudrappa Hanagavadi, Special Executive Magistrate for
Bangalore, who is reponsible for the conduct of inquests in cases
relating to women who have died under suspicious circumstances. "Her
dying declaration, which is supposed to be taken in private by the
policeman in the presence of a doctor, is invariably a public
procedure, and she is afraid to tell the truth." Members of the
husband's family often threaten to harm her children and her natal
family if she does not say she was injured in a cooking accident.
Often, relatives and friends of the victim are reluctant to raise
doubts about the nature of the death as they fear harassment by the
victim's husband and his family. They also do not want to get involved
in laborious police and legal proceedings. The police, for their part,
do not try to penetrate this community resistance to look for evidence
of what really could have happened.

THERE are pressures on women to conceal the truth about what happened
to them even when they know they are dying. This correspondent visited
the Victoria Hospital burns ward on July 13 . On that day, five women
were admitted. There was Shabrin Begum, 20, who had been married for
one month, and had been admitted with 90 per cent burns; Selvi, 18,
married for two years and admitted with 80 per cent burns; Lalitha,
married for eight years and admitted with 80 per cent burns; Aniyamma,
40, with five children, admitted with 60 per cent burns; and Rehana
Taj, 15, from Kolar district, unmarried, and admitted with 45 to 50
per cent burns.

In her first dying declaration, Shabrin, an articulate PUC student,
said she was injured in a kitchen accident. In her second declaration,
she said her husband and mother-in-law set her on fire; based on this
declaration, the police have filed cases against them under Sections
498(A) and 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) (FIR Crime No. 479/99
filed on July 16, 1999 at the Madivala police station). Selvi gave
three dying declarations: in her first declaration she said she was
injured in an accident; in her second declaration, she said she had
attempted suicide; in her third declaration, she alleged that her
mother-in-law attempted to murder her. A case has been booked under
Section 302 of the IPC (FIR Crime No. 261/99 filed on July 16, 1999 in
the Srirampura police station). Lalitha gave two dying declarations,
the first saying that she was injured in a kitchen accident, the
second that she did it to herself out of "despair". Her relatives did
not wish to file a complaint, and Lalitha herself said nothing about
dowry demands. With tact and persuasiveness, the police could have
elicited the real causes behind Lalitha's despair. But her case (UDR
No. 17/99) was closed as a suicide after her death on July 16, 1999.

K. BHAGYA PRAKASH
At Vimochana's office premises in Bangalore, Donna Fernandes (left)
and V. Gowramma (centre). Vimochana's study has quantified for the
first time the problem of dowry-related atrocities against women in
Bangalore.

Who is dying and why?

* Manjula smiles shyly from out of her marriage photographs. She was
married in May 1998, when she was just 18, to Vruthesh Prasad, a
mechanic in the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation. Her father
gave her a dowry worth almost Rs.2 lakhs. Manjula used to complain to
her mother and sister that she was being harassed by her husband, his
brother and other members of his family for more dowry, but her family
told her she must adjust and that they would try to meet the demand.
On July 7, 1999, more than a year after her marriage, Manjula was
dead. She was found in her brother-in-law's bathroom, a pool of blood
under her head and between her legs, her upper torso and face burnt.
Her husband's family said she had committed suicide (there was a tin
of turpentine and a box of matches lying near her), but her own family
filed a police complaint. A case has been booked against four persons
under Section 498(A) and 304(B) of the IPC (FIR Crime No. 388/99).

* "I never imagined that he would be like this," a shaken B.P.
Krishnaswamy said of his son-in-law, H. Narasimhamurthy, a primary
school teacher at Bapu Palika Mahila Prautha Salai in Yeshwantpur.
Krishnaswamy trades in vegetables. His daughter, B.K. Rojavathi, a
primary school teacher in Seshadripuram Primary School in Yelahanka,
narrowly escaped an attempt on her life by her husband. She was
married in May 1999; her husband was given a dowry of Rs.30,000 in
cash and another lakh of rupees worth of jewellery and household
goods; soon after the marriage, Rojavathi's husband and father-in-law
demanded more dowry from her. On July 16, her husband, under the
pretext of taking her to a temple, took her instead to the isolated
Soldevanahalli forest and tried to strangle her with a chain that she
was wearing. When that was not successful, he returned with a can of
kerosene from his scooter, and poured it over her. A forest guard saw
him just as he tried to light a flame. Narasimhamurthy fled the scene,
the police were informed and Rojavathi was quickly taken to hospital.
Cases have been booked against her husband under Sections 498(A) and
307 of the IPC (FIR Crime No. 446/99 filed on July 16 at the
Nelamangala police station). He is absconding, as is the rest of his
family. Rojavathi, the whites of her eyes suffused with blood owing to
the effects of strangulation, and her body bruised from the blows she
sustained, is slowly recovering from her injuries and shock.

* H.T. Indira, a young wife and mother, died in November 1998; her
husband's family tried to pass it off as suicide by hanging. A charge-
sheet (CC No. 2033/99) was filed within a month of her death under
Sections 498(A) and 304(B) of the IPC; it names four accused - her
husband P.Thyagaraj, brothers-in-law P. Sivakumar and P.
Krishnamurthy, and mother-in-law Padmamma. Says Indira's sister
Chandramma, who has undertaken to fight the case: "My sister suffered
unspeakable torture for more dowry. A week before her death, they
threw her out of the house with the child and she slept on the steps
that night. She told a neighbour that she was leaving as she could
bear it no longer." According to Chandramma, Indra's brother was to
have brought her home but she died before that. "This is not a
suicide, I know," asserts Chandramma. "My sister was forced to commit
suicide."

These three recent incidents share a certain pattern of social
behaviour and individual response. The giving of dowry, an act illegal
in itself, is not perceived by the victim's families as socially
condemnable, or as having made the woman's position vulnerable right
from the day of the marriage. The husband and his family view her
primarily as a money-source and increase their pressure until it
results in her death or suicide. What is also significant is the
absence of support structures for the woman - a counselling centre, a
shelter home, concerned neighbourhoods - which could prevent the worst
from happening. She cannot even turn to her own family when in the
throes of distress.

SOME broad generalisations have been made from the database now
available on unnatural deaths of women. Its victims are generally
young (Vimochana's study, in fact, looks only at the death of married
women between the ages of 18 and 40), and in a large number of cases
the death occurs within the first two years of marriage. A large
number of victims (and perpetrators of the violence) are from poor or
lower middle-class backgrounds, although this is not an issue that
affects poor women alone. In most cases, the woman would have
undergone mental and physical harassment prior to her death. Lastly, a
majority of dowry murders and suicides are by burning. Police figures
made available to Frontline on suicide deaths alone show that more
than 50 per cent of suicides are committed by the woman setting
herself on fire. In one of the several studies that Vimochana
undertook, it found, for example, that out of 711 women who died in
1998 under unnatural circumstances, 454 died of burns. Significantly,
441 were between the ages of 18 and 30.

"In 90 per cent of the cases I deal with, the women are from poor
backgrounds," Hanagavadi told Frontline. "Migrants, like construction
workers and those who live in slums, account for a large number of
those involved in such cases."

The House Committee recommendations

Vimochana and the House Committee concur on one point. The special
laws that are in place to deal with atrocities against women are
undermined at every stage of investigation at both the police and
judicial levels. The House Committee made exhaustive recommendations
covering every stage of the police investigation and judicial
procedure - the registration of the complaint when a death or injury
under suspicious circumstances takes place, the preparing of the First
Information Report (FIR), the recording of a victim's dying
declaration, the inquest proceedings, the post-mortem and forensic
investigations, the framing of the charge-sheet, and the judicial
process after that. The Committee presented five draft bills to the
House dealing with atrocities against women. One of these, the
Karnataka Prevention of Domestic Violence and Atrocities Against Women
Bill, 1999, deals specifically with the issue of marital violence and
dowry-related deaths.

The investigative process

While the reasons for the large number of violent crimes against women
must be sought in a fast-changing social and economic milieu which
reinforces rather than retards patriarchal notions and values,
accountability for the failure to prevent such crimes must be shared
by the institutions of civil society: the legislature, the police, the
judiciary, and, to some extent, the media as well. The death of a
woman in unnatural circumstances has to go through two procedural
tiers. The first is investigation by the police and the inquest
officer (a government official at the level of a district magistrate)
with assistance from doctors who perform the post-mortem as well as
forensic experts. Upon the thoroughness of this investigation depends
the fate of the case once it gets admitted into the courts. This is
the second procedural tier. If the charge-sheet in a particular case
has sound investigative backing, it will have a much better chance of
standing up in a court of law.

Deaths, whether murders or suicides, that are related to the
relentless demand for dowry constitute a special category of crime.
Given the cultural context, tremendous social pressures operate upon
the victim and her family, pressures that seek to obscure truth and
scuttle the investigation. In Bangalore, there is a groundswell of
resentment among the families of victims and activist groups against
the police department for what is perceived as a lack of thoroughness
and integrity in pursuing cases of unnatural deaths among women. The
House Committee was severe in its criticism of police investigations
and set out elaborate recommendations on how the investigative
mechanism could be sensitised, streamlined and improved.

''There is only one institution in this society that is charged by law
to intervene in a situation like this, and that is the police," says
Revannasiddaiah. "But you must understand this institution too is a
product of this society. We have not been structured, resourced,
motivated and kept in readiness to meet this requirement, and we too
proceed on the old track." But he adds that the old mind-set of the
police force is changing and that he is making a conscious effort to
sensitise the force in its perceptions and investigative approach
towards domestic violence against women.

The Vanitha Sahaya Vani was set up seven months ago by the police
department for women in distress to call in for help and counselling.
While this was initially welcomed by women's activists, it has come in
for some criticism as the success of this facility, they say, is now
being measured in terms of the numbers of "reconciled" cases, and not
by the additional number of offences detected. For a woman desperate
enough to call the help-line, advice to "adjust" to the unequal terms
of her marriage closes one more door or escape route.

Under Revannasiddaiah's initiative, the police department worked with
Vimochana and a group of concerned IAS officers to bring out a manual
of guidelines for investigating offences against women. He has also
constituted a new forum, Parihar, under the police department, which
he hopes will meet the needs of women in crisis - in homes or at
workplaces.

Registration of a complaint

The House Committee Report has drawn attention to the need for the
police to register a complaint immediately after receiving information
about grievous injuries sustained by a woman under suspicious
circumstances. "After they receive a complaint the police should go to
the house and seal it off, which they do not always do," notes
Hanagavadi. They tend to wait until the death of the woman, by which
time valuable evidentiary material slips out of their hands. The FIR
must, on the basis of initial investigations, book a case under the
relevant sections of the law. "Who decides whether a death in
suspicious circumstances is a murder or a suicide or caused by a
cooking accident or a stove-burst?" asks Donna Fernandes. "If done by
an incompetent investigating officer, a chance of a cursory
investigation is very high. We believe from our investigations that
the temptation to classify and reduce unnatural deaths as accidents
and suicidal burns is high as it reduces workload and suits the
purposes of reporting." Members of families of victims who testified
before the House Committee had grievances relating to the FIRs and the
carelessness with which they were made. It is mandatory for a Deputy
Superintendent of Police (DSP), and in cities an Assistant
Commissioner of Police, to investigate all cases of attempted suicide
and death, under suspicious circumstances, of young married women
within the first five years of marriage. However, according to
Vimochana activists, the police do not always follow this injunction.

The dying declaration

The recording of the statement of the victim, which often becomes her
dying declaration, is a part of the investigative procedure, but it
often turns into a procedure for absolving the real perpetrator of the
crime. It is quite common to find a burns victim giving more than one
dying declaration. Meant to be recorded in privacy, the dying
declaration is often taken in the presence of the victim's husband and
his relatives. As mentioned earlier in the story, when this
correspondent visited the burns ward of Victoria Hospital, there were
three women who gave more than one dying declaration each. One of
them, Selvi, gave three in the course of one afternoon. "Such a case
is unlikely to stand in court. The defendant lawyer will present it as
conflicting evidence," a Special Public Prosecutor in Bangalore told
Frontline.

The inquest

A crucial part of the investigative process, the inquest, is to be
conducted by an officer of the level of a magistrate. He must visit
the spot of the death, examine the body, collect physical and verbal
evidence, and give a report that indicates the cause of death. Both
Vimochana and the House Committee have recommended that the inquest be
made an independent inquiry accountable to a higher review committee.
The House Committee has also recommended that the magistrate hold a
public hearing within a week of the woman's death, at which all
evidence, including the post-mortem and forensic reports, should be
presented. The final report should be a public document.

"Because of the alarming increase in the incidence of dowry-related
deaths, Assistant Commissioners were appointed to assist Tahsildars in
conducting inquests," explains Special Executive Magistrate Hanagavadi
as we drive to Kengeri where he is to conduct an inquest in the case
of a death by hanging that had been reported. "It is a horrible job,
seeing the deaths of young women every day." As an Assistant
Commissioner, Hanagavadi has three other charges and is on the move
the whole day. The post of Special Executive Magistrate (SEM) was
created in March 1998 to look exclusively into unnatural deaths of
women. A person is appointed to it for a year and this is extendable
by another year. Bangalore has two SEMs.

A large crowd had gathered outside the one-room dwelling where
Bhagyamma, a young wife and mother, had hanged herself from the
ceiling; her four-month-old baby lay in a crib nearby. On examination
of her body, it was found that she had written her suicide note on her
two legs, obviously hoping that it would escape detection until the
police arrived. In it she squarely blamed her husband, a groundsman at
the stadium of the Sports Authority of India, for her death. She could
no longer bear his torture, the suicide note said. She asked that her
child be taken care of by her mother after her death. Bhagyamma's
inquest report (No.42/99-2000) was sent on July 20, 1999 to the
Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate's Court.

The judicial process

Once a case enters the courts, it often takes months for it to be
heard and tried. In Bangalore, there used to be only one Special Court
to try cases of atrocities against women. By August 1998, there were
1,600 pending cases in the court, "the highest pendency rate for a
sessions court anywhere in the country," a Special Public Prosecutor
told Frontline. Three new courts were set up that month to clear the
backlog of cases. The average time taken for a case to be disposed of
is six to seven years.

There is a high rate of acquittals in cases of dowry murders or
suicides. The same Special Public Prosecutor told Frontline that of
the 730 cases pending in his court at the end of 1998, 58 resulted in
acquittals and only 11 in convictions. At the end of June 1999, out of
381 cases pending, 51 resulted in acquittals and eight in
convictions.

What are the reasons for this? Families of the victims, ignorant of
the law and its procedure, get demoralised with the long wait before a
case can be decided. "In 90 per cent of the cases, witnesses turn
hostile," the Special Public Prosecutor told Frontline. "Money plays a
major role. Since most of the aggrieved families are poor, they are
willing to make out-of-court settlements. It is common to find that
during the trial, they will suddenly change their story and say that
the victim had a health problem or that her death was an accident. In
fact, in eight of my cases, the parents gave their second daughter in
marriage to the same person after the case was filed!" The second
reason, according to him, is the "perfunctory police investigation"
that spoils the case right from the start. The "half-hearted
presentation of cases by the prosecutors who are burdened with 10 to
12 cases at any given point of time" is yet another reason he cites
for the high rate of acquittal. However, the "most important reason"
according to him "is the liberal view taken by the judiciary in cases
of dowry deaths."

Vimochana, in collaboration with the National Law School University,
proposes to have a public hearing before a Truth Commission from
August 15 to 17, 1999 in Bangalore. The Commission will comprise
representatives of the Law Commission, former judges, lawyers and
women activists. Complaints from parents who have lost daughters in
suspicious circumstances, in which justice was not perceived to have
been done, will be heard. The findings of the Truth Commission will be
made the subject matter of a public interest petition before the
Supreme Court with a view to bringing relief to the aggrieved
families. Geetha Ayappa, a lawyer who has been working with Vimochana
in the campaign, looks ahead to a new stage of pressing for action:
"We will use the evidence we get to invoke the Supreme Court's
intervention to protect a woman's right to life."

http://www.flonnet.com/fl1617/16170640.htm

Volume 24 - Issue 17 :: Aug. 25-Sep. 07, 2007
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU • Contents

COLUMN

The shadow of child abuse
R.K. RAGHAVAN

It is debatable whether the law alone can tackle the serious problem
of sexual abuse of children.
S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

Children taking part in a rally in Chennai as part of a campaign
against child abuse. A file picture.

I'm a 37-year-old woman, sexually abused as a 6-year-old by a man now
aged 47; he is still out there, somewhere, living, working, breathing
in a street near you. The experience has haunted me all these years.
Six years ago I star ted confiding in certain people around me (though
not my family members) and it became apparent that three women and
three men in my social circle had been sexually abused as children.

THIS is how a reader responded recently to a Sunday Times (London)
article on the menace of child assault, which is often inexactly
described as paedophilia. Paedophilia also covers even non-assaults in
which a mentally sick person derives immense gratification from merely
looking at pornographic images of children. The evil is definitely not
something unknown to mankind. History is replete with instances of
uninhibited child sexual abuse by those who co mmanded wealth and
wielded authority. These persons were guilty of outrageous practices,
which hardly, however, caused social indignation. Public opinion was
not stirred by these practices because the common belief at that time
was that these were a prerogative of royalty and affluent landholders
and that making a noise about them would only exacerbate the problem.

The prohibition of child marriage in India through the Child Marriage
Restraint Act of 1929 was at least partially motivated by the need to
protect children from being treated as mere sexual toys. The Offences
against Children (Prevention) Bill, 2007, which has been in a state of
limbo with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, is another
example of an endeavour to curb the exploitation of children. The
point that is debatable is whether law alone can tackle the problem.

The global incidence of child abuse is still substantial enough to
cause worry. While sexual abuse of children can encompass an entire
continuum from fondling to rape, according to Crime in India 2005 (the
official publication of t he Union Home Ministry), more than 4,000
girl children were raped during the year (a 13 per cent increase over
2004). Also, there were 145 cases of procuring of minor girls and 28
of buying girls for prostitution, both sharp rises over the previous
year. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
(NSPCC) in the United Kingdom reported that about 16 per cent of all
women and 7 per cent of all men interviewed by it said that they had
been sexually abused before they were 12. Further, more than 90 per
cent of all sex and violent offenders were prone to reoffend,
indicating that sexual assault of children was too serious a matter to
be left solely to the police.

The media undoubtedly gloat over celebrity misbehaviour with children.
Whether it is for commercial gain or pure enlightenment, such coverage
has helped to arouse noticeable public interest in a subject that
normally repels civilised human beings. The British press was until a
few days ago full of the trial of Chris Langham, the award-winning
stage comedian who was accused of having had sex with a teenager years
ago and was also in possession of pornographic child images. While he
has been cleared of the former charge, the jury found him guilty of
downloading pictures of child abuse on to his home computer.

Langham's case raises several points. First is the ease with which
many in society are able to hide their perversions for a considerable
period of time. They get caught very late in their lives when they
have already caused plenty of damage to their hapless victims, and any
penalty in the form of incarceration means little to them. We must,
however, feel gratified that destiny does catch up with at least a few
who indulge in child sexual abuse. Such instances should deter those
who wrongly believe that their status in society is a guarantee
against exposure. This is why everything needs to be done to ensure
that victims do not suffer in private and are unafraid of the
consequences of going to town against their aggressors. The role of
the media and social action groups in facilitating this process can
hardly be exaggerated.

Secondly, Langham's exploits confirm the widely held impression that
cyberspace offers alluring opportunities to paedophiles. Those who
protest against policing cyberspace will understand from the Langham
case the hollowness and unreasonableness of their stand. Cyberspace
panders unwittingly to trusted and seemingly respectable people in
society who masquerade as upholders of the rights of children but are
inclined to abuse the latter in the shadow of their private moments.
It is for this reason, if not for anything else, that monitoring of
the Internet by law enforcement agencies has become a sad necessity.

Finally, a major argument that the 58-year-old actor put forward in
court was that his was not a crime but an aberration, the consequence
of his own victimisation when he was a child of eight. When Langham
downloaded questionable images, not only was he researching for one of
his plays – a claim considered facetious by one of his fellow-actors –
but he was also apparently trying to dissect his own childhood
experience.

Whether Langham's defence is truthful or not, it brings us to the
question, how relevant is one's childhood experience to one's conduct
later on in life? While Langham's deposition to the magistrate in his
defence is more the rule rather than an exception, it is the belief
that the insidious impact of child sexual abuse often does not allow
many child victims to lead optimal lives as adults.

An effective therapy

Eileen Vizard's research (reported in detail in Newstatesman; August
9) is an eye-opener of sorts. Vizard is a consultant with the NSPCC,
which recently co-authored a major study on "Links between Juvenile
Sexually Abusi ve Behaviour and Emerging Severe Personality Disorder
Traits in Childhood". This three-year study covered 280 identified
juvenile sexual abusers, 10 per cent of whom were women. Most of their
victims were relatives, friends and acquaintances, which is the usual
relationship proximity for adult child sex abusers as well. While
child-on-child sex abuse is hardly ever considered or even taken
seriously, the stark fact remains that one-third of convicted child
sex offenders reported their sexual interest in children even as young
teenagers, besides also starting their patterns of sexually abusive
behaviour from that age. Vizard's research, like many others before,
counters the belief that exposure to child pornography is not all that
harmful. The stimulus provided by online images of sexual activity
involving children affirms for most people a hitherto reprehensible
fantasy. Often, the ensuing rationalisation also leads to a repetition
of similar behaviour towards other children.

Andrew Durham, who works for the Warwickshire Council in the U.K.,
affirms this explicitly: "When young people see adults abusing
children on the Net, it normalises what is being done." What is of
some consolation is Vizard's view, which is also widely subscribed to
and is the focus of much research, that cognitive behavioural therapy
is effective in "dealing with feelings and impulses in a non-damaging
way".

The significance of Vizard's study is its emphasis on the treatment of
child abusers. But then, how do we supervise and manage juvenile sex
offenders in the community once they are sent back to us after serving
their sentences? I tend to agree with Minette Marrin's ("We need more
than jail for child abuse", The Sunday Times, June 3) view on the
administration of antiandrogen drugs and antidepressants, even if such
a course is only partially effective.

What is more essential is keeping track of such offenders once they
are out in society so as to prevent them from reoffending. This
requires a good information system and an informant channel. Sex
offender registries, like those that exist in the U.K., have their own
share of failings, even in that far less populous country with a
better overall understanding of sexual violence against children.
Coupled with some counselling, such registration can take reasonable
care of the tendency of some convicts to lapse into delinquency. While
the recent establishment of the Technology Coalition and the Financial
Coalition Against Child Pornography is a welcome initiative, it would
be a cause for a lot more cheer if there were a substantial
involvement from the information technology (IT) and financial
industry in India as well.

In this context, Tulir – Centre for the Prevention and Healing of
Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA), Chennai, an organisation that addresses
itself solely to the problem of sexual abuse of children, is indignant
that a proposed Bill to amend the Information Technology Act, 2000,
has dropped an expert committee suggestion that a comprehensive
definition of "child pornography" should find a place in the Act. This
is in spite of India having ratified the Optional Protocol to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child
prostitution and child pornography. It is ironic that the lawmakers of
a country that is synonymous with IT are myopic to the transnational
nature of the crime of possession and distribution of images of child
abuse, a fact that has a huge impact on the rapidly widening contours
of sexual crime against children everywhere.

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2417/stories/20070907506208400.htm

Volume 26 - Issue 24 :: Nov. 21-Dec. 04, 2009
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU

COVER STORY
Victims always

VENKITESH RAMAKRISHNAN AND
AJOY ASHIRWAD MAHAPRASHASTA

The S.C. and S.T. (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has failed to make
Dalits any safer.

RANJEET KUMAR

An innocent survivor amidst scattered bodies, a scene after the
Ranveer Sena's carnage of Dalits at Shankarbigha in Jehanabad district
of Bihar on the eve of Republic Day in 1999. Dalit rights activists
say the Ranveer Sena, a private militia of Bhumihar landlords which
terrorised Dalits in the 1990s, is regrouping.

THE ascent of the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) to power in
Uttar Pradesh on May 13, 2007, was seen as a defining moment in the
politics of Dalit empowerment in the country. The Scheduled Caste
(S.C.) leader of an avowedly "Dalit assertive" party had been Chief
Minister earlier too, but the difference this time was that her party
came to power on its own, without needing the support of other parties
and independent members.

Thousands of Dalits who gathered in the State capital, Lucknow, on
that day expressed the hope that atrocities against the S.Cs would
decline drastically under the new "single-party" regime. Many social
activists and observers who spoke to Frontline then also hoped that a
single-party government under a Dalit Chief Minister in the country's
most populous State would have a salutary effect on Dalits' condition
elsewhere in the country too.

Approximately a year later, papers and documents presented at a two-
day international seminar on Uttar Pradesh, organised by the Observer
Research Foundation (ORF), a Delhi-based think tank, provided an
indication of the situation on the ground. The papers documented that
"within a month of the [Mayawati] government's assumption of office,
seven Dalits were killed in Muzaffarnagar, while three Dalit women
were raped in the same district". The papers also revealed that
reports from areas such as Rae Bareli, Mohanlalganj, Lakhimpur Kheri
and Mahoba were of a similar nature and that atrocities against Dalits
continued in spite of the political gains made by the BSP.

The presentations at the seminar pointed out that the political
leadership found it difficult to implement what was perhaps its most
important Dalit empowerment programme – the allotment of patta land to
Dalits – on account of strong anti-Dalit sentiments within the
administration.

A field study presented at the seminar revealed that in scores of
villages in western Uttar Pradesh, in districts such as Baghpat,
Muzaffarnagar and Meerut, Dalits were unable to occupy patta land
allotted to them because of intimidation and in some cases even
physical prevention by upper-caste groups. Not surprisingly, sections
of the police and the administration were hand in glove with the upper-
caste elements. Such was their allegiance to the caste interests that
even repeated orders from the Chief Minister's Office to the District
Magistrates failed to have any effect in a number of cases.

The National Crime Record Bureau's (NCRB) statistics for 2007 for
crimes against members of the S.Cs and the Scheduled Tribes (S.Ts)
corroborated the presentations made at the seminar. The figures showed
that Uttar Pradesh topped the list on atrocities against the S.Cs and
the S.Ts, with 2,113 cases out of a total of 9,819. The data also
indicated a 10.2 per cent increase in crimes against the S.Cs and the
S.Ts at the national level. Uttar Pradesh accounted for 20.5 per cent
of all cases in India. The BSP's argument was that under the
"friendly" Mayawati regime more S.C. members made bold to register
cases against their oppressors.

There was merit in this argument, but the fact remained that Dalits
were at the receiving end in large parts of Uttar Pradesh, where the
politics of empowerment of the S.Cs and the S.Ts, the protection of
their interests, their physical safety and the assertion of their
constitutional rights had acquired, in comparative terms, the highest
political and electoral acceptability.

Social and political observers hark back to an observation made by
B.R. Ambedkar to explain this context. Ambedkar had said: "History
shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is
always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have
willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to
compel them."

Long-standing apartheid

Twenty years after the passage of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, the vociferous advocacy
of the same by almost all political parties and even the rise of the
politics of S.C.-S.T. empowerment across the country, it seems that
the quantum of "sufficient force" visualised by Ambedkar would have
been colossal. As the case of Uttar Pradesh indicates, the effective
implementation of the Act would take a lot more than electoral
victories and increasing political space.

The gaps in the implementation of the Act stand in stark contrast to
the convictions that underlay its enactment. In simple terms, the
legislation aims to prevent the various forms of offences by persons
other than members of the S.C. and the S.T. against members of these
communities. But studies have shown that it has systematically been
prevented from achieving its goal. A number of factors have
contributed to this, but the most important is the caste and class
prejudices in society. These prejudices have got institutionalised,
through religious and social practices, into a unique system of long-
standing apartheid. That they have a class character is also evident;
the Dalit and Adivasi communities that are discriminated against
constitute almost 80 per cent of India's poor.

The S.C./S.T. Act is seen to be empowering as it is the first
legislation to use and define the term "atrocities" committed against
the S.Cs and the S.Ts. Introducing the Bill, the then Union Law
Minister, B. Shankaranand, said the normal provisions of the existing
laws, such as the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Civil
Rights Act (PCRA), 1955, had been found inadequate to check the
atrocities, gross indignities and offences against the S.Cs and the
S.Ts. Therefore, the Act prescribes harsher punishments than the
punitive measures detailed in the IPC and the PCRA, which used only
the term "offences" vis-À-vis caste-related crimes.

The Act also introduced an executive system specifically to govern
justice for the S.Cs and the S.Ts in cases of 22 broad types of
atrocities relating to socio-economic discriminatory practices, which
are listed in it. This system should comprise special courts, a
special public prosecutor, nodal officers in each State, an S.C. and
S.T. protection cell, and State-level and district-level monitoring
and vigilance committees to identify atrocity-prone areas, and a
special officer appointed by the district head to look after each case
of atrocity. In actuality, in most States the full system has either
not been constituted or has been functioning ineffectively.

Gaps in implementation
ANU PUSHKARNA

Activists of the Dalit Sena staging a demonstration in New Delhi on
July 21 demanding action from the Bihar government to check atrocities
on Dalits.

The gaps in its implementation could be studied at two levels – the
executive and the judiciary. The National Human Rights Commission
(NHRC) noted in its 2002 report: "Under-reporting is a very common
phenomenon and the police resort to various machinations to discourage
S.C./S.T. [persons] from registering their cases, to dilute the
seriousness of the violence, to shield the accused persons from
arrests and prosecution."

A study done by National Dalit Movement for Justice (NDMJ), part of
the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), showed that
between 1992 and 2007 only 33 per cent of the atrocity cases were
registered under the S.C./S.T. Act. The majority of the cases were
registered under IPC sections and 1 per cent under the PCRA. It also
showed that the conviction rate of cases under the S.C./S.T. Act was
just 3.3 per cent for the country as a whole.

The figures at the level of the judiciary are equally pathetic.
Between 1992 and 2007, as many as 80 per cent of the cases heard by
the special courts (created under Section 14 of the Act) were not
registered under the Act. In 95.1 per cent of the cases charge sheets
had not been filed. The monitoring advisories set up in States on an
ad hoc basis by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment (MSJE)
and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) noted that in many cases the
police wilfully neglected the S.C./S.T. Act and did not register first
information reports (FIRs). Among the recommendations made were the
setting up of special police stations and the launching of awareness
campaigns about the Act.

The Ahmedabad-based Council for Social Justice (CSJ) has collected
documents of 400 cases pertaining to 2004 filed under the S.C./S.T.
Act in Gujarat. There are some startling revelations in them. Despite
Section 18 of the Act restricting anticipatory bail in atrocity cases,
anticipatory bail had been granted in 320 of the 400 cases.

Valjibhai Patel, secretary CSJ, told Frontline: "Rule 4(1) of the Act
says that there should be two panels of advocates in atrocity cases –
a state-appointed public prosecutor and a panel created by the
district head. In most of the cases, we see no such panels. The Act
states that an officer below the rank of DSP [Deputy Superintendent of
Police] cannot investigate the case. Many of the accused have been
acquitted by courts just because the case was investigated by officers
below the rank of DSP. I have seen in Gujarat rape cases of Dalits
being sent to Lok Adalats meant for only compoundable offences."

Plight of women

Dalit women face the worst atrocities as both women and Dalits. A
seminal study conducted by the NCDHR ("Dalit Women Speak Out", 2006)
enumerating the experiences of 500 Dalit women from Andhra Pradesh,
Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh presents a shocking picture of the
conditions they live in. The study records the violence – physical,
sexual and mental – inflicted on Dalit women. The study reinforces
calls for comprehensive preventive measures to be put in place to
eradicate caste discrimination and violence against Dalit women, in
conjunction with measures to help Dalit women achieve their rights.

Valjibhai Patel says that though the Act mentions punitive measures
against negligence, to date not a single official in India has been
punished despite serious violations of the Act all over the country.
He says the judiciary should also be made accountable, not just the
police and the district administration. "There are many cases of
atrocities where the accused has been punished under the IPC but has
been acquitted under the S.C./S.T. Act. In Gujarat, one of the
professors who raped his Dalit student got life imprisonment but was
acquitted under the S.C./S.T. Act. The Khairlanji case is a big
example where the people now serving the death penalty were acquitted
under the S.C./S.T. Act. How is this possible? This means there is
some problem in investigation and pursuance of the Act," he says. The
CSJ has filed a petition in the Supreme Court regarding the violation
of the Act, the first hearing of which will be on December 3.

Budget and policy

The MJSE is responsible for the implementation of the S.C./S.T. Act.
To implement the Act effectively, the MSJE has to provide for special
courts for the trial of offences and for the relief and rehabilitation
of victims of such offences. The Ministry provides financial resources
for the implementation of the Act through the Special Central
Assistance (SCA) from the Union government, which is 50 per cent of
the total expenditure of the States and the total expenditure of the
Union Territories.

However, the allocation of funds every year under the SCA has seen a
steady decline. Under the Act taluk- and mandal-level officers are
responsible for disbursing compensation and this work has to be
monitored by the District Magistrate/Collector and the district
monitoring and vigilance committee. Separate funds have to be given to
police stations/courts towards travelling allowance/dearness allowance
(T.A./D.A.) of victims and witnesses on FIR investigation and it has
to be monitored by the Superintendent of Police (S.P.) and the
District Judge (D.J.). There is also clear direction in the Act that
arrangements should be made for maintenance expenses and reimbursement
of medical costs of victims of atrocity.

In 2008, the Dalit Arthik Adhikar Andolan, also a part of the NCDHR,
looked into the actual budget for the S.C./S.T. Act in each State and
estimated the amount every State actually needed for its proper
implementation. Its calculations have been done on the basis of the
number of compensation cases in each State, the average cost of
running the present number of special courts and special police
stations, and relief and rehabilitation measures for victims specified
in the Act.

The results in all the States reveal that the actual budget allocated
for the Act is much less than what is required. This is despite the
fact that both the Central government and the State governments share
the amount made available for the programme under the special
component plan. Uttar Pradesh ranks the highest in terms of this
deficit, and its figure stands at a staggering Rs.1,640 crore.
Rajasthan, also a State with one of the highest rates of caste crimes,
is second with Rs.1,157 crore, and Bihar follows with Rs.1,085 crore.

According to the actual budget allocated, as shown in the MJSE annual
report, Uttar Pradesh, since 2007, ranks the highest in the allocation
of funds for the Act, with around Rs.950 crore, followed closely by
Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Among the big States, the lowest
allocation is in Bihar, with just Rs.27 crore. Chhattisgarh's
allocation is Rs.40 crore. In Haryana, which has one of the largest
numbers of caste crimes, the allocation is only Rs.60 crore. In the
South, Tamil Nadu ranks the lowest, granting around Rs.235 crore.

An NCDHR analysis of the qualitative investments of the Central
government shows that in this year's Budget the amount spent on wage
labour, school education, basic health, shelter, nutrition and primary
necessaries involving Dalits is 62.44 per cent of the total special
assistance funds. In sectors where the upper classes dominate, such as
higher education, entrepreneurial development, and land and asset
building, the allocation is 37.56 per cent. State budgets present a
similar trend. Most of the funds still go to the traditional
occupation of Dalits, such as cleaning, agricultural labour, leather
works, and so on, which is in contrast to the theme of the SCP of
systematic empowerment of Dalits in all sectors of production. It
therefore does not surprise when the S.C./S.T. Act, a tool for legal
empowerment of Dalits, lacks funds for its implementation.

The aggressive pursuit of neoliberal economic policies by governments
at the Centre and in many States over the past decade has also
resulted in an increase in atrocities against the S.Cs and the S.Ts.
Ironically, even the Uttar Pradesh government is not free from such
ventures. The government's ambitious 1,047-kilometre-long Ganga
Expressway project, connecting Greater Noida near Delhi and Ballia in
eastern Uttar Pradesh, was expected to acquire 64,000 hectares of
land, 70 per cent of which is agricultural land. A number of observers
and social analysts pointed out that this acquisition would militate
against the basic livelihood of a large section of Dalits who were
into share-cropping with upper-caste, land-owning farmers.

According to NCRB data since 2005, Uttar Pradesh ranks the highest in
the number of cases of caste atrocities, followed closely by Madhya
Pradesh, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Gujarat. "Acts like
these empower and help organise Dalits. With greater awareness about
the Act, we have seen a rise in caste atrocities every year," said
Sirivella Prasad of the NDMJ.

The trend clearly shows that caste atrocities have increased with
greater social and economic mobility of the S.Cs and the S.Ts which
disrupts the exploitative status quo of a feudal society.

Many activists note that atrocity cases happen when Dalits try to
avail themselves of legal resources; assert their right over land,
water, and livelihood; assert their right to choose their occupation;
attempt to participate in the cultural life of the community; assert
their right to vote; and are victimised to satisfy the superstitions
of dominant castes (witchcraft, human sacrifice). With respect to the
S.Ts, activists say most of the atrocities happen when they try to
organise themselves politically against the combined exploitation of
government officials and industrial goons in the hinterland.

However, the Act is not clear about the rules with respect to social
and economic boycott of the S.Cs and the S.Ts and there is an ongoing
advocacy campaign among Dalit groups to seek amendments to certain
provisions of the Act to make it stronger. Said Colin Gonsalves of
Human Rights Law Network: "Unless the institutional caste bias is
systematically done away with at the policy level and proper action is
taken against negligent officials, violations will continue to happen.
The legal system has failed the S.Cs and the S.Ts. The Act is a clear
instance of wonderful legislation but useless implementation. Our
judiciary needs at least 15 per cent reservation for the S.Cs right
from the lower courts to the Supreme Court. The Rajasthan High Court
has not had a single Dalit judge since Independence – absurd for a
State that ranks very high in caste crimes."

To put it simply, caste is a combined social system of occupation,
endogamy, culture, social class and political power, which has
historically been exploitative for Dalits and Adivasis. In this
context, the S.C./S.T. Act and its status echo Ambedkar's words: "This
condition obtains even where there is no slavery in the legal sense.
It is found where, as in caste system, some persons are forced to
carry on the prescribed callings which are not their choice."

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2624/stories/20091204262400400.htm

...and I am Sid Harth

== 2 of 2 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 11:53 pm
From: bademiyansubhanallah


Debt bondage
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Bonded labor)

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve the article or
discuss these issues on the talk page.

Its neutrality is disputed. Tagged since August 2009.
It may contain original research or unverifiable claims. Tagged since
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Debt bondage (or bonded labor) is an arrangement whereby a person is
forced to pay off a loan with direct labor in place of currency, over
an agreed or obscure period of time. When a debtor is tricked or
trapped into working for very little or no pay, or when the value of
their work is significantly greater than the original sum of money
borrowed, some consider the arrangement to be a form of unfree labour
or debt slavery. It is similar to peonage, indenture or the truck
system.

Legal Definition

Debt bondage is classically defined as a situation when a person
provides a loan to another and uses his or her labor or services to
repay the debt; when the value of the work, as reasonably assessed, is
not applied towards the liquidation of the debt, the situation becomes
one of debt bondage. See United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention
on the Abolition of Slavery.

[edit] Historical background to bonded labor
Prior to the early modern age, feudal and serfdom systems were the
predominant political and economic systems in Europe. These systems
were based on the holding of all land in fief or fee, and the
resulting relation of lord to vassal, and was characterized by homage,
legal and military service of tenants, and forfeiture.[citation
needed]

A modernization of the feudal system was "peonage", where debtors were
bound in servitude to their creditors until their debts were paid.
Although peons are only obliged to a creditor monetarily.[citation
needed]

Historical peonage

Peonage is a system where laborers are bound in servitude until their
debts are paid in full. Those bound by such a system are known, in the
US, as peons.[citation needed] Employers may extend credit to laborers
to buy from employer-owned stores at inflated prices.[original
research?] This method is a variation of the truck system (or company
store system), in which workers are exploited by agreeing to work for
an insufficient[original research?] amount of goods and/or services.
In these circumstances, peonage is a form of unfree labor. Such
systems have existed in many places at many times throughout history.

Historical examples

The American South - Such a system was often used in the southern
United States after the American Civil War where African-American and
poor white farmers, known as sharecroppers, were often extended credit
to purchase seed and supplies from the owner of the land they farmed
and pay the owner in a share of the crop.
In Peru a peonage system existed from the 1500s until land reform in
the 1950s. One estate in Peru that existed from the late 1500s until
it ended had up to 1,700 peons employed and had a jail. Peons were
expected to work a minimum of three days a week for their landlord and
more if necessary to complete assigned work. Workers were paid a
symbolic 2 cents per year. Workers were unable to travel outside of
their assigned lands without permission and were not allowed to
organize any independent community activity.
Thousands of such laborers were sold into slavery during the West
African slave trade and ended their lives working as slaves on the
plantations in the New World. For this reason, section 2 of the Slave
Trade Act 1843 enacted by the British Parliament declared "persons
holden in servitude as pledges for debt" to "be slaves or persons
intended to be dealt with as slaves" for the purpose of the Slave
Trade Act 1824 and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

It continued to be very common in Africa and China, but was suppressed
by the authorities after the establishment of the People's Republic of
China.[citation needed]. It persists in rural areas of India, Pakistan
and Nepal.[citation needed]

In Niger, where the practice of slavery was outlawed in 2003, a study
found that almost 8% of the population are still slaves.[1] Descent-
based slavery, where generations of the same family are born into
bondage, is traditionally practised by at least four of Niger's eight
ethnic groups. The slave masters are mostly from the nomadic tribes —
the Tuareg, Fulani, Toubou and Arabs.[2]

According to some claims, 40 million people in India, most of them
Dalits, are bonded workers, many working to pay off debts that were
incurred generations ago. Rise of Dalit politicians in India, and
their overwhelming support by non-Dalits, as well as Government
commitment to overall improve education, communication and living
standards in India has resulted in rapid decline of bonded labor in
India. Penalties for those indulging in employing bonded labor are
severe and Human Rights Groups are very active in curbing these
practices. Television media and increased penetration of cheap
satellite television has spread awareness to the most remote areas and
made people aware of the rights, hence the evidence of forced labor in
India is rapidly declining.

These claimed figures are comparable to ones in Bolivia, Brazil, Peru
and Philippines.

There are no universally accepted figures for the number of bonded
child labourers in India. Again, Government's commitment to universal
education and poverty eradication programmes have resulted in
significant decrease in number of bonded labors. In the traditional
industries of high quality hand-woven fabrics and handicrafts,
increased awareness by international buyers and stringent checks put
in place by multinational corporations on their suppliers has resulted
in suppliers and manufacturers to replace bonded child labor by
instead offering educational facilities to children of their employees
and workers. International Tourists to places like Rajasthan also play
their part and have at many times reported instances of child labor to
authorities who swiftly act to curb any child labor. In contrast, of
20 million bonded labourers in Pakistan 7.5 million are children.

Modern views

See also: Human trafficking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Slavery_International

According to Anti-Slavery International, "A person enters debt bondage
when their labor is demanded as a means of repayment of a loan, or of
money given in advance. Usually, people are tricked or trapped into
working for no pay or very little pay (in return for such a loan), in
conditions which violate their human rights. Invariably, the value of
the work done by a bonded laborer is greater that the original sum of
money borrowed or advanced."[citation needed]

Some see the term as also applying to inhabitants of countries who
must work to repay extensive national debt, but which incurrance of
debt they did not agree to, and (arguably) have not benefited from.[3]

According to the Anti-Slavery Society:

Pawnage or pawn slavery is a form of servitude akin to bonded labor
under which the debtor provides another human being as security or
collateral for the debt. Until the debt (including interest on it) is
paid off, the creditor has the use of the labor of the pawn.[4]

At international law

Debt bondage has been defined by the United Nations as a form of
"modern day slavery" [5] and is prohibited by international law. It is
specifically dealt with by article 1(a) of the United Nations 1956
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. It persists
nonetheless especially in developing nations, which have few
mechanisms for credit security or bankruptcy, and where fewer people
hold formal title to land or possessions. According to some
economists, for example Hernando de Soto, this is a major barrier to
development in those countries - entrepreneurs do not dare take risks
and cannot get credit because they hold no collateral and may burden
families for generations to come.[citation needed]

Where children are forced to work because of debt bondage of the
family, this is considered not only child labor, but one of the worst
forms of child labor in terms of the Worst Forms of Child Labour
Convention, 1999 of the International Labour Organization.[citation
needed]

Despite the UN prohibition, Anti-Slavery International estimates that
"between 10 and 20 million people are being subjected to debt bondage
today."[citation needed] Other estimates place the number as high as
40 million. Researcher Siddharth Kara has calculated the number of
slaves in the world by type, and determined the number of debt bondage
slaves to be 18.1 million at the end of 2006. [6] He has updated this
number for the end of 2009 to be 18.4 million, the increase primarily
as a result of the 2007 global commodity bubble, followed by the
global economic crisis of 2008 and 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_(economist)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneurs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_labor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worst_Forms_of_Child_Labour_Convention,_1999

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Labour_Organization

Modern examples

Prostitution - News media in western Europe regularly carry reports
about one particular kind of debt bondage: women from Eastern Europe
who are forced to work in prostitution as a way to pay off the "debt"
they acquired when they were illegally smuggled to destinations in
Western Europe. This form of debt bondage also takes place in other
parts of the world, such as women moving from Southeast Asia or Latin
America.[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America

Marxist analysis

According to Marxist economists, debt bondage is characteristic of
feudal economies, where families are considered the responsible unit
for financial relationships, and where heirs continue to owe parents'
debts upon their deaths. Fully capitalist economies are characterized
by the individual taking all responsibility, and such mechanisms as
bankruptcy and inheritance taxes reducing creditors' rights (while
increasing the power of the state). Heirs are freed from the creditor,
but at the cost of a drastically increased power accruing to the state
itself.

Debt bondage is often a form of disguised slavery in which the subject
is not legally owned, but is instead bound by a contract to perform
labor to work off a debt, under terms that make it impossible to
completely retire the debt and thereby escape from the contract.
[citation needed]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist_economists

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_taxes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt

See also

Bonded Labour Liberation Front, India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonded_Labour_Liberation_Front
Bondage in Pakistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondage_in_Pakistan
Debtor's prison
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtor%27s_prison
Karl Marx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
Peon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peon
The State of Bonded Labor in Pakistan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_State_of_Bonded_Labor_in_Pakistan
Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worst_Forms_of_Child_Labour_Conventionhttp:
References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or
external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline
citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise
citations where appropriate. (September 2009)

^ [1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4250709.stm
^ [2] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/10013271.html?page=3
^ Debt Bondage Or Self-Reliance, GATT-Fly
^ [3] http://anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/pawnage.htm
^ The Bondage of Debt: A Photo Essay, by Shilpi Gupta
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/asiaproject/Gupta.html
^ Kara, Siddharth (January 2009). Sex Trafficking - Inside the
Business of Modern Slavery. Columbia University Press. ISBN
978-0231139601.

External links

Photo-story on modern-day slavery (debt-bondage) in Brazil by
photographer Eduardo Martino
http://www.eduardomartino.com/pages/slavery_brazil.html
Human Rights Watch report on Thai women tricked into debt bondage in
Japan
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2000/japan/6-sec-6-7-8.htm
1996 Human Rights Watch report on bonded child labor in India
http://www.ilo.org/sapfl/lang--en/index.htm

http://anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/bclab.htm

http://clpmag.org/article.php?article=Twenty-First-Century-Slavery_146

http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/India3.htm

Anti-Slavery International
Common Language Project article on bonded labor in Pakistan

Bonded child labor
The ILO Special Action Programme to combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonded_labor

THE SMALL HANDS OF SLAVERY
Bonded Child Labor In India
Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Project
Human Rights Watch/Asia
Human Rights Watch

Copyright © September 1996 by Human Rights Watch.
All rights reserved.
rinted in the United States of America.
ISBN 1-56432-172-X
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 96-77536

This is the half report. (The last part)
The first part would follow in the next post...

Another writer, a human rights lawyer with extensive experience
working with bonded laborers, put it more bluntly. "A bonded labourer
who becomes free without the means to survive," he wrote, "becomes
free to die."30

As of 1996, a bonded laborer identified and released by the state is
entitled to a rehabilitation allowance of 6,250 rupees. The 1994-1995
annual report of the Indian government's Ministry of Labour reported
that in August 1994, state and central government labor officials
agreed to raise the rehabilitation allowance to 10,000 rupees.31
Nonetheless, as of July 1996, this raise had not been effectuated.

The failure of state governments to comply with their legal
obligations under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act-
particularly the formation and adequate functioning of the district-
level vigilance committees-is one of the primary reasons behind the
low enforcement rate of the law and the continuing high prevalence of
bonded labor. (Indeed, by some accounts, bonded labor is actually
increasing during the 1990s.32) Another contributing factor, mentioned
previously in the context of child labor policy, is the failure of the
government to gather and maintain accurate or even plausible
statistics.

The statistics problem is as acute in the bonded labor context as it
is in the child labor context. According to credible estimates, the
number of bonded laborers in India is approximately sixty-five
million, representing slightly more than 7 percent of the country's
total population.33 Certain individual states alone are estimated to
have bonded labor populations of one to two million people; a report
from Tamil Nadu, based on extensive research conducted at the
direction ofthe Supreme Court, concluded that there were "well over 10
lakhs" (one million) bonded laborers working in that state.34 Other
states known to have high rates of bondage include Andhra Pradesh,
Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar
Pradesh, Haryana, and Bihar.

In contrast to the figures used by social scientists, the Indian
government's figures regarding bonded labor are unconvincingly low.
The central Ministry of Labour relies on the state Ministries of
Labour-which are charged with enforcing the Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act-to report the number of bonded laborers identified,
released, and rehabilitated. Based on information submitted by the
states, the central Ministry of Labour's 1994-1995 Annual Report
stated that the nationwide target for 1994-1995 was the rehabilitation
of 2,784 bonded laborers-a figure representing less than .005 percent
of all estimated bonded laborers. The figure for the total number of
bonded laborers identified, when viewed in contrast to the same
figures provided in 1989, illustrate the lack of implementation of the
Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act. In 1989, the total number of bonded
laborers identified was 242,532.35 By 1995, this number had risen to
251,424.36 These figures indicate that from 1988 to 1995, only 8,892
bonded laborers had been identified throughout the country, at a time
when nongovernmental sources were reporting that there were as many as
sixty-five million bonded laborers in India by 1994.37 Ironically, in
the paragraph following the presentation of statistics in the 1994-95
Annual Report, the report states that "[t]he [state] Governments are
attaching the highest priority to the total eradication of the bonded
labour system in the country."38

The central government's reliance on and acceptance of state
government statistics regarding bonded labor is misplaced and
irresponsible. The majority ofstate governments vastly underreport the
incidence of bonded labor within their borders. For instance, the
government of Tamil Nadu, where an independent commission recently
concluded that there existed more than one million bonded laborers,
stated in a sworn affidavit to the Supreme Court that "in Tamil Nadu,
only stray cases of bonded labour are noticed..."39 Twelve other state
governments made the same assertion to the court, which expressed its
disbelief by ordering independent investigations into the matter.40

In interviews with Human Rights Watch, top labor officials from the
states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, both states with high levels of debt
bondage, asserted that there was no bonded labor in their states. "I
frankly don't think it [bonded labor] exists in Rajasthan," said Ashok
Shekhar, Labour Commissioner for Rajasthan; one of his subordinates
added that, "there is no case of bonded labour in Rajasthan."41 When
asked about the reports of widespread bondage from journalists and
activists, Commissioner Shekhar conceded, as noted, that there might
exist "technical bonded labour," whereby an advance is paid to secure
a worker's labor, but he insisted that this practice was "not really
bondage." He also said that activists who organize against bonded
labor practices in the stone quarries of Rajasthan are not acting on
behalf of the bonded laborers, but rather are hoping to be paid off by
the owners in order to stay quiet. Ashok Bhasin, the Deputy Labour
Commissioner for the neighboring state of Gujarat, concurred
withCommissioner Shekhar's statements. As for his own state, he
asserted that "bonded labour does not exist in Gujarat... neither
among women, men, or children."42

Dr. Manoj Dayal, a professor at the University of Allahabad described
how the government of Bihar "abolished" bonded labor:

As soon as the issue of abolishing bonded labour was raised in Bihar,
the State Government outrightly persisted that there was no system of
bonded labour prevailing in the State; that what exists in the State
is a system of attached labour and that the labourers are assured of
remuneration, cultivable and homestead land, clothing, interest-free
loans and so on. The Bihar Government thus abolished bonded labour by
redefining it and by terming it as "attached labour system."43

Given this willful denial of one of the country's most pressing social
ills, it is not surprising that government officials' efforts on
behalf of bonded laborers have remained meager at best. The failure to
address the issue is doubly egregious in the case of bonded child
laborers, who, without intervention, will be doomed to pass their
entire lives in a state of virtual slavery.

FAILURE OF THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT TO ENFORCE THE LAW

An analysis of data indicating the number of prosecutions launched
under [the Child Labour] Act and convictions obtained would clearly
indicate that this act ... has achieved very little.44

The government's failure to enforce the Child Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act and the government's failure to enforce the Bonded
Labour System (Abolition) Act-not to mention the failure to enforce
the several other laws protecting child workers-are twin
manifestations of the same set ofphenomena. These phenomena include
apathy, caste and class bias, obstruction of enforcement efforts,
corruption, low prioritization of the problem, and disregard for the
deep and widespread suffering of bonded child laborers.

Enforcement Statistics

A glaring sign of neglect of their duties by officials charged with
enforcing child labor laws is the failure to collect, maintain, and
disseminate accurate statistics regarding enforcement efforts. Human
Rights Watch met with a top official of the Ministry of Labour, but he
was unable to provide any statistics regarding enforcement of the
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act or other legislation
protecting the rights of child workers.45 We attempted to meet with S.
S. Sharma, the Director General of Labour Welfare and, as such, the
official entrusted with enforcement of the Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act. Director-General Sharma refused to grant an interview
to Human Rights Watch while we were in New Delhi, suggesting instead
that we fax him a set of questions, which we did. Unfortunately, we
received no response.46 The enforcement statistics that follow have
been gleaned from a variety of sources, including public government
documents, news reports, and interviews with government officials.

Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act

At the national level, from 1990 to 1993, 537 inspections were carried
out under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act. These
inspections turnedup 1,203 violations. Inexplicably, only seven
prosecutions were launched.47 At the state level, the years 1990 to
1993 produced 60,717 inspections in which 5,060 violations of the act
were detected; 772 of these 5,060 violations resulted in convictions.
48

At the state level during the 1993 to 1994 year, the latest period for
which data are available, 1,596 cases were filed against employers.49
The number of convictions is unknown; many of these cases may still be
pending.

When convictions are obtained under the Child Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act, the fines are light. The vast majority of adjudicated
offenders receive fines of five dollars or less-just a few hundred
rupees, as opposed to the 10,000 to 20,000 fine stipulated by the act
itself.50 To the knowledge of Human Rights Watch, not a single case
brought under the act has resulted in imprisonment, to date, although
the act allows for sentences of three months to a year for first-time
offenders and six months to two years for repeat offenders.51

Some information is available from various states of India regarding
enforcement of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act. In
Tamil Nadu, the act was not enforced until 1994-eight years after its
passage-when a casewas filed in North Arcot district.52 In the two
years since then, according to a senior state official, there have
been fifteen or sixteen convictions under the Child Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act, and another fifty cases or so are
pending.53 To date, no one has been imprisoned in Tamil Nadu for
violation of either the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act
or the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act. According to activists in
the state, on the rare occasions when prosecutions of Child Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act offenders are mounted by the state,
some judicial magistrates are quick to dismiss the charges, ostensibly
for lack of evidence, but in fact because of corruption or sympathy
with the defendant employers.54

In the Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh, more than 50,000 children
are estimated to be working in glass factories in violation of the
Factories Act and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act.55
Nonetheless, in 1995 there were only two convictions for child labor
law violations in Firozabad, and the assistant labour commissioner,
Mr. B. K. Singh, told a journalist that "[t]here is no child labour in
the district now."56 According to the Secretary General of the
National Human Rights Commission, the enforcement problem, in
Firozabad and elsewhere, is "just a matter of people not doing their
work."57

Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act

Official statistics reflecting enforcement of the Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act are equally difficult to obtain. Statistics regarding
application of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act to children
are nonexistent. Indeed, at least some government officials
interviewed by Human Rights Watch appeared to be laboring under the
conviction that the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act does not
apply to children, an interpretation that has no basis in the law
itself nor in Supreme Court cases interpreting the law.

As of March 1993, the latest date for which official figures are
available, state governments had reported the identification and
release of a total of 251,424 bonded laborers. This number indicates
all bonded laborers identified and released since the Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act was passed in 1976.58 Of this number, 227,404
were reported to have been rehabilitated.59 If this number includes
any rehabilitated bonded child laborers, that fact has not been
reported.

State governments' statistics grossly under-report the current
incidence of bonded labor. As mentioned, the Supreme Court has been
examining the incidence of bonded labor in thirteen states.60 These
thirteen states, chosen by the court for investigation because of
their reputation for high rates of debt bondage, all claimed in
affidavits to the court that there was little or no bonded labor
within their jurisdictions.61 The court, skeptical of these claims,
appointed teams of investigators to study the issue in each state.62

When districts and states do report on statistics regarding the
identification and rehabilitation of bonded laborers, these numbers
are frequently unreliable. The team investigating bonded labor in
Tamil Nadu, for example, found that"[s]tatutory registers relating to
bonded labour were not maintained in many districts."63 Simple neglect
or lack of resources is not the only or even the primary reason for
lack of accurate statistics. According to the investigative team,
"Details provided by the state government and the district
administration do not tally in most districts and even appear
fabricated."64

This can be seen in states' statistics on bonded labor which are
submitted to the central government. For example, there are at least
three examples from 1988 to 1995 where states have reported that the
number of bonded laborers that have been rehabilitated are greater
than the number of bonded laborers that have been identified. In 1988,
the state of Tamil Nadu reported that 34,640 bonded laborers had been
rehabilitated, but they also reported that 33,581 bonded laborers had
been identified, meaning that the state claimed it had rehabilitated
1,059 more people than it had ever identified as bonded laborers.65 In
the 1989-90 report to the Ministry of Labour, the state of Orissa
reported that 51,751 bonded laborers had been rehabilitated, but only
48,657 had been identified.66 The state of Tamil Nadu reported in the
1994-95 Ministry of Labour Annual Report that 39,054 bonded laborers
had been rehabilitated, but they had identified 38,886.67 In total,
these three examples indicate that 4,321 more people were
rehabilitated than were identified as bonded laborers.

These statistics are disturbing for two reasons. The first is that
these statistics are cumulative totals, meaning that every year, new
cases are added to the cases from previous years, dating back to 1976,
when the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act became law, so that the
yearly statistics represent the total number of bonded laborers that
have ever been identified, released, and rehabilitated. The second
factor that makes the statistics suspect is that before bonded
laborers can be eligible for rehabilitation, they must be identified
as bonded laborers. Because ofthis methodology, the cumulative totals
for rehabilitation can never be more than the cumulative totals for
identification and when this occurs, such as the previous three cases,
it indicates a serious flaw in reporting. This may be due to several
factors: state governments may be arbitrarily determining bonded labor
statistics, or the inaccuracies may be due to simple error, or people
who were not bonded laborers are being rehabilitated as bonded
laborers. In one example of the latter, a survey of 180 bonded
laborers who had been officially rehabilitated by the Bihar government
found that 120 had never been bonded.68

Another indication that the law is not being enforced is the fact much
of the money allocated for the rehabilitation of bonded laborers is
unspent and reabsorbed by the government. Funding for rehabilitation
is allocated through a fifty-fifty matching grant in which the states
undertake rehabilitation and the central government matches their
expenditures.69 It is administered through several schemes under the
Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) and Jawahar Rozgar Yojana
(JRY). Records of expenditures for these programs show that in
1989-90, only 76.16 percent of the funds were utilized. In 1990-91,
78.41 percent of funds were utilized. And in 1991-92, only 47.83
percent of funds available were utilized for rehabilitating bonded
laborers.70 On March 14, 1996, the Parliamentary Committee on Labour
and Welfare reported that only 38.39 percent of the funds available
for the rehabilitation of bonded laborers had been utilized. The
reason given was that "the state governments failed to submit
certificates in regard to the expenditure incurred by them. Because of
this lapse, the Central government did not release funds to them."71
The failure to report expenditures indicates a failure to enforce the
law.

A Supreme Court lawyer closely connected to bonded labor litigation
corroborated the unreliable nature of the district collectors'
reports, saying there is "no mechanism to ascertain [the collectors']
veracity."72 According to thisadvocate and others familiar with the
issue, corruption in application of the Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act and dispersal of act-related rehabilitation funds is
common. "A collector may receive 100,000 rupees for rehabilitation
efforts but disperse only 10,000 of it. Embezzlement is difficult to
track, but we all know it happens. For example, a bonded labourer
comes in, puts his thumb print on the document saying he will receive
6,250 rupees, but receives only 3,000 rupees."73

Corruption and neglect are not the only reasons for bad statistics
regarding bonded labor. Another is passivity on the part of enforcing
officials, who too often take no affirmative steps to discover and
root out debt bondage in their districts. Whether this is due to
simple apathy or to a misunderstanding on their part of their official
duties, the effect is disastrous for bonded laborers, who are left in
their state of enslavement indefinitely. In Tamil Nadu, for example,
the investigators found that "most District Collectors... had one
basis to assume that bonded labour does not exist-No one is coming
forward [to report that they are in bondage]."74

Human Rights Watch was unable to obtain any statistics on prosecution
under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act after 1988.75 Up to
1988, there were 7,000 prosecutions under the Bonded Labour
(Abolition) Act throughout India, of which 700 resulted in convictions.
76 It is certain that prosecution under the act is rare. In Tamil
Nadu, the first prosecutions under the twenty-year-old act occurred in
1995, when eight beedi employers were arrested by the North Arcot
District Collector.77 The case, which drew headlines in the regional
press, was depicted as a bold "get tough" measure. The agents spent
one night in jail andwere fined 500 rupees each.78 The Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act allows for punishment of three years in prison
and a 2,000 rupee fine.

Obstacles to Enforcement

Apathy

The endemic apathy among government officials charged with enforcing
India's labor laws is apparent at all levels: national, state, and
district. While undoubtedly there are many committed men and women
among their ranks-including, for example, the district collector of
North Arcot in Tamil Nadu, whom Human Rights Watch interviewed-such
commitment is not the norm. From India's top labor officials all the
way down to the local level, where tehsildars (community leaders) use
their influence to support the status quo, Human Rights Watch and
other researchers have found a profound lack of concern for the plight
of bonded and child laborers.

There are many concrete examples of government neglect. The Child
Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, signed into law in 1986,
requires each state to formulate rules for its implementation. Until
this is done, the law cannot be applied in those states. As of July
1996, a full ten years after the act's birth, the majority of states
have failed to formulate and implement these necessary rules.79 It is
a sign of the government's disregard of this issue that we are unable
to report the exact number of India's twenty-five states that have
made rules for the act's application. When we asked a very senior
official of the central Ministry of Labour-who spoke only on condition
of anonymity-how many states had made rules under the Child Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act, he said "I don't know." He then
said, "Laws don't matter. Economics do," and went on to assert that,
until rural prosperity increases, nothing can be done about child
labor.

Clearly, states are receiving no pressure from the national government
to implement the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act. Nor,
for the most part, are they themselves taking the initiative to push
for greater enforcement of child labor legislation. It is at the
district level that most enforcement efforts are coordinated and
carried out, and these efforts are managed and overseen by the
district magistrates. The district magistrates, or collectors as they
are also called, are civil servants appointed by the state ministers,
and are the top law enforcement and administrative authorities at the
district level. At a 1995 conference of district magistrates and
collectors in New Delhi, various district heads told a journalist that
child labor was "very low" on their list of priorities, ranking about
twenty-fifth (investment in high-tech industries was first).80

Regarding the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, the government's
egregious neglect of the law is most evident in the nearly universal
failure of districts to form the requisite vigilance committees, much
less ensure that the committees function meaningfully. The vigilance
committees form the core of act enforcement-if implemented as
intended, these committees could contribute dramatically to the
eradication of bonded labor. For overburdened district collectors,
they would provide resources; for corrupt district collectors, they
would provide oversight; and for all district collectors, they would
provide essential liaison possibilities to the bonded laborer
population, whose interests are usually at odds with the interest and
sympathies of their local leaders.81

Nonetheless, notwithstanding the act's unambiguous requirement that
vigilance committees be formed and active, as well as numerous supreme
court rulings emphasizing the importance of the committees for act
enforcement, Human Rights Watch has learned of no functioning
vigilance committee anywhere in India.

Apathy, or at least a low prioritization of child and bonded labor
issues, is also evident in the slow pace at which complaints are
adjudicated-enforcement in the courts is very slow. One attorney told
us of a case he filed with the Supreme Court under the Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act in 1984. A fact finding committee was not
appointed until 1991 and, although arguments and submissionsbefore the
court concluded in 1994, as of 1996 no decision had yet been issued.82
The time table is not much better for the bonded labor case before the
Supreme Court, People's Union for Civil Liberties v. State of Tamil
Nadu, et al., which was filed in 1985 and as of 1996 was under
consideration by the court.

Delays in prosecuting cases under the Child Labour (Prohibition and
Regulation) Act are also not uncommon. One such case, filed in 1986
shortly after the act took effect, was reported to be still pending at
the prosecution stage eight years later, in 1994, with the accused
continuing to engage in prohibited practices. The delay in processing
the complaint, filed against an owner of a glass and bangles factory
in Firozabad, is all the more startling in view of the fact that the
complaint was filed by then-Labour Minister P. A. Sangma.83

Caste and Class Bias

A key element of enforcement is the attitude and the tendency toward a
subjective interpretation of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act,
1976 by government officials, including district magistrates, police
officers, labor inspectors, and judges. Too often, because of their
own backgrounds and the climate in which they work, those officers
entrusted with enforcement are more sympathetic to the employers than
to the child or bonded laborers. This phenomenon has been noted
repeatedly in the context of enforcement of the Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act.

We had some time back a case before us where pursuant to a direction
given by the Collector as a result of an order made by this Court, the
Tehsildar went to the villages in question and sitting on a dais with
the landlords by his side, he started enquiring of the labourers
whether they were bonded or not and when the labourers, obviously
inhibited and terrified by the presence of the landlords, said that
they were not bonded but they were working freely and voluntarily, he
made a report to the Collector that there were no bonded labourers.84

In the rare instances where vigilance committees or similar bodies
have been formed, according to one researcher, they have been composed
of people who themselves, either directly or through their families,
employ bonded labor.85 District collectors and other civil servants
assigned to bonded labor enforcement are also more often than not
aligned with the property-holding-including the holding of bonded
laborers-class. One researcher told Human Rights Watch of working with
a team of three Indian Administrative Service officers, who had been
assigned by the Supreme Court to investigate a case of bonded labor
affecting between 2,500 and 3,000 people. The investigators were urban
middle-class men from land-owning families in the region; in private
conversations, they made it clear that they considered the use of
bonded labor to be an acceptable practice.86

Many bond masters are themselves government employees, including
teachers, railway workers, and civil administrators.87 Because of
their steady income, these people are more likely to own land-which
they need someone to cultivate-and are more likely to have money
available for lending purposes. They are also more likely to be local
leaders and to have ties to the local and district administration,
both factors which tend to inhibit prosecution.

Despite the obvious limitations of relying on high-caste and local
landowning officials to attack bonded labor, outreach by the
government to affected populations and collaboration with grass-roots
social actions groups have not yet been implemented to any significant
degree.

Obstruction

It is not uncommon for those accused of violating labor laws to engage
in overt obstruction of the legal process. This ranges from
intimidation of thecomplaining workers, to bribery of government
officials, to physical threats and violence against the bonded
laborers and their advocates.88

Those who file suit against employers of bonded labor are frequently
harassed, according to a New Delhi lawyer who has been engaged in
bonded labor cases for more than a decade.89

The danger is greatest to those who work in rural areas, where bondage
is often the norm and is employed by powerful and ruthless owners.
According to another attorney closely related to bonded labor
litigation, the advocates and especially the workers who complain
about their status are "risking their lives... they are putting their
lives on the line, and the state officials have turned a callous eye
to it."90

Government officials may do more than just turn a "callous eye" toward
violence against the bonded laborers and their advocates. Several
activists told Human Rights Watch of police collusion with local
employers, including returning escaped workers to the employers and
intimidating, through force or threat of force, workers who are
attempting to organize for improved conditions.91

Corruption

As noted in previous chapters, corruption among government officials
charged with enforcement of labor laws is notorious and widespread.
Labor inspectors, medical officers, local tehsildars (representatives
of the district magistrates at the local level), and judges and
judicial magistrates are all known to be susceptible to bribery.

Lack of Accountability

Under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, district magistrates
are supposed to report to the state government periodically regarding
the number of cases of bonded laborers identified, released, and
rehabilitated. Most districtmagistrates either do not make these
reports at all, or make them sporadically. Furthermore, no mechanism
is in place whereby the accuracy of the district-level reports can be
ascertained, including such important issues as how many of the
identified workers have actually been released, and whether any
released workers have relapsed into bondage. Often, the district
magistrates will simply report that identified bonded laborers, or
formerly released bonded laborers, are "unavailable for
rehabilitation." That is to say, that their whereabouts are unknown.
Hence the central government's figures for 1994-1995, which state
that, of 251,424 bonded labourers identified between 1976 and 1995,
17,127 are "not available for rehabilitation."92

The rate of return into bondage by previously released bonded laborers
is neither studied nor recorded by the government; the effectiveness
of the rehabilitation scheme is therefore unknown. Various
nongovernmental sources believe the relapse rate to be very high.93
Part of the reason for return may be the long delays between
identification of bonded laborers and dispersal of rehabilitation
monies to them.94 Another factor may be the reportedly widespread
corruption among enforcing officials, who are accused of siphoning off
funds earmarked for rehabilitation purposes.

Lack of Adequate Enforcement Staff

Yet another obstacle to enforcement is the failure to devote
sufficient resources to the issue of bonded child labor. This failure
includes inadequate training of labor inspectors, an insufficient
number of inspectors,95 and anoverburdening of the district
magistrates.96 At both the state and the district level, the number of
personnel devoted to enforcement of child and bonded labor laws is
blatantly inadequate. In Tamil Nadu, for example, "there is only one
Assistant Section Officer dealing with the bonded labour issue for the
whole State... [and he] also holds other responsibilities.97

VII. CONCLUSION: COMBATING BONDED CHILD LABOR

The eradication of bonded child labor in India depends on the Indian
government's commitment to two imperatives: enforcement of the Bonded
Labour System (Abolition) Act, and the creation of meaningful
alternatives for already-bonded child laborers and those at risk of
joining their ranks.

In addition to genuine government action, it is essential that
nongovernmental organizations be encouraged by the government to
collaborate in this effort. The government has the resources and
authority to implement the law, while community-based organizations
have the grass-roots contacts and trust necessary to facilitate this
implementation. Furthermore, nongovernmental groups can act as a
watchdog on government programs, keeping vigil for corruption, waste,
and apathy. The elimination of current debt bondage and the prevention
of new or renewed bondage therefore requires a combination of
concerted government action and extensive community involvement.
Neither standing alone is sufficient. Bonded labor is a vast,
pernicious, and long-standing social ill, and the tenacity of the
bonded labor system must be attacked with similar tenacity; anything
less than total commitment is certain to fail.

ENFORCEMENT OF THE BONDED LABOUR SYSTEM

(ABOLITION) ACT

The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act was passed into law in 1976.
Twenty years later, Human Rights Watch has found that the goals of
this law-to punish employers of bonded labor and to identify, release,
and rehabilitate bonded laborers-have not been met, and efforts to do
so are sporadic and weak at best. The bonded labor system continues to
thrive.

The district-level vigilance committees, mandated by the Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act and constituting the key tool of act
enforcement, have not been formed in most districts. Those that have
formed tend to lie dormant, or, worse yet, are comprised of members
unsympathetic to the plight of bonded laborers, in direct
contravention of Supreme Court orders interpreting the act.

Without effective vigilance committees to assist, guide, and oversee
their efforts, district collectors are left alone in their efforts to
enforce the law. Collectors interested in enforcement are limited in
these efforts by competing administrative and prosecutorial duties;
without vigilance committees to share the work, meaningful enforcement
of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act is difficult. Other
collectors are not interested in enforcing the act; for them, the lack
of a good vigilance committee means there is no pressure to do so.

Whether for lack of will or lack of support, India's district
collectors have failed utterly to enforce the provisions of the Bonded
Labour System (Abolition)Act. If collected statistics regarding
prosecutions under the act after 1988 exist, Human Rights Watch was
unable to obtain them. The only attempted prosecutions we learned of
occurred in Tamil Nadu in 1995, when eight employers of bonded child
labor were arrested, kept in jail over night, and fined a nominal
amount. The state of Tamil Nadu has an estimated one million bonded
laborers; according to the North Arcot District Collector, these were
the first charges ever brought under the act in Tamil Nadu.

In addition to prosecuting violators, district collectors are directed
by the act to identify, release, and rehabilitate bonded laborers.
India has an estimated fifteen million bonded child laborers alone.
The Indian government's Ministry of Labour, however, estimated in 1995
that there were just 2,784 bonded laborers of all ages identified and
awaiting rehabilitation. It made no mention of any bonded laborers yet
to be identified. Non-enforcement of the law is virtually guaranteed,
of course, so long as the government engages in a willful denial
regarding the existence and pervasiveness of bonded labor.

The mandated rehabilitation of released workers is essential. Without
adequate rehabilitation, those who are released will quickly fall
again into bondage. This has been established repeatedly, among both
adult and child bonded laborers. Nonetheless, the central and state
governments have jointly failed to implement required rehabilitation
procedures. Rehabilitation allowances are distributed late, or are not
distributed at all, or are paid out at half the proper rate, with
corrupt officials pocketing the difference. One government-appointed
commission found that court orders mandating the rehabilitation of
bonded laborers were routinely ignored.98

Finally, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act directs vigilance
committees and district collectors to institute savings and credit
programs at the community level, so that the impoverished might have
access to a small loan during financial emergencies. This resource is
crucial. Just as enforcement of the law against employers would work
to terminate the demand for bonded labor, so would available credit
work to end the supply. Nearly every child interviewed by Human Rights
Watch told the same story: they were sold to their employers because
their parents were desperate for money and had no other way to get it.
For some, it was the illness or death of a parent, for others, the
marriage of a sister, and for others still, the need to buy food or
put a roof over their heads. In most cases, the amount of the debt
incurred was very small.

A community-based savings and credit program has been introduced in
North Arcot district, and early indications are that it will strike a
significant blow against bonded child labor. The program was launched
by the district collector for North Arcot, who claimed that sufficient
funds and personnel were available from existing rural development
programs. Similar initiatives should be instituted in all areas where
bonded child labor is prevalent.

CREATING ALTERNATIVES TO BONDED CHILD LABOR

Bonded child labor must be attacked from many fronts. Enforcement of
the law is essential, but it is not enough. The bonded child laborer
must have someplace else to go. The child's parents must have other
options available. The community must support the end of debt bondage
for children. In sum, the attack must be holistic-it must work to
change the system of debt bondage. Elements already in use by
community activists and some government officials include: education,
including vocational training and popular education, and rural
development.

The availability of free, compulsory, and quality education is widely
regarded as the single most important factor in the fight against
bonded and non-bonded child labor. The correlation between illiteracy
and bonded labor is strong, with researchers reporting that literacy
rates among bonded child laborers are as low as 5 percent.99 The
majority of children interviewed by Human Rights Watch had been
schooled for three years or less, and many said they could not read or
write.

Article 45 of the Indian Constitution commits the state to
"endeavor[ing] to provide, within a period of ten years from the
commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education
for all children until they complete the age of fourteen years." The
constitution came into force in 1950. Recognizing the central
importance of education, India's leading non-governmental
organizations have called for the implementation of universal, free,
and compulsory education. Among them are: the Child Labour Action
Network (CLAN), the Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), the Centre
for Rural Education and Development Action (CREDA), and the Bonded
Labour Liberation Front (BLLF). UNICEF-India and Anti-Slavery
International have likewise called on the Indian government to
implement education for all.

At the same time, alternate efforts to at least minimally educate
bonded children are already underway in a few areas. CREDA in the
carpet-belt, the MV Foundation in Andhra Pradesh, and the Indian
Council on Child Welfare (ICCW)in North Arcot, are all involved in non-
formal education initiatives. Some of these programs utilize modest
financial support to attract children, including small cash stipends
and periodic grain allowances. In addition to classic schooling,
children on the verge of adulthood may benefit from concrete skills
training as well.

CREDA and the MV Foundation also emphasize popular education for all
members of the community, in which community teachers stress the
importance of education for children and the deleterious effects of
exploitative child labor. Such outreach to the community as a whole is
necessary in order to chip away at the thick web of myths and
justifications that support the exploitation of child workers. These
myths contend that children must be trained at the "right" age or they
will never learn a skill; children must be trained in a profession
"appropriate" to their caste and background; children are well-suited
for certain kinds of work because of their "nimble fingers;" and child
labor is a natural and inevitable function of the family unit. These
views are widely shared by parents, educators, government officials,
and the public at large, with the result that talk of children's
rights in regard to labor is dismissed summarily. It is necessary to
change these views in order to change the system.

In sum, the fight against bonded child labor must be carried out on
two fronts: enforcement and prevention. Those employers who continue
to bind children to them with debt, paying just pennies for a
hazardous and grueling work day, must be prosecuted under the Bonded
Labour System (Abolition) Act. Employers or agents that physically
abuse, kidnap, unlawfully confine, threaten with violence, or expose
to dangerous conditions, within the context of the bonded labor
system, should be prosecuted for these crimes under the Indian Penal
Code and the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986. Children must be removed from
bondage and rehabilitated to avoid a subsequent return to bondage.
Finally, the educational and survival needs of all children at risk
must be addressed in order to stop the cycle of bondage.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A: Selected Articles of the Indian Constitution

Article 21. Protection of life and personal liberty-No person shall be
deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure
established by law.

Article 23. Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour-
(1) Traffic in human beings and begar and other similar forms of
forced labour are prohibited and any contravention of this prohibition
shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.

(2) Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from imposing
compulsory service for public purposes, and in imposing such service
the State shall not make any discrimination on grounds only of
religion, race, caste or class or any of them.

Article 24. Prohibition of employment of children in factories, etc.-
No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work in
any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment.

Article 39. Certain principles of policy to be followed by the State-
The State shall, in particular, direct its policy towards securing-

(a) that the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an
adequate means of livelihood;

(b) that the ownership and control of the material resources of the
community are so distributed as best to subserve the common good;

(c) that the operation of the economic system does not result in the
concentration of wealth and means of production to the common
detriment;

(d) that there is equal pay for equal work for both men and women;

(e) that the health and strength of workers, men and women, and the
tender age of children are not abused and that citizens are not forced
by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or
strength;

(f) that children are given opportunities and facilities to develop in
a healthy manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity and that
childhood and youth are protected against exploitation and against
moral and material abandonment.

Article 39A. Equal Justice and free legal aid-The State shall secure
that the operation of the legal system promotes justice, on a basis of
equal opportunity, and shall, in particular, provide free legal aid,
by suitable legislation or schemes or in any other way, to ensure that
opportunities for securing justice are not denied to any citizen by
reason of economic or other disabilities.

Article 41. Right to work, to education and to public assistance in
certain cases-The State shall, within the limits of its economic
capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the
right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of
unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of
undeserved want.

Article 42. Provision for just and humane conditions of work and
maternity relief-The State shall make provision for securing just and
humane conditions of work and for maternity relief.

Article 43. Living wage, etc., for workers-The State shall endeavour
to secure, by suitable legislation or economic organisation or in any
other way, to all workers, agricultural, industrial or otherwise,
work, a living wage, conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of
life and full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural
opportunities and, in particular, the State shall endeavour to promote
cottage industries on an individual or cooperative basis in rural
areas.

Article 43A. Participation of workers in management of industries-The
State shall take steps, by suitable legislation or in any other way,
to secure the participation of workers in the management of
undertakings, establishments or other organizations engaged in any
industry.

Article 45. Provision for free and compulsory education for children-
The State shall endeavour to provide within a period of ten years from
the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory
education for all children until they complete the age of fourteen
years.

Article 46. Promotion of educational and economic interests of
Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other weaker sections-The State
shall promote with special care the educational and economic interests
of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the
Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from
social injustice and all forms of exploitation.

APPENDIX B: The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976

(No. 19 of 1976)

[9th February, 1976]

An act to provide for the abolition of bonded labour system with a
view to preventing the economic and physical exploitation of the
weaker sections of the people and for matters connected therewith or
incidental thereto

Be it enacted by Parliament in the Twenty-seventh Year of the Republic
of India as follows:

CHAPTER I

Preliminary

1. Short title, extent and commencement.-(1) This act may be called
the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976.

(2) It extends to the whole of India.

(3) it shall be deemed to have come into force on the 25th day of
October, 1975.

2. Definitions.-(1) In This act, unless the context otherwise
requires,-

(a) "advance" means an advance, whether in cash or in kind, or partly
in cash or partly in kind, made by one person (hereinafter referred to
as the creditor) to another person (hereinafter referred to as the
debtor);

(b) "agreement" means an agreement (whether written or oral, or partly
written and partly oral) between a debtor and creditor, and includes
an agreement providing for forced labour, the existence of which is
presumed under any social custom prevailing in the concerned
locality;

Explanation.-The existence of an agreement between the debtor and
creditor is ordinarily presumed, under the social custom, in relation
to the following forms of forced labour, namely:

Adiyamar, Baramasi, Bethu, Bhagela, Cherumar, Garrugalu, Hali, Hari,
Harwai, Holya, Jolya, Jeeta, Kamiya, Khundit-Mundit, Kuthia, Lakhari,
Munjhi, Mat, Musish system, Nit-Majoor, Paleru, Padiyal, Pannaayilal,
Sagri, Sanji, Sanjawal, Sewak,, Sewakis, Seri, Vetti;

(c) "ascendant" or "descendant" in relation to a person belonging to
matriarchal society, means the person who corresponds to such
expression in accordance with the law of succession in such society;

(d) "bonded debt" means an advance obtained, or presumed to have been
obtained, by a bonded labourer, or in pursuance of, the bonded labour
system

(e) "bonded labour" means any labour or service rendered under the
bonded labour system;

(f) "bonded labourer" means a labourer who incurs, or has, or is
presumed to have, incurred, a bonded debt;

(g) "bonded labour system" means the system of forced, or partly
forced labour under which a debtor enters, or has, or is presumed to
have, entered, into an agreement with the creditor to the effect
that,-

(i) In consideration of an advance obtained by him or by any of his
lineal ascendants or descendants (whether or not such advance is
evidenced by any document) and in consideration of the interest, if
any, due on such advance, or

(ii) in pursuance of any customary or social obligation, or

(iii) in pursuance of an obligation devolving on him by succession,
or

(iv) for any economic consideration of the interest, if any, due on
such advance, or

(v) by reason of his birth in any particular caste or community, he
would-

(1) render, by himself or through any member of his family, or any
person dependent on him, labour or service to the creditor, or for the
benefit of the creditor, for a specified period or for an unspecified
period, either without wages or for nominal wages, or

(2) forfeit the freedom of employment or other means of livelihood for
a specified period or for an unspecified period, or

(3) forfeit the right to move freely throughout the territory of
India, or

(4) forfeit the right to appropriate or sell at market value any of
his property or product of his labour or the labour of a member of his
family or any person dependent on him

and includes the system of forced, or partly forced, labour under
which a surety for a debtor or has, or has, or is presumed to have,
entered, into an agreement with the creditor to the effect that in the
event of the failure of the debtor to repay the debt, he would render
the bonded labour on behalf of the debtor;

Explanation.- For the removal of doubts, it is hereby declared that
any system of forced, or partly forced labour under which any workman
being contract labour as defined in Cl. (b) of subsection (1) or Sec.
2 of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (37 of
1970), or an inter-State migrant workman as defined in Cl. (e) of sub-
section (1) of Sec. 2 of the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation
and of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 (30 of 1979),
is required to render labour or service in circumstances of the nature
mentioned in sub-clause (1) of this clause or is subjected to all or
any of the disabilities referred to in sub-clauses (2) to (4), is
"bonded labour system" within the meaning of this clause.

(h) "family", in relation to a person, includes the ascendant and
descendant of such person;

(i) "nominal wages", in relation to any labour, means a wage which is
less than,-

(a) the minimum wages fixed by the Government, in relation to the same
or similar labour, under any law for the time being in force; and

(b) where no such minimum wage has been fixed in relation to any form
of labour, the wages that are normally paid, for the same or similar
labour to the labourers working in the same locality;

(j) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under this act.

3. Act to have overriding effect.-The provisions of this act shall
have effect notwithstanding anything inconsistent therewith contained
in any enactment other than this act, or in any instrument having
effect by virtue of any enactment other than this act.

CHAPTER II

Abolition of Bonded Labour System

4. Abolition of bonded labour system.-(1) On the commencement of this
act, the bonded labour system shall stand abolished and every bonded
labourer shall, on such commencement, stand freed and discharged from
any obligation to render any bonded labour.

(2) After the commencement of this act, no person shall-

(a) make any advance under, or in pursuance of the bonded labour
system, forced labour, or

(b) Compel any person to render any bonded labour or other form of
forced labour.

5. Agreement, custom, etc. to be void.-On the commencement of this
act, any custom or tradition or any contract, agreement or other
instrument (whether entered into or executed before or after the
commencement of this act), by virtue of which any person, or any
member of the family or dependent of such person, is required to do
any work or render any service as a bonded labourer, shall be void and
inoperative.

CHAPTER III

Extinguishment of liability to repay bonded debt

6. Liability to repay bonded debt to stand extinguished-(1) On the
commencement of this act, every obligation of a bonded labourer to
repay any bonded debt, or such part of any bonded debt as remains
unsatisfied immediately before such commencement, shall be deemed to
have been extinguished.

(2) After the commencement of this act, no suit or other proceeding
shall lie in any civil Court or before any other authority for the
recovery of any bonded debt or any part thereof.

(3) Every decree or order for the recovery of bonded debt, passed
before the commencement of this act and not fully satisfied before
such commencement, shall be deemed, on such commencement, to have been
fully satisfied.

(4) Every attachment made before the commencement of this act, for the
recovery of any bonded debt, shall, on such commencement, stand
vacated; and where, in pursuance of such attachment, any moveable
property of the bonded labourer was seized and removed from his
custody and kept in the custody of any Court or other authority
pending sale thereof such moveable property shall be restored, as soon
as may be practicable after such commencement, to the possession of
the bonded labourer.

(5) Where, before the commencement of this act, possession of any
property belonging to a bonded labourer or a member of his family or
other dependent was forcibly taken over by any creditor for the
recovery of any bonded debt, such property shall be restored, as soon
as may be practicable after such commencement, to the possession of
the person from whom it was seized.

(6) If restoration of the possession of any property referred to in
sub-section (4) or sub-section (5) is not made within thirty days from
the commencement of this act, the aggrieved person may, within such
time as may be prescribed, apply to the prescribed authority for the
restoration of the possession of such property and the prescribed
authority may, after giving the creditor a reasonable opportunity of
being heard, direct the creditor to restore to the applicant the
possession of the concerned property within such time as may be
specified in the order.

(7) An order made by any prescribed authority, under sub-section (6),
shall be deemed to be an order made by a civil Court of the lowest
pecuniary jurisdiction within the local limits of whose jurisdiction
the creditor voluntarily resides or carries on business or personally
works for gain.

(8) For the avoidance of doubts, it is hereby declared, that, where
any attached property was sold before the commencement of this act, in
execution of a decree or order for the recovery of a bonded debt, such
sale shall not be affected by any provision of this act:

Provided that the bonded labourer, or an agent authorized by him in
this behalf, may, at any time within five years rom such commencement,
apply to have the sale set aside on his depositing in Court, for
payment to the decree-holder, the amount specified in the proclamation
of sale, for the recovery of which sale was ordered, less any amount
as well as mesne profits, which may, since the date of such
proclamation of sale, have been received by the decree-holder.

(9) Where any suit or proceeding, for the enforcement of any
obligation under the bonded labour system, including a suit or
proceeding for the recovery of any advance made to a bonded labourer,
is pending at the commencement of this act, such suit or other
proceeding shall, on such commencement, stand dismissed.

(10) On the commencement of this act, every bonded labourer who has
been detained in civil prison, whether before or after judgement,
shall be released from detention forthwith.

7. Property of bonded labourer to be freed from mortgage, etc.-(1) All
property vested in a bonded labourer which was, immediately before the
commencement of this act under any mortgage, lien, charge, or other
incumbrances in connection with any bonded debt shall, in so far as it
is relatable to the bonded debt, stand freed and discharged from such
mortgage, charge, lien or otherincumbrances in connection with any
bonded debt, and where any such property was, immediately before the
commencement of this act, in the possession of the mortgagee or the
holder of the charge, lien or incumbrance, such property shall (except
where it was subject to any other charge), on such commencement, be
restored to the possession of the bonded labourer.

(2) If any delay is made in restoring any property, referred to in sub-
section (1), to the possession of the bonded labourer, such labourer
shall be entitled, on and from the date of such commencement, to
recover from the mortgagee or holder of the lien, charge or
incumbrance, such mesne profits as may be determined by the Civil
Court of the lowest pecuniary jurisdiction within the local limits of
whose jurisdiction such property is situated.

8. Freed bonded labourer not to be evicted from homestead, etc.- (1)
No person who has been freed and discharged under this act from any
obligation to render any bonded labour, shall be evicted from any
homestead or other residential premises which he was occupying
immediately before the commencement of this act as part of the
consideration for the bonded labour.

(2) If, after the commencement of this act, any such person is evicted
by the creditor from any homestead or other residential premises,
referred to in sub-section (1), the Executive Magistrate in charge of
the sub-division within which such homestead or residential premises,
is situated shall, as early as practicable, restore the bonded
labourer to the possession of such homestead or other residential
premises.

9. Creditor not to accept payment against extinguished debt.-(1) No
creditor shall accept any payment against any bonded debt which has
been extinguished or deemed to have been extinguished or fully
satisfied by virtue of the provisions of this act.

(2) whoever contravenes the provisions of sub-section (1), shall be
punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three
years and also with fine.

(3) The Court, convicting any person under sub-section (2) may, in
addition to the penalties which may be imposed under that sub-section,
direct the person to deposit, in Court, the amount accepted in
contravention of the provisions of sub-section (1), within such period
as may be specified in the order for being refunded to the bonded
labourer.

CHAPTER IV

Implementing Authorities

10. Authorities who may be specified for implementing the provisions
of this act.- The State Governments may confer such powers and impose
such duties on a District Magistrate as may be necessary to ensure
that the provisions of this act are properly carried out and the
District Magistrate may specify the officer, subordinate to him, who
shall exercise all or any of the powers, and perform al or any of the
duties, so conferred or imposed and the local limits within which such
powers or duties shall be carried out by the officers so specified.

11. Duty of District Magistrates and other officers to ensure credit.-
The District Magistrate authorized by the State Government under Sec.
10 and the officer specified by the District Magistrate under that
section shall, as far as practicable, try to promote the welfare of
the freed bonded labourer by securing and protecting the economic
interests of such bonded labourer so that he may not have any occasion
or reason to contract any further debt.

12. Duty of the District Magistrate and officers authorized by him.-It
shall be the duty of every District Magistrate and every officer
specified by him under Sec. 10 to inquire whether after the
commencement of this act, any bonded labour system or any other form
of forced labour is being enforced by, or on behalf of, any person
resident within the local limits of his jurisdiction and if, as a
result of such inquiry, any person is found to be enforcing the bonded
labour system or any other system of forced labour, he shall forthwith
take such action as may be necessary to eradicate the enforcement of
such forced labour.

CHAPTER V

Vigilance Committees

13. Vigilance Committees.-(1) Every State Government shall, by
notification in the Official Gazette, constitute such number of
Vigilance Committees in each district and each sub-division as it may
think fit.

(2) Each Vigilance Committee, constituted for a district, shall
consist of the following members, namely:

(a) The District Magistrate, or a person nominated by him, who shall
be the Chairman;

(b) three persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled
Tribes and residing in the district, to be nominated by the District
Magistrate;

(c) two social workers, resident in the district, to be nominated by
the District Magistrate;

(d) not more than three persons to represent the official or non-
official agencies in the district connected with rural development, to
be nominated by the State Government;

(e) one person to represent the financial and credit institutions in
the district, to be nominated by the District Magistrate.

(3) Each Vigilance Committee, constituted for a sub-division, shall
consist of the following members, namely:

(a) The Sub-Divisional Magistrate, or a person nominated by him, who
shall be the Chairman;

(b) three persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes or Scheduled
Tribes and residing in the sub-division, to be nominated by the Sub-
divisional Magistrate;

(c) two social workers, resident in the sub-division, to be nominated
by the Sub-divisional Magistrate;

(d) not more than three persons to represent the official or non-
official agencies in the sub-division connected with rural
development, to be nominated by the State Government;

(e) one person to represent the financial and credit institutions in
the sub-division, to be nominated by the Sub-divisional Magistrate.

(f) one officer specified under Sec. 10 and functioning in the sub-
division;

(4) Each Vigilance Committee shall regulate its own procedure and
secretarial assistance as may be necessary, shall be provided by-

(a) the District Magistrate, in the case of Vigilance Committee
constituted for the district;

(b) the Sub-divisional Magistrate, in the case of a Vigilance
Committee constituted for the sub-division.

(5) No proceeding of a Vigilance Committee shall be invalid merely by
reason of any defect in the constitution, or in the proceedings, of
the Vigilance Committee.

14. Functions of Vigilance Committees.-(1) The functions of each
Vigilance Committee shall be-

(a) to advise the District Magistrate or any officer authorized by him
as to the efforts made, and action taken, to ensure that the
provisions of this act or any rule made thereunder are properly
implemented;

(b) to provide for the economic and social rehabilitation of the freed-
bonded labourers;

(c) to co-ordinate the functions of rural banks and co-operative
societies with a view to canalizing adequate credit to the freed-
bonded labourers;

(d) to keep an eye on the number of offences of which cognizance has
been taken under this act;

(e) to make a survey as to whether there is any offence of which
cognizance ought to be taken under this act;

(f) to defend any suit instituted against a freed-bonded labourer or a
member of his family or any other person dependent on him for the
recovery of the whole or part of any bonded debt or any other debt
which is claimed by such person to be bonded debt.

(2) A Vigilance Committee may authorize one of its members to defend a
suit against a freed-bonded labourer and the member so authorized
shall be deemed, for the purpose of such suit, to be the authorized
agent of the freed-bonded labourer.

15. Burden of proof.- Whenever any debt is claimed by a bonded
labourer, or a Vigilance Committee, to be a bonded debt, the burden of
proof that such debt, is not a bonded debt shall lie on the creditor.

CHAPTER VI

Offences and Procedure for Trial

16. Punishment for enforcement of bonded labour.-Whoever, after the
commencement of this act, compels any person to render any bonded
labour shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may
extend to three years and also with fine which may extend to two
thousand rupees.

17. Punishment for advancement of bonded debt.-Whoever advances, after
the commencement of this act, any bonded debt shall be punishable with
imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and also with
fine which may extend to two thousand rupees.

18. Punishment for extracting bonded labour under the bonded labour
system.-Whoever enforces, after the commencement of this act, any
custom, tradition, contract, agreement or other instrument, by virtue
of which any person or any member of the family of such person or any
dependent of such person is required to render any service under the
bonded labour system shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term
which may extend to three years and also with fine which may extend to
two thousand rupees; and out of the fine, ifrecovered, payment shall
be made to the bonded labourer at the rate of rupees five for each day
for which the bonded labour was extracted from him.

19. Punishment for omission or failure to restore possession of
property to bonded labourers.-Whoever, being required by this act to
restore any property to the possession of any bonded labourer, omits
or fails to do so, within a period of thirty days from the
commencement of this act, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a
term which may extend to one year, or with fine which may extend to
one thousand rupees, or with both; and, out of the fine, if recovered
payment shall be made to the bonded labourer at the rate of rupees
five for each day during which possession of property was not restored
to him.

20. Abetment to be an offence.-Whoever abets any offence punishable
under this act shall, whether or not the offence abetted is committed,
be punishable with the same punishment as is provided for the offence
which has been abetted.

Explanation.-For the purpose of this act, "abetment" has the meaning
assigned to it in the Indian Penal Code.

21. Offences to be tried by Executive Magistrates.-(1) The State
Government may confer, on an Executive Magistrate the powers of a
Judicial Magistrate of the first class or of the second class for the
trial of offences under this act; and on such conferment of powers,
the Executive Magistrate, on whom the powers are so conferred, shall
be deemed, for the purposes of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (2
of 1974), to be a Judicial Magistrate of the first class, or of the
second class, as the case may be.

22. Cognizance of offences.-Every offence under this act shall be
cognizable and bailable.

23. Offences by companies.-(1) Where an offence under this act has
been committed by a company, every person who, at the time the offence
was committed, was in charge of, and was responsible to, the company
for the conduct of the business of the company, as well as the
company, shall be deemed to be guilty of the offence and shall be
liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (1), where any
offence under this act has been committed by a company and it has been
proved that the offence has been committed with the consent or
connivance of, or is attributable to, any neglect on the part of, any
director, manager, secretary or other officer of the company, such
director, manager, secretary or other officer shall be deemed to be
guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and
punished accordingly.

Explanation.-For the purposes of this section,-

(a) "company" means any body corporate and includes a firm or other
association of individuals; and

(b) "director", in relation to a firm, means a partner in the firm.

CHAPTER VII

Miscellaneous

24. Protection of action taken in good faith.-No suit, prosecution or
other legal proceeding shall lie against any State Government or any
officer of the State Government or any member of the Vigilance
Committee for anything which is in good faith done or intended to be
done under this act.

25. Jurisdiction of Civil Courts barred.-No Civil Court shall have
jurisdiction in respect of any matter to which any provision of this
act applies and no injunction shall be granted by any Civil Court in
respect of anything which is done or intended to be done by or under
this act.

26. Power to make rules.-(1) The Central Government may, by
notification in the official Gazette, make rules for carrying out the
provisions of this act.

(2) In particular, and without prejudice to the foregoing power, such
rules may provide for all or any of the following matters, namely:

(a) the authority to which application for the restoration of
possession of property referred to in sub-section (4), or sub-section
(5) of Sec. 6 is to be submitted in pursuance of sub-section (6) of
that section;

(b) the time within which application for restoration of possession of
property is to be made under sub-section (6) of Sec. 6, to the
prescribed authority;

(c) steps to be taken by Vigilance Committees under Cl. (a) of sub-
section (1) of Sec. 14, to ensure the implementation of the provisions
of this act or of any rule made thereunder;

(d) any other matter which is required to be, or may be prescribed.

(3) Every rule made by the Central Government under this act shall be
laid, as soon as may be after it is made, before each House of
Parliament while it is in session, for a total period of thirty days
which may be comprised in one session or in two or more successive
sessions, and if, before the expiry of the session immediately
following the session or successive sessions aforesaid, both Houses
agree in making any modification in the rule or both Houses agree that
therule should not be made, the rule shall thereafter have effect only
in such modified form or be of no effect, as the case may be; so
however, that any such modification or annulment shall be without
prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under that
rule.

(1) The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Ordinance, 1975 (17 of 1975),
is hereby repealed.

(2) Notwithstanding such repeal, anything or any action taken under
the Ordinance (including any notification published, direction of a
nomination made, power conferred, duty imposed or officer specified)
shall be deemed to have been done or taken under the corresponding
provisions of this act.

APPENDIX C: The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Rules, 1976

(Published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part II, Section
3(i),

February 28, 1976)

In exercise of powers conferred by sub-section (1), read with sub-
section (2) of Sec. 26 of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act,
1976 (19 of 1976), the Central Government hereby makes the following
rules, namely:

1. Short title and commencement.-(1) These rules may be called the
Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Rules, 1976.

(2) They shall come into force on the date of their publication in the
official Gazette.

2. Definitions.-In these rules, unless the context otherwise
requires,-

(a) "Act" means the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 (19 of
1976);

(b) "District Vigilance Committee: means a Vigilance Committee
constituted for a district under sub-section (1) of Sec. 13;

(c) "section" means a section of the act;

(d) "Sub-divisional Vigilance Committee" means a Vigilance Committee
constituted for a sub-division under sub-section (1) of Sec. 13.

3. Term of office, and vacation of seat members of District Vigilance
Committees.-(1) Every member of a District Vigilance Committee,
nominated under Cls. (b), (c), (d) and (e) of sub-section (2) of Sec.
13 shall hold office for a period of two years from the date on which
his nomination is notified in the official Gazette and shall, on the
expiry of the said period, continue to hold office until his successor
is nominated and shall also be eligible for re-nomination.

(2) Every member referred to in sub-rule (1), -

(a) may, by giving notice in writing of not less than thirty days to
authority which nominated him, resign his office and, on such
resignation being accepted or on the expiry of the notice period of 30
days, whichever is earlier, shall be deemed to have vacated his
office.

(b) shall be deemed to have vacated his office,-

(I) if he fails to attend three consecutive meetings of the District
Vigilance Committee without obtaining leave of the Chairman of such
absence:

Provided that the authority, which nominated him, may, if he is
satisfied that such member was prevented by sufficient cause from
attending the three consecutive meetings of the Committee restore him
to membership;

(ii) if he becomes subject to any of the following disqualifications,
namely:

(1) is adjudged insolvent;

(2) is declared to be of unsound mind by a competent court;

(3) is convicted of an offence which, in the opinion of the authority
which nominated him, involves moral turpitude;

(c) may be removed from office, if the authority, which nominated such
member is of the opinion that such member has ceased to represent the
interest to represent which he was nominated:

Provided that a member shall not be removed from office under this
clause unless a reasonable opportunity is given to him for showing
cause against such removal.

(3) A member, nominated to fill a casual vacancy shall gold office for
the unexpired portion of the term of his predecessor.

4. Term of office, and vacation of seat of members of Sub-divisional
Vigilance Committees.-(1) Every member of a Sub-divisional Vigilance
Committee, nominated under Cls. (b), (c), (d) and (e) of sub-section
(2) of Sec. 13 shall hold office for a period of two years from the
date on which his nomination is notified in the official Gazette and
shall, on the expiry of the said period, continue to hold office until
his successor is nominated and shall also be eligible for re-
nomination.

(2) Every member referred to in sub-rule (1), -

(a) may, by giving notice in writing of not less than thirty days to
authority which nominated him, resign his office and, on such
resignation being accepted or on the expiry of the notice period of 30
days, whichever is earlier, shall be deemed to have vacated his
office.

(b) shall be deemed to have vacated his office,-

(i) if he fails to attend three consecutive meetings of the Sub-
divisional Vigilance Committee without obtaining leave of the Chairman
of such absence:

Provided that the authority, which nominated him, may, if he is
satisfied that such member was prevented by sufficient cause from
attending the three consecutive meetings of the Committee restore him
to membership;

(ii) if he becomes subject to any of the following disqualifications,
namely:

(1) is adjudged insolvent;

(2) is declared to be of unsound mind by a competent court;

(3) is convicted of an offence which, in the opinion of the authority
which nominated him, involves moral turpitude;

(c) may be removed from office, if the authority, which nominated such
member is of the opinion that such member has ceased to represent the
interest to represent which he was nominated:

Provided that a member shall not be removed from office under this
clause unless a reasonable opportunity is given to him for showing
cause against such removal.

(3) A member, nominated to fill a casual vacancy shall gold office for
the unexpired portion of the term of his predecessor.

5. Prescribed authority under sub-section (6) of Sec.6.-An application
under sub-section (6) of Sec. 6 for restoration of possession of any
property referred to in sub-section (4) or sub-section (5) of that
section shall be made to the Executive Magistrate, on whom the powers
of a Judicial Magistrate of the first class or of the second class
have been conferred under sub-section (1) of Sec. 21, and within the
local limits of whose jurisdiction the said property is, or the
applicant has reason to believe is, situated at the time of making the
application:

Provided that where there are two Executive Magistrates, on one of
whom the powers of a Judicial Magistrate of the first class and on the
other the powers of a Judicial Magistrate of thesecond class have been
conferred under sub-section (1) of Sec. 21 having jurisdiction to
entertain the application for restoration of possession of property
referred to in sub-rule (1), the application shall be made to the
Executive Magistrate on whom the powers of a Judicial Magistrate of
the second class have been conferred.

6. Time within which an application under sub-section (6) is to be
made.-

An application under sub-section (6) of Sec. 6 for restoration of
possession of any property referred to in sub-section (4) or sub-
section (5) of that section shall be made within a period of ninety
days from the date on which these rules come into force.

7. Records to be maintained by District Vigilance Committees to ensure
the implementation of the provisions of the act and rules.-In order to
ensure the implementation of the act and rules, every District
Vigilance Committee shall maintain the following registers in respect
of freed-bonded labourer with the local limits of its jurisdiction,
namely:

(a) a register containing the name and address of freed bonded
labourer;

(b) a register containing the statistics relating to the vacation,
occupation, and income of every freed-bonded labourer;

(c) a register containing the details of the benefits which the freed-
bonded labourers are receiving, including benefits in the form of
land, inputs for agriculture, training in handicrafts and allied
occupations, loans at differential rates, interest of employment in
urban or non-urban areas;

(d) a register containing details of cases under sub-section (6) of
Sec. 6, sub-section (2) of Sec. 8, sub-section (2) of Secs. 9, 16, 17,
18, 19, and 20.

APPENDIX D: The Children (Pedging of Labour) Act, 1933

(Act No. 2 of 1933)

[24th February, 1933]

An act to prohibit the pledging of labour of children

Whereas it is expedient to prohibit the making of agreements to pledge
the labour of children and the employment of children whose labour has
been pledged;

It is hereby enacted as follows:

1. Short title, extent and commencement.-(1) This act may be called
the Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, 1933.

(2) It extends to the whole of India

(3) This section and Secs. 2 and 3 shall come into force at once, and
the remaining sections of this act shall come into force on the first
day of July, 1933.

2. Definitions.- In this act, unless there is anything repugnant in
the subject or context,-

"an agreement to pledge the labour of a child" means in agreement,
written or oral, express or implied, whereby the parent or guardian of
a child, in return for any payment or benefit received by him,
undertakes to cause or allow the services of the child to be utilized
by him, undertakes to cause or allow the services of the child to be
utilized in any employment:

Provided that an agreement made without detriment to a child , and not
made in consideration of any benefit other than reasonable wages to be
paid for the child's services, and terminable at not more than a
week's notice, is not an agreement within the meaning of this
definition;

"child" means a person who is under the age of fifteen years; and
"guardian" includes any person having legal custody of or control over
a child.

3. Agreement contrary to the act to be void.-An agreement to pledge
the labour of a child shall be void.

4. Penalty for parent or guardian making agreement to pledge the
labour of a child.-Whoever, being the parent or guardian of a child,
makes an agreement to pledge the labour of that child, shall be
punished with fine which may extend to fifty rupees.

5. Penalty for making with a parent or guardian agreement to pledge
the labour of a child.-Whoever makes with the parent or guardian of a
child shall be punished with fine which may extend to two hundred
rupees.

6. Penalty for employing a child whose labour has been pledged.-
Whoever, knowing or having reason to believe that an agreement has
been made to pledge the labour of a child, in furtherance of such
agreement employs such child, or permits such child to be employed in
any premises or place under his control, shall be punishable with fine
which may extend to two hundred rupees.

APPENDIX E: The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986

Number 61 of 1986

[23rd December 1986]

Statement of Objects and Reasons

There are a number of acts which prohibit the employment of children
below 14 years and 15 years in certain specified employments. However,
there is no procedure laid down in any law for deciding in which
employments, occupations or processes the employment of children
should be banned. There is also no law to regulate the working
conditions of children in most of the employments where they are not
prohibited from working and are working under exploitative
conditions.

2. This Bill intends to-

(i) ban the employment of children, i.e., those who have not completed
their fourteenth year, in specified occupations and processes;

(ii) lay down a procedure to decide modifications to the Schedule of
banned occupations or processes;

(iii) regulate the conditions of work of children in employments where
they are not prohibited from working;

(iv) lay down enhanced penalties for employment of children in
violation of the provisions of this act, and other acts which forbid
the employment of children;

(v) to obtain uniformity in the definition of "child" in the related
laws.

3. The Bill seeks to achieve the above objects.

An act to prohibit the engagement of children in certain employments
and to regulate the conditions of work of children in certain other
employments.

Be it enacted by Parliament in the Thirty-seventh year of the Republic
of India as follows:

PART I

PRELIMINARY

1. Short title, extent and commencement.-(1) The act may be called the
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986.

(2) It extends to the whole of India.

(3) The provisions of this act, other than part III, shall come into
force at once, and part III shall come into force on such date as the
Central Governmentmay, by notification in the Official Gazette,
appoint, and different dates may be appointed for different states and
for different classes of establishments.

2. Definitions.- In this act, unless the context otherwise requires.

(i) "appropriate Government" means, in relation to an establishment
under the control of the Central Government or a railway
administration or a major port or a mine or oil field, the Central
Government, and in all other cases, the State Government;

(ii) "child" means a person who has not completed his fourteenth year
of age;

(iii) "day" means a period of twenty-four hours beginning at mid-
night;

(iv) "establishment" includes a shop, commercial establishment,
workshop, farm, residential hotel, restaurant, eating house, theatre
or other place of amusement or public entertainment;

(v) "family" in relation to an occupier, means the individual, the
wife or husband, as the case may be, of such individual, and their
children, brother or sister of such individual;

(vi) "occupier", in relation to an establishment or a workshop, means
the person who has the ultimate control over the affairs of the
establishment or workshop;

(vii) "port authority" means any authority administering a port;

(viii) "prescribed" means prescribed by rules made under Section 18;

(ix) "week" means a period of seven days beginning at mid-night on
Saturday night or such other night as may be approved in writing for a
particular area by the inspector;

(x) "workshop" means any premises (including the precincts thereof)
wherein any industrial process is carried on, but does not include any
premises to which the provisions of section 67 of the Factories Act,
1946, for the time being, apply.

PART II

PROHIBITION OF EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN IN CERTAIN OCCUPATIONS AND
PROCESSES

3. Prohibition of employment of children in certain occupations and
processes.-No child shall be employed or permitted to work in any of
the occupations set forth in Part A of the Schedule or in any workshop
wherein any of the processes set forth in Part B of the Schedule is
carried on:

Provided that nothing in this section shall apply to any workshop
wherein any process is carried on by the occupier with the aid ofhis
family or to any school established by, or receiving assistance or
recognition from, Government.

4. Power to amend the Schedule.-The Central Government after giving,
by notification in the Official Gazette, not less than three months
notice of its intention so to do, may, be like notification, add any
occupation or process to the Schedule and thereupon the Schedule shall
be deemed to have been amended accordingly.

5. Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee.-(1) The Central
Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, constitute an
advisory committee to be called the "Child Labour Technical Advisory
Committee" (hereafter in this section referred to as the Committee) to
advise the Central Government for the purpose of addition of
occupations and processes to the Schedule.

(2) The Committee shall consist of a Chairman and such other members
not exceeding ten, as may be appointed by the Central Government.

(3) The Committee shall meet as often as it may consider necessary and
shall have power to regulate its own procedure.

(4) The Committee may, if it deems necessary so to do, constitute one
or more sub-committees, and may appoint any such sub-committee,
whether generally or for the consideration of any particular matter,
any person who is not a member of the Committee.

(5) The term of office of, the manner of filing casual vacancies in
the office of, and the allowances, if any, payable to, the Chairman
and other members of the Committee, and the conditions and
restrictions subject to which the Committee may appoint any person who
is not a member of the Committee as a member of any of its sub-
committees shall be such as may be prescribed.

PART III

REGULATION OF CONDITIONS OF WORK OF CHILDREN

6. Application of Part.-The provisions of this Part shall apply to an
establishment or a class of establishments in which none of the
occupations or processes referred to in section 3 is carried on.

7. Hours and period of work.-(1) No child shall be required or
permitted to work in any establishment in excess of such number of
hours as may be prescribed for such establishment or class of
establishments.

(2) The period of work on each day shall be so fixed that no period
shall exceed three hours and that no child shall work for more than
three hours before he has had an interval for rest for at least one
hour.

(3) The period of work of a child shall be so arranged that inclusive
of his interval for rest, under sub-section (2), it shall not be
spread over more than six hours, including the time spent in waiting
for work on any day.

(4) No child shall be permitted or required to work between 7 p.m. and
8 a.m.

(5) No child shall be required or permitted to work overtime.

8. Weekly holidays.-Every child employed in an establishment shall be
allowed in each week, a holiday of one whole day, which day shall be
specified by the occupier in a notice permanently exhibited in a
conspicuous place in the establishment and the day so specified shall
not be altered by the occupier more than once in three months.

9. Notice to Inspector.-(1) Every occupier in relation to an
establishment in which a child was employed or permitted to work
immediately before the date of commencement of this act in relation to
such establishment shall, within a period of thirty days from such
commencement, send to the Inspector within whose local limits the
establishment is situated, a written notice containing the following
particulars, namely:-

(a) the name and situation of the establishment;

(b) the name of the person in actual management of the establishment;

(c) the address to which communications relating to the establishment
should be sent; and

(d) the nature of the occupation or process carried on in the
establishment.

(2) Every occupier, in relation to an establishment, who employs, or
permits to work, any child after the date of commencement of this act
in relation t such establishment, shall, within a period of thirty
days from the date of such employment, send to the Inspector within
whose local limits the establishment is situated, a written notice
containing the particulars as are mentioned in sub-section (1).

Explanation.-For the purposes of sub-sections (1) and (2), "date of
commencement of this act, in relation to an establishment" means the
date of bringing into force of this act in relation to such
establishment.

(3) Nothing in sections 7, 8 and 9 shall apply to any establishment
wherein any process is carried on by the occupier with the aid of his
family or to any school established by, or receiving assistance or
recognition from, Government.

10. Disputes as to age.-If any question arises between an Inspector
and an occupier as to the age of any child who is employed or is
permitted to work byhim in an establishment, the question shall, in
the absence of a certificate as to the age of such child granted by
the prescribed medical authority, be referred by the Inspector for
decision to the prescribed medical authority.

11. Maintenance of register.-There shall be maintained by every
occupier in respect of children employed or permitted to work in any
establishment, a register to be available for inspection by an
Inspector at all times during working hours or when work is being
carried on in any such establishment, showing-

(a) the name and date of birth of every child so employed or permitted
to work;

(b) hours and periods of work of any such child and the intervals of
rest to which he is entitled;

(c) the nature of work of any such child; and

(d) such other particulars as may be prescribed.

12. Display of notice containing abstracts of sections 3 and 14.-Every
railway administration, every port authority and every occupier shall
cause to be displayed in a conspicuous and accessible place at every
station on its railway or within the limits of a port or at the place
of work, as the case may be, a notice in the local language and in the
English language containing an abstract of sections 3 and 14.

13. Health and safety.-(1) The appropriate Government may, by
notification in the Official Gazette, make rules for the health and
safety of the children employed or permitted to work in any
establishment or class of establishments.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions,
the said rules may provide for all or any of the following matters,
namely:-

(a) cleanliness in the place of work and its freedom from nuisance;

(b) disposal of wastes and effluents;

(c) ventilation and temperature;

(e) artificial humidification;

(f) lighting;

(g) drinking water;

(h) latrine and urinals;

(i) spittoons;

(j) fencing of machinery;

(k) work at or near machinery in motion;

(l) employment of children on dangerous machines;

(m) instructions, training and supervision in relation to employment
of children on dangerous machines;

(n) device for cutting off power;

(o) self-acting machines;

(p) easing of new machinery;

(q) floor, stairs and means of access;

(r) pits, sumps, openings in floors, etc.;

(s) excessive weights;

(t) protection of eyes;

(u) explosive or inflammable dust, gas, etc.;

(v) precautions in case of fire;

(w) maintenance of buildings; and

(x) safety of buildings; and machinery.

PART IV

MISCELLANEOUS

14. Penalties.-(1) Whoever employs any child or permits any child to
work in contravention of the provisions of section 3 shall be
punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than
three months but which may extend to one year or with fine which shall
not be less than ten thousand rupees but which may extend to twenty
thousand rupees or with both.

(2) Whoever, having been convicted of an offence under section 3,
commits a like offence, afterwards, he shall be punishable with
imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but
which may extend to two years.

(3) Whoever-

(a) fails to give notice as required by section 9; or

(b) fails to maintain a register as required by section 11 or makes
any false entry in any such register; or

(c) fails to display a notice containing an abstract of section 3 and
this section as required by section 12; or

(d) fails to comply with or contravenes any other provisions of this
act or the rules made thereunder, shall be punishable with simple
imprisonment which may extend to one month or with fine which may
extend to ten thousand rupees or with both.

15. Modified application of certain laws in relation to penalties.-(1)
Where any person is found guilty and convicted of contravention of any
of the provisions mentioned in sub-section (2), he shall be liable to
penalties as providedin sub-sections (1) and (2) of section 14 of this
act and not under the acts in which these provisions are contained.

(2) The provisions referred to in sub-section (1) are the provisions
mentioned below:-

(a) section 67 of the Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948);

(b) section 40 of the Mines Act, 1952 (35 of 1952);

(c) section 109 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958 (44 of 1958); and

(d) section 21 of the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961 (27 of 1961).

16. Procedure relating to offences.-(1) Any person, police officer or
Inspector may file a complaint of the commission of an offence under
this act in any court of competent jurisdiction.

(2) Every certificate of as to the age of a child which has been
granted by a prescribed medical authority shall, for the purposes of
this act, be conclusive evidence as to the age of the child to whom it
relates.

(3) No court inferior to that of a Metropolitan Magistrate or a
Magistrate of the first class shall try any offence under this act.

17. Appointment of Inspectors.-The appropriate Government may appoint
Inspectors for the purposes of securing compliance with the provisions
of this act and any Inspector so appointed shall be deemed to be a
public servant within the meaning of the Indian Penal Code (45 of
1860).

18. Power to make rules-(1) The appropriate Government may, by
notification in the Official Gazette and subject to the condition of
previous publication, make rules for carrying into effect the
provisions of The act.

(2) In particular and without prejudice to the generality of the
foregoing power, such rules may provide for all or any of the
following matters, namely:-

(a) the term of office of, the manner of filing casual vacancies of,
and the allowances payable to, the Chairman and member of the Child
Labour Technical Advisory Committee and the conditions and
restrictions subject to which a non-member may be appointed to a sub-
committee under sub-section (5) of section 5;

(b) number of hours for which a child may be required or permitted to
work under sub-section (1) of section 7;

(c) Grant of certificates of age in respect of young persons in
employment or seeking employment, the medical authorities which may
issue such certificate, the form of such certificate, thecharges which
may be thereunder and the manner in which such certificate may be
issued:

Provided that no charge shall be made for the issue of any such
certificate if the application is accompanied by evidence of age
deemed satisfactory by the authority concerned;

(d) the other particulars which a register maintained under section 11
should contain.

19. Rules and notifications to be laid before Parliament or State
legislature.-(1) Every rule made under this act by the Central
Government and every notification issued under section 4, shall be
laid, as soon as may be after it is made or issued, before each House
of Parliament, while it is in session for a total period of thirty
days which may be comprised in one session or in two or more
successive sessions, and if, before the expiry of the session
immediately following the session or the successive sessions
aforesaid, both Houses agree that the rule or notification should not
be made or issued, the rule or notification shall thereafter have
effect only in such modified form or be of no effect, as the case may
be; so, however, that any such modification or annulment shall be
without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under
that rule or notification.

(2) Every rule made by a State Government under this act shall be laid
as soon as may be after it is made, before the legislature of that
State.

20. Certain other provisions of law not barred.-Subject to the
provisions contained in section 15, the provisions of this act and the
rules made thereunder shall be in addition to, and not in derogation
of, the provisions of the Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948), the
Plantations Labour Act, 1951 (69 of 1951), and the Mines Act, 1952 (35
of 1952).

21. Power to remove difficulties.-(1) If any difficulty arises in
giving effect to the provisions of this act, the Central Government
may, by order published in the Official Gazette, make such provisions
not inconsistent with the provisions of this act as appear to it to be
necessary or expedient for removal of the difficulty:

Provided that no such order shall be made after the expiry of a period
of three years from the date on which this act receives the assent of
the President.

(2) Every order made under this section shall, as soon as may be after
it is made, be laid before the Houses of Parliament.

22. Repeal and savings.-The Employment of Children, Act, 1938 (26 of
1938) is hereby repealed.

(2) Notwithstanding such repeal, anything done or any action taken or
purported to have been done or taken under the act so repealed shall,
in so far as it is not inconsistent with the provisions of this act,
be deemed to have been done or taken under the corresponding
provisions of this act.

23. Amendment of Act 11 of 1948.-In section 2 of the Minimum Wages
Act, 1948,-

(i) for clause (a), the following clauses shall be substituted,
namely:-

(a) "adolescent" means a person who has completed his fourteenth year
of age but has not completed his eighteenth year;

(aa) "adult" means a person who has completed his eighteenth year of
age;

(ii) after clause (b), the following clause shall be inserted,
namely:-

(bb) "child" means a person who has not completed his fourteenth year
of age;

24. Amendment of Act 69 of 1951.-In the Plantations Labour Act,
1951,-

(a) In section 2, in clauses (a) and (c), for the word "fifteenth",
the word "fourteenth" shall be substituted;

(b) section 24 shall be omitted;

(c) in section 26, in the opening portion, the words "who has
completed his twelfth year" shall be omitted.

25. Amendment of Act 44 of 1958.-In the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958,
in section 109, for the word "fifteen", the word "fourteen" shall be
substituted.

26. Amendment of Act 27 of 1961.-In the Motor Transport Workers Act,
1961, in section 2, in clauses (a) and (c), for the word "fifteenth",
the word "fourteenth" shall be substituted.

THE SCHEDULE

(See section 3)

PART A

Occupations.-Any occupation connected with -

(1) Transport of passengers, goods or mails by railway;

(2) Cinder picking, clearing of an ash pit or building operation in
the railway premises;

(3) Work in a catering establishment at a railway station, involving
the movement of a vendor or any other employee of the establishment
from one platform to another or into or out of a moving train;

(4) Work relating to the construction of a railway station or with any
other work where such work is done in close proximity or between the
railway lines;

(5) A port authority within the limits of any port.

(6) Work relating to selling of crackers and fireworks.*

(7) Abattoirs/Slaughter houses.**

PART B

(1) Beedi-making.

(2) Carpet-weaving.

(3) Cement manufacture, including bagging of cement.

(4) Cloth printing, dyeing and weaving.

(5) Manufacture of matches, explosives and fireworks.

(6) Mica-cutting and splitting.

(7) Shellac manufacture.

(8) Soap manufacture.

(9) Tanning.

(10) Wool-cleaning.

(11) Building and construction industry.

(12) Manufacture of slate pencils (including packing)*

(13) Manufacture of products from agate.*

(14) Manufacturing processes using toxic metals and substances such as
lead, mercury, manganese, chromium, cadmium, benzene, pesticides and
asbestos.*

(15) "Hazardous processes" as defined in section 2(cb) and `dangerous
operations' as notified in rules made under section 87 of the
Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948).**

(16) Printing as defined in section 2(k) (iv) of the Factories Act,
1948 (63 of 1948).**

(17) Cashew and cashewnut desaling and processing.**

(18) Soldering processes in electronic industries.**

*Inserted by notification No. SO. 404 (E) dated 5th June, 1989
published in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary.

**Inserted by notification No. SO.263 (E) dated 29th March, 1994
published in Gazette of India, Extraordinary.

1 All names have been changed.

2 All dollar amounts refer to U.S. dollars.

3 The estimate of fifteen million bonded child laborers is
conservative. Anti-Slavery International reported in 1991 that India
had fifteen million bonded child laborers working in agriculture
alone. Anti-Slavery International, Children in Bondage: Slaves of the
Subcontinent (London: 1991), p. 30. Given that agriculture accounts
for approximately 52 to 87 percent of all bonded child laborers (see
chapter on agriculture), there could be millions more working in non-
agricultural occupations. "Indians form panel to stop child labor,"
United Press International, November 18, 1994. Other activists and
academics estimate that one quarter of all working children, that is,
between fifteen and twenty-nine million, are bonded laborers. Based on
these and other coinciding estimates, Human Rights Watch considers
fifteen million to be a reliable minimum indicator of the prevalence
of bonded child labor in India.

4 The United Nations Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of
Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to
Slavery, 1956, defines debt bondage as "the status or condition
arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or those of
a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of
those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the
liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are
not respectively limited and defined." It should be noted that many
Indian activists consider all child labor to be a form of bondage,
given the child's powerlessness and inability to freely choose to
work. This report, however, considers bonded child labor to be that
which conforms to the definition of the U.N. Supplementary
Convention.

5 Between $15 and $220, at the late 1995 exchange rate of thirty-four
rupees to the U.S. dollar.

6 Iqbal Masih was shot and killed on April 16, 1995. Initially blamed
on the carpet industrialists of Pakistan, the murder was later
attributed to a villager whom Masih reportedly discovered involved in
an illicit act.

7 See chapter on handwoven carpets.

8 Neera Burra, Born to Work: Child Labour in India (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1995), p. xxii.

9 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-95 (New Delhi: Government of
India, 1995), p. 95. The actual quote is: "Out of India's total
workforce of 314 million, about 80% (249 million) are in rural areas.
About 64% of the workers (200 million) are engaged in agriculture.
About 85% of the workers (267 million) are self-employed or on casual
wages. Only about 15% (47 million) have regular salaried employment."

10 Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, Part I,
Section 2(ii).

11 There is no universal definition of a child under Indian law. The
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, the Minimum Wages
Act, 1948, the Plantation Labour Act, 1951, the Apprentices Act, 1961,
and Article 24 of the Indian Constitution define "child" as any person
under the age of fourteen. The Shops and Establishments Act, 1961
allows the definition to be set by the states and in thirteen states,
the minimum age is twelve, and in eleven states, the minimum age is
fourteen. The Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, 1993 defines a child
as anyone below the age of fifteen. The Juvenile Justice Act, 1986
defines "juveniles" as any male under sixteen or any female under
eighteen.

12 Bonded child labor is convenient, cheap, compliant, and dependable.
It depresses wages. It is easily replenishable. Bonded labor among
both adults and children is not a new phenomenon in India. It is an
old arrangement, and a convenient one for the lucky top layers of
privilege. Those who have the power to change this arrangement are, by
all measures, uninterested in doing so.

13 United Front Coalition's Economic Program, presented June 6, 1996,
pp. 3-4. From MakroIndia Business Page sponsored by Amrok Securities
Private Limited at www.macroindia.com/hlight1.htm.

14 See Human Rights Watch/Asia, Contemporary Forms of Slavery in
Pakistan (New York: Human Rights Watch, July 1995); Anti-Slavery
International, Children in Bondage: Slaves of the Subcontinent
(London: Anti-Slavery International, 1991); INSEC, Bonded Labour in
Nepal under Kamaiya System (Kathmandu: INSEC, 1992); and Report of the
Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery (18th Session, June
1993), UN DOC E/CN.4/1993/67.

15 Asia Watch and Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project, A Modern
Form of Slavery: Trafficking of Women and Girls into Brothels in
Thailand (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993); Americas Watch, "Forced
Labor in Brazil Revisited," vol. 5, no. 12, November, 1993; Middle
East Watch and Human Rights Watch Women's Rights Project, "Rape and
Mistreatment of Asian Maids in Kuwait," vol. 4, no. 8, July 1992;
Americas Watch, The Struggle for Land in Brazil: Rural Violence
Continues (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1992); Americas Watch,
"Forced Labor in Brazil," vol. 2, no. 8, December 1990; and National
Coalition for Haitian Refugees, Americas Watch, and Caribbean Rights,
Harvesting Oppression: Forced Haitian Labor in the Dominican Sugar
Industry (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1990).

16 Human Rights Watch/Asia, Rape for Profit: Trafficking of Nepali
Girls and Women to India's Brothels (New York: Human Rights Watch,
June 1995).

17 All dollar amounts in this report are in U.S. dollars.

18 Pradeep Mehta, "Cashing in on Child Labor," Multinational Monitor,
April 1994.

19 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-95, p. 95.

20 K. Mahajan and J. Gathia, Child Labour: An Analytical Study (New
Delhi: Centre of Concern for Child Labour, 1992), p. 25. Citing the
Indian Council for Child Welfare, Mahajan and Gathia report that
"slavery is on the increase among children below the age of 15 years."
Gathia also notes, in another study, that the number of children in
India who will not be in school by 2000 may be as high as 144 million,
indicating there may be tens of millions more child laborers in India
by 2000. (See: Child Labour Action Network (CLAN), Political Campaign
for Compulsory Primary Education (New Delhi: Child Labour Action
Network, 1996), p. 2.

21 Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade, Child
Labour in India: A Perspective, June 10, 1995, p. 32.

22 In 1984, the Operations Research Group-Baroda, an independent
research organization based in Baroda and Madras, estimated there were
forty-four million child laborers in India. Taking into account
population growth and employment trends, that figure would be
approximately sixty million in 1995. Another frequently cited figure
is one hundred million child laborers, a number that corresponds to
the government's estimate of all non-school-going children, who are
assumed to be working more than eight hours a day. Peace Trust and
Bhagwati Environment Development Institute, From the South, vol. 2,
no. 1, January-March 1995, p. 1. Anti-Slavery International confirmed
this estimate of 115 million in a telephone interview on August 14,
1996. Official government figures on the working child population, on
the other hand, are based on the 1981 census and are absurdly
inaccurate, with the government claiming there are only about
seventeen million child laborers. (See chapter on the role of the
Indian government.) A 1994 report by the Indian government's
Department of Women and Child Development, the Indian Council for
Child Welfare, and UNICEF-India concluded that "the number of working
children is closer to 90 million than the figure of 20 million assumed
by the government." Department of Women and Child Development, Indian
Council for Child Welfare, and UNICEF, India Country Office, "Rights
of the Child: Report of a National Consultation," November 21-23,
1994.

23 There are no accurate statistics that give the number of street
children in India. In 1983, the Operations Research Group stated that
there were forty-four million working children in India of which
eleven million were street children. This number must be considered
significantly low, given the fact that the study is now thirteen years
old. The government of India's 1991 Census estimated that eighteen
million children live and work in India's urban slums (huts,
tenements, pavement dwellings), which by the nature of their residence
and the fact that they were considered working, qualified them as
street children. The estimated population of India's street children
is between eleven to eighteen million, based on the Operations
Research Group's 1983 estimate and the 1991 Census estimate.

24 Peace Trust and Bhagwati Environment Development Institute, From
the South, Vo. 2, No. 1, January-March 1995, p. 1.

25 At a non-formal education center run during the evenings (as are
most, to accommodate the work schedules of the children), Human Rights
Watch asked one group of working children what they did for fun. The
boys perked up and rattled off a variety of activities: playing with
friends, going to the movies, riding a bicycle. The girls, however,
were puzzled by the question. Finally a teacher stepped in to explain:
the girls do not have the opportunity to do anything for fun; when
they are not working for wages or against a loan, they are working for
the family.

26 Mahajan and Gathia, Child Labour..., September, 1992, p. 24.

27 Human Rights Watch interview with social activist, November 21,
1995, Madras, Tamil Nadu. Advances in the beedi industry of Tamil Nadu
range from 500 to 5,000 rupees. These figures were confirmed by Human
Rights Watch interviews with dozens of bonded child beedi rollers.

28 There are an estimated 327,000 child workers in the beedi industry
(Burra, Born to Work p. xxiv); 300,000 child carpet weavers (Mehta.,
"Cashing in on Child Labor..."); and more than 200,000 children
working in silk weaving (see chapter on silk for details and
citations).

29 According to a 1991 study of child labor in India, these training
centers include "many [children] well below age fourteen." The manager
of one government program claimed that a ban on child labor in the
carpet industry would be "suicidal" for exports. See Myron Weiner, The
Child and the State in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1991), p. 86

30 Tanika Sarkar, "Bondage in the Colonial Context," Patnaik and
Manjari Dingwaney, eds., Chains of Servitude: Bondage and Slavery in
India (New Delhi: Sangam Books, 1985), p. 97.

31 See generally Uma Chakravarti, "Of Dasas and Karmakaras: Servile
Labour in Ancient India," Chains of Servitude . . .

32 Manjari Dingwaney, "Unredeemed Promises: The Law and Servitude,"
Chains of Servitude . . ., pp. 312-313.

33 For example: "The children were frequently beaten with iron
rods . . . and wounded with scissors . . ., if they were slow in work,
or if they asked for adequate food, or if they so much as went to the
toilet without the owner's permission." Appendix XV, "Reports on Child
Labour of Mirzapur," Law Relating to the Employment of Children
(1985), p. 160. Another report detailed a woman's attempt to rescue
her youngest son after his brother died on the job in a carpet-weaving
factory; the employer of her son threatened to kill the boy if she
attempted to meet him. "Bonded labourers' mothers want to see PM,"
Times of India, August 14, 1995.

34 Y. R. Haragopal Reddy, Bonded Labour System in India (New Delhi:
Deep and Deep Publications, 1995), p. 82. Similar incidents took place
across India in the mid-1980s. See, e.g., Ajoy Kumar, "From Slavery to
Freedom: The Tale of Chattisgarh Bonded Labourers," Indian Social
Institute, 1986, p. 8, reporting that bonded agricultural laborers who
attended meetings with labor activists were publicly beaten and driven
from their homes.

35 Human Rights Watch interview with rural activist, Dec. 13, 1995,
Rajasthan.

36 R. K Misra., Preliminary Report on the Child Labour in the Saree
Industry of Varanasi, Human Rights Cell, Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi, 1995, p. 13.

37 Convention on the Suppression of Slave Trade and Slavery, signed at
Geneva, September 25, 1926; Protocol Amended the Slavery Convention,
signed at Geneva, September 25, 1926, with annex, done at, New York,
December 7, 1953, entered into force, December 7, 1953. A slave is
someone "over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of
ownership are exercised." Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of
Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to
Slavery, done at Geneva, September 7, 1956; entered into force, April
30, 1957 (Supplementary Convention).

38 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery.

39 Ibid.

40 Forced Labour Convention (No. 29), 1930, adopted at Geneva, June
28, 1930, as modified by the Final Articles Revision Convention,
adopted at Montreal, October 9, 1946.

41 International Labour Organisation, Conventions and Recommendations
1919-1966 (Geneva: ILO, 1966), p. 891. The ILO also passed the
Abolition of Forced Labour Convention (No. 105) in 1957; India,
however, chose not to sign this convention.

42 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A. Res.
2200 (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16), U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966)
(entered into force March 23, 1976).

43 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
G.A. Res. 2200 (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16), U.N. Doc. A/6316
(entered into force January 3, 1976).

44 Convention on the Rights of the Child, G.A. Res. 44/125, U.N. GAOR,
44th Session, Supp. No. 49, U.N. Doc. A/44/736 (1989) (entered into
force September 2, 1990).

45 Ibid. India ratified the Convention subject to a reservation that
these economic and social rights will be "progressively implemented,"
"subject to the extent of available resources."

46 Ibid.

47 See chapter on carpets; see also Human Rights Watch/Asia, Rape for
Profit: Trafficking of Nepali Girls and Women to India's Brothels
(Human Rights Watch: New York, 1995).

48 Convention on the Rights of the Child, G.A. Res. 44/125, U.N. GAOR,
44th Session, Supp. No. 49, U.N. Doc. A/44/736 (1989) (entered into
force September 2, 1990).

49 See S. K. Singh, Bonded Labour and the Law (New Delhi: Deep and
Deep Publications, 1994), pp. 48-51.

50 People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India [Asiad
Workers' Case], AIR 1982 S.C. 1473, paragraph 1486.

51 Ibid., paragraph 1490. For a discussion of Supreme Court decisions
affecting bonded labourers, see Y. R. Haragopal Reddy, Bonded Labour
System in India (New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications, 1995), ch. 4.

52 People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India, (1982) 3
SCC 235, paragraphs 259-260.

53 Neeraja Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 3 SCC 243, paragraph
255 (1984).

54 "No child below the age of fourteen years shall be employed to work
in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment."
Constitution of India, Article 24.

55 Consequently, post-act social action litigation on behalf of bonded
laborers is brought under both the Bonded Labour System (Abolition)
Act and the Constitution of India. For a discussion of cases see
Reddy, Bonded Labour System in India, ch. 4.

56 The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, Sec. 4, 5, 6, and
14. See Appendix for full text.

57 Ibid., Sec. 16. The maximum penalties for a first-time offender
under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act are weaker
than the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act in terms of potential
length of incarceration (one year), but significantly stronger in
terms of monetary punishment (ten to twenty thousand rupees). See the
Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, Sec. 14 (1).

58 Ibid., Sec. 2(1)(I)(a) and (b). Because no minimum wages have been
set by the government for children's work, the second prong of this
definition applies. See also People's Union for Democratic Rights v.
Union of India, (1982) 3 SCC 235, paragraphs 259-260, in which the
Supreme Court ruled that "where a person provides labour or service to
another for remuneration which is less than minimum wage, the labour
or service provided by him clearly falls within the scope and ambit of
the word `forced labour'..." All forms of forced labor are forbidden
under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.

59 "It shall be the duty of every District Magistrate and every
officer specified by him under Sec. 10 to inquire whether after the
commencement of this act, any bonded labour system or any other form
of forced labour is being enforced by, or on behalf of, any person
resident within the local limits of his jurisdiction and if, as a
result of such inquiry, any person is found to be enforcing the bonded
labour system or any other system of forced labour, he shall forthwith
take such action as may be necessary to eradicate the enforcement of
such forced labour." Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, Sec.
12.

60 Human Rights Watch interview with Mirzapur District Collector Mr.
Bachittar Singh, December 19, 1995, Mirzapur. A 1994 study describing
the multifarious duties of district magistrates notes that "[n]o
district magistrate can properly perform all the assignments given to
him." See also S. K. Singh, Bonded Labour and the Law, p. 124-125,
142, 147.

61 Ibid., Sec. 11 requires the district magistrate to "as far as
practicable, try to promote the welfare of the freed bonded labourer
by securing and protecting the economic interest of such bonded
labourer so that he may not have any occasion or reason to contract
any further bonded debt."

62 Ibid., Sec. 14.

63 Reddy, Bonded Labour System in India, p. 163.

64 Ibid., citing, inter alia, Lr. No. Y-11011/4/84-BL, dated February
14, 1986, Director General (Labour Welfare), Ministry of Labour,
Government of India.

65 Ibid., p.166.

66 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-1995, p.97.

67 The Children (Pledging of Labour) Act, 1933, Sec. 2. "Child" is a
person less than fifteen years old.

68 Ibid., Sec. 4 - 6.

69 Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, Part I,
Section 2(ii).

70 The twenty-five occupations and industries where child labor is
prohibited are: beedi-making; carpet-weaving; cement manufacture;
cloth printing, dyeing and weaving; manufacture of matches, explosives
and fireworks; mica-cutting and splitting; shellac manufacture; soap
manufacture; tanning; wool-cleaning; the building and construction
industry; manufacture of slate pencils; manufacture of agate products;
manufacturing processes using toxic metals and substances; "hazardous
processes" as defined by the Factories Act, Sec. 87; printing as
defined by the Factories Act, Sec. 2; cashew and cashewnut processing;
soldering processes in electronic industries, railway transportation;
cinder picking, ashpit clearing or building operations in railway
premises; vending operations at railway stations; work on ports; sale
of firecracker and fireworks; and work in slaughter houses. Child
Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, Part II (Prohibition of
employment of children in certain occupations and processes), Sec. 3,
Schedules A and B; as amended by Government Notification Nos. No.SO
404(E) (June 5, 1989) and No. SO. 263(E) (March 29, 1994).

71 Myron Weiner, The Child and the State in India (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1991), pp. 80-81.

72 Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade, Child
Labour in India..., p. 40.

73 Ibid.

74 The prevalence of corruption among factory and labor inspectors and
other charged with enforcing child labor laws was confirmed to Human
Rights Watch by multiple sources, including an official of the
national government. See also Commission on Labour Standards, Child
Labour in India... , p. 40.

75 The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, Sec. 3.

76 See chapter on handwoven carpets.

77 Ibid., Sec. 10.

78 According to R. V. Pillai, the Secretary General of the National
Human Rights Commission (NHRC), there is frequent collusion between
medical officers of the government and employers of child labor, who
bribe the medical officers in order to obtain certificates stating the
children working for them are above the age of fourteen. Secretary
General Pillai stated that some medical officers are "notorious" for
engaging in these acts, to the extent that the NHRC has recommended to
some district magistrates that they file criminal charges against
corrupt medical officers. Human Rights Watch interview with Secretary
General Pillai, December 28, 1995, New Delhi.

79 "No child who has not completed his fourteenth year shall be
required or allowed to work in any factory." The Factories Act, 1948,
Sec. 67.

80 Ibid., Sec. 2(m)(I) and (ii).

81 To get around this restriction, factory owners have been known to
"partition their premises and isolate the areas where work is being
done with power." See Burra, Born to Work, p. 75.

82 According to Burra: "In order to evade the Factories Act, ninety
per cent of the units show that they have less than nine workers. In
some factories I visited, I noticed around fifty workers. But when I
asked the employer, he said there were only eight people working
there!" Ibid., p. 136.

83 The Scheduled Castes and The Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of
Atrocities) Act, 1989, Section 3(1).

84 The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and
Conditions of Service) Act, 1979, ch. II - ch. VI.

85 The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, Sec. 6,
10, and 64.

86 Campaign Against Child Labour (CACL), "Reference Kit on Child
Labour for Media Persons," January 1995.

87 All testimonies in this report are from children interviewed by
Human Rights Watch researchers in November and December, 1995, except
where otherwise noted. All names have been changed.

88 "50,000 cr beedies consumed annually," Indian Express, February 1,
1995. One crore, abbreviated as "cr," is equal to ten million.

89 Ibid.

90 Burra, Born to Work, p. xxiv. Another account estimates 248,000
child beedi workers in Tamil Nadu. See R. Vidyasagar,"A Status Report
on Child Labour in Tamil Nadu," Madras, 1995, p. 8.

91 "Children shall be free," The Hindu, September 24, 1995; "50,000 cr
beedies consumed annually," Indian Express, February 1, 1995.

92 "Ragi" is a type of grain, commonly given to South Indian
agricultural laborers instead of cash wages. See R. Vidyasagar, "Debt
Bondage in South Arcot District: A Case Study of Agricultural
Labourers and Handloom Weavers," Chains of Servitude, p. 146.

93 L. R. Jagadheesan, "Whole families are pledged for paltry sums,"
Indian Express, April 25, 1995.

94 The minimum wage for beedi rolling varies from state to state. The
wage is slightly lower in Karnataka than in Tamil Nadu, while in the
neighboring state of Kerala it is significantly higher, at forty-two
rupees per thousand beedi rolled. "50,000 cr beedies consumed
annually," Indian Express, February 1, 1995. The minimum wage does not
apply to children, but is a good indicator of the market value of
labor, and non-bonded children in the beedi industry appeared to be
receiving wages comparable to the government-set minimum wage. Many
activists and some government officials are pressing for legal reform
to apply the same minimum wage to adults and children, on the grounds
that such a move would decrease child labor and increase adult
employment.

95 This wage is actually 3.65 rupees more than the government set
minimum wage for beedi rolling (30.90 rupees per 1,000 beedies).
Regardless of whether adults or children roll beedies, they are paid
the same on a piece-rate basis. The only wage differentials
occurbetween bonded and non-bonded beedi rollers. This indicates that
there would be no significant difference between adult and child wages
when bondage is not a factor or when payment is solely based on
production (piece-rate) which is a very common way of paying people in
informal occupations where the majority of Indians, children and
adults, work. There are other examples of this. For example, in
stainless steel factories in Madras, adults and children receive the
same piece-rate wages. In Pakistan, where bonded labor is also
endemic, adults and children have been paid on the same piece-rate
basis in the country's soccer ball industry. These findings call into
question a commonly held tenet about child labor: that children's
wages depress adult wages in the same industry and that removing
children from work would automatically lead to an increase in adult
wages. In addition, Neera Burra notes that the piece-rate wage
structure in home-based, informal work actually provides an incentive
to use children, as their help increases the production, which in-turn
provides a higher family income, and says "Unless the issue of home-
based, piece-rate workers is resolved and minimum wages and social
security provided to this sector, children will continue to be
exploited." See Burra, Born to Work, p. 255. Removing children from
employment would not necessarily result in raising adult wages unless
the problems of piece-rate wages and other forms of payment based
solely on productivity are addressed as well.

96 Human Rights Watch interview with longtime social welfare activist,
November 21, 1995, Madras.

97 Jacob Varghese, "Freedom at Mid-Day," Worldvision: A Worldvision of
India Magazine, Monsoon 1993, p. 6-7.

98 National Children's Day in India is celebrated on November 14, the
birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the founding fathers and the
first prime minister of India.

99 Human Rights Watch interview with social welfare activist, November
21, 1995, Madras.

100 Ibid.

101 Vidyasagar,"A Status Report...," p. 9.

102 Ibid. Vidyasagar cites a study of one beedi manufacturing village
that found 25 percent of all beedi rollers to have tuberculosis.

103 Human Rights Watch interviews, North Arcot district, Tamil Nadu,
November 25, 1995.

104 Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966, Sec.
2(I).

105 Asha Krishnakumar, "Reprehensible by any name: Children in beedi
industry," Frontline (Madras), November 17, 1995, p. 87.

106 Vidyasagar, "Status Report...," p. 8.

107 Local government authorities estimate there are 45,000 bonded
child laborers in the North Arcot district alone, most working in the
beedi industry. "Child Labour Abolition Support Scheme (A proposal
submitted to the International Labour Organisation)," North Arcot
Ambedkar District, 1995, p. 1. An estimated 30,000 bonded children
work in the beedi industry in North Arcot. See Vidyasagar, "A Status
Report...," p. 8. Unlike most beedi-producing areas, where 90 percent
of the workers are women and children, North Arcot district has a
significant percentage of adult male beedi workers. Vidyasagar
attributes the high rate of bondage in North Arcot to the presence of
men workers in the same industry, hypothesizing that "men use
children's labour to augment their income by keeping them under
bondage by paying low wages." Ibid.

108 "Child labour census in Tamil Nadu district," The Hindu, April 28,
1995.

109 "Child Labour Abolition Support Scheme (A proposal submitted to
the International Labour Organisation)," North Arcot Ambedkar
District, 1995, p. 8.

110 Ibid. pp. 1, 8-12, and 25.

111 Human Rights Watch interview with North Arcot District Collector
M. P. Vijaykumar, November 27, 1995, Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

112 Depending on the circumstances of the case, a bondmaster could be
charged under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, the Child
Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, or the Factories Act. As of
1995, the collector had initiated a limited number of prosecutions
under all three laws, including a handful of cases against parents who
had bonded their children. Human Rights Watch interview with North
Arcot District Collector M. P. Vijaykumar, November 27, 1995, Vellore,
Tamil Nadu; "Project Proposal for Community-Based Convergent
Services," North Arcot Ambedkar District, June, 1995, p. 15 Most
activists agree that prosecution of parents is misguided. Among
prosecuted employers, as of December 1995 the collector had not aimed
for prison sentences, but instead sought only modest fines.

113 North Arcot Ambedkar District, "Child Labour Abolition Support
Scheme (CLASS)," Proposal submitted to International Labour
Organisation, 1995, p. 10.

114 Reddy, Bonded Labour System in India, p. 56.

115 Human Rights Watch interview with North Arcot District Collector
M. P. Vijaykumar, November 27, 1995, Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

116 Vidyasagar, "A Status Report ...," p.9.

117 The "silver" referred to throughout this discussion is not pure
silver, but a blend of silver and lesser metals.

118 The figure of 100,000 working children in Salem is based on a
social scientist's finding that Salem district accounts for 10.93
percent of all child workers in the state of Tamil Nadu, and the 1981
census figures of 975,055 working children, below the age of fourteen,
in Tamil Nadu. See Vidyasagar, "A Status Report...," pp. 2 -3. Based
on more reliable statistics and analyses, however, Vidyasagar himself
estimates that there are four million working children in Tamil Nadu,
which would indicate about 400,000 child laborers in Salem district
alone. Ibid., p. 5.

119 Ibid., p. 14.

120 Human Rights Watch interview with the chief of a village near
Salem, Tamil Nadu, November 30, 1995.

121 Background information on the silver industry of Salem was
provided during a Human Rights Watch interview with staff members of a
local nongovernmental organization, November 30, 1995. It requested
anonymity in order to avoid possible repercussions against its
programs or staff.

122 Human Rights Watch interview with a social worker who works with
the children in this industry, Salem, November 28, 1995.

123 Human Rights Watch interview with a small-scale silver smithy
owner who, at the time of the interview, had three bonded children
working, Salem, November 30, 1995.

124 See chapter on applicable law.

125 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Project Officer J. L.
Poland, December 1, 1995, Salem, Tamil Nadu. The district government's
goal was to establish twenty such schools, with one hundred working
children in each.

126 Ibid. Instead of prosecuting, the office is employing a
"cooperative approach" and "working with the companies [that employ
child laborers]," according to the project officer. A local activist
put this another way. "He [the district collector] is collaborating
with the big mill and factory owners.... They [government officials]
will never worry about the welfare of the child labourers." Human
Rights Watch interview, November 30, 1995.

127 Ibid.

128 Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour in Tamilnadu, submitted
to the Supreme Court for Supreme Court Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of
1985. October 31, 1995, Madras, Tamil Nadu, p. 75.

129 Vidyasagar, "A Status Report...," p. 12.

130 Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour in Tamilnadu, p. 76.
Those few gem workers who are not scheduled caste members are members
of lower castes.

131 "A training centre on synthetic diamonds production," The Free
Press Journal, January 16, 1996.

132 Ibid.

133 Ibid.

134 Ibid.

135 There have been several other problems with this initiative.
According to the director of a local social welfare organization, the
new machines, which the government encouraged people to buy, were very
expensive (valued at 8,000 rupees each) and were sold to participants
by government agents at an inflated price (up to 16,000 rupees each).
These purchases were financed by bank loans set up with government
assistance, and buyers were then saddled with long-term bank debts. A
second problem was over saturation of the market as a direct result of
the gem park scheme. More than 6,000 people bought these machines and
were trained to use them. Many of these buyers were entering into the
industry for the first time, enticed by government promises of steady
earnings. With more and more American diamonds being produced, a glut
in the market soon developed. Within a year, many of the machines
stood idle, their owners having defaulted on the loans and begun
looking for other means of income generation. Another accusation
against the program is that the training process has been inadequate,
with the result that some participants never even learned how to use
their machines. Some machines, then, were idle from the start. That
the production glut happened anyway underscores an even greater
potential for market flooding.

136 Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour in Tamilnadu, p. 76.

137 There are five distinct stages of gem production: slicing,
shaping, preforming, faceting, and polishing. Each of these stages
requires minute and sustained attention to detail. Report of the
Commission on Bonded Labour in Tamilnadu, p. 75.

138 Vidyasagar, "A Status Report...," p.13, citing eye specialist Dr.
Jaiswal. According to Dr. Jaiswal, eyeglasses are not usually required
by the general population until after the age of thirty-five.

139 "Silk Exports May Fall 20 Percent," Business Line, March 7, 1996.

140 Ibid.

141 "Indo-German Trade Surges By 20% to DM 8.17 Billion," Business
Standard, June 12, 1996.

142 See Sanjay Sinha, The Development of Indian Silk: A Wealth of
Opportunities (New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd.,
1990), p. 46-47, 56-59; government subsidies as of 1990 totaled $20
million annually; The Hindu, "Sericulture project for 7 more
districts," November 21, 1995, p. 5. The article reported that World
Bank funding of sericulture projects would continue and the annual
production of silk was expected to more than double by end of eight-
year project. "Sericulture" refers to the culture of the silkworm.

143 "Silk Exports May Fall 20 Percent," Business Line, March 7, 1996.

144 Public Interest Research Group, The World Bank and India (New
Delhi: Public Interest Research Group, 1994), p. 81.

145 Ibid., p. 82.

146 "Karnataka to Have 7 Integrated Silk Growth Centres," Business
Line, January 31, 1996; "Silk-Mixed Fare on the Cards for the Future,"
Economic Times, February 3, 1996.

147 The World Bank, India-UP Diversified Agriculture Support Project
(DASP), Project Identification Number INPA35824, Proposal Date: March,
1995.

148 The World Bank, Working With NGOs (Washington D.C.: The World
Bank, 1994), p.5.

149 There is also a significant amount of bonded child labor in the
silk powerloom industry, with at least 35,000 bonded children working
the powerlooms of Tamil Nadu alone. This area demands further
investigation and action on the part of government authorities, but is
beyond the scope of the present report.

150 Human Rights Watch interview with researcher R. Vidyasagar,
November 17, 1995, Madras; Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour
in Tamilnadu, October 31, 1995, Madras, submitted in connection with
Supreme Court Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of 1985, p. 73; R.K. Misra,
Preliminary Report on the Child Labour in the Saree Industry of
Varanasi, Human Rights Cell, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, 1995,
p. 10.

151 Misra, Child Labour in the Saree Industry of Varanasi, p. 3.

152 Human Rights Watch interview with director of government cocoon
market, December 7, 1995, Magadi, Karnataka.

153 No systematic study has been undertaken on child labor in the silk
industry of Karnataka. Nonetheless, a detailed study of one Taluk
(subdivision of a district) near Bangalore found 10,000 bonded child
silk workers in that Taluk alone. Based on this figure,an overall
estimate of 100,000 is conservative.

154 Sinha, The Development of Indian Silk: A Wealth of Opportunities
(New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co. Pvt. Ltd., 1990), p. 11.

155 Ibid., p. 31.

156 Ibid. at 31.

157 Memorandum to Human Rights Watch from author Rudi Rotthier and
photographer Marleen Daniels, November 1, 1995 (Rotthier/Daniels
memorandum).

158 Human Rights Watch interviews, December 6, 1995, Ramanagaram,
Karnataka.

159 Results of a 1995 survey conducted by social service organization
in Magadi Taluk, rural Bangalore District, Karnataka.

160 Rotthier/Daniels memorandum.

161 Human Rights Watch interview with social activist, December 7,
1995, rural Bangalore district.

162 Human Rights Watch witnessed many children working in the twining
factories and spoke with several of them briefly, usually in view of
their employers. We were unable to gain access to the children in a
setting more secure and conducive for interviews. Instead, we relied
largely on information provided by a local social welfare
organization. Although the particulars of these three testimonies were
confirmed repeatedly by our own conversations and observations, the
testimonies themselves were recorded by this organization and not by
Human Rights Watch.

163 Rotthier/Daniels memorandum.

164 Sinha, The Development of Indian Silk, p. 63.

165 A researcher who undertook a detailed study of the industry
reported that girls who work in the silk factories tend to have
irregular and very painful menstrual periods, and may suffer other
reproductive problems. Human Rights Watch interview with social
activist in a village in Rural Bangalore district, Karnataka, December
7, 1995. A female leather worker interviewed in Ambur, Tamil Nadu,
reported the same phenomenon in the shoe factories of that town. To
Human Rights Watch's knowledge, there has been no effort by the
government to investigate these or other health problems experienced
by working children.

166 Ibid.

167 Human Rights Watch interview with researcher R. Vidyasagar, Nov.
17, 1995, Madras; Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour in
Tamilnadu, Oct. 31, 1995, Madras, submitted in connection with Supreme
Court Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of 1985, p. 76.

168 Misra, Preliminary Report on the Child Labour, p. 8.

169 Sinha, Development of Indian Silk, p. 34.

170 On November 24-25, 1995, Human Rights Watch interviewed forty
people in four of the Kanchipuram area regarding the use of bonded
child labor in the silk handloom industry. Most of those interviewed
were bonded child laborers; others were parents of working children,
non-bonded child workers, owners, employers, and agents. Except where
otherwise noted, all information regarding the practices of the
Kanchipuram silk industry was obtained during these interviews. All
information regarding the practices of the Varanasi silk industry is
from Misra, Preliminary Report on the Child Labour, except where
otherwise noted.

171 Human Rights Watch interview with researcher R. Vidyasagar, Nov.
17, 1995, Madras, Tamil Nadu.

172 Misra, Preliminary Report on the Child Labour, p. 8.

173 Misra, Preliminary Report on the Child Labour, p. 11.

174 Ibid., p. 30.

175 Ibid., pp. 10-11.

176 One wealthy employer told Human Rights Watch researchers, in an
interview in Kanchipuram on November 23, 1995, that he has suffered
losses totaling 200,000 rupees because of children running away. While
he declined to specify how many children ran away or over what period
of time this loss occurred, this figure is a clear indicator of the
desperate conditions and deep suffering of the bonded child laborer's
life.

177 B.N. Juyal, Child Labour: The Twice Exploited (Varanasi: Gandhian
Institute of Studies, 1985).

178 Jagaran, Dec. 14, 1994 (cited by Misra, Preliminary Report on the
Child Labour, p. 5).

179 Ibid.

180 Misra, Preliminary Report on the Child Labour, p. 47.

181 "Thousands of persons are committing offenses under this act every
year. However not one person is known to have been convicted in
Varanasi." Ibid., p. 44. Nor have there been any convictions in the
Kanchipuram area.

182 See chapter on applicable law.

183 Human Rights Watch interview with North Arcot District Collector
M. P. Vijaykumar, Nov. 27, 1995, Vellore, Tamil Nadu; Misra,
Preliminary Report on the Child Labour, p. 42.

184 Human Rights Watch interview with director of government cocoon
market, Dec. 7, 1995, Magadi, Bangalore Rural District, Karnataka.

185 Sinha, Development of Indian Silk, pp. 47, 57.

186 "By the Skin of Its Teeth - Indian Leather Industry," Financial
Express Investment Week, August 9, 1995; "Indian Shoe Manufacturers
Increased Exports Rs. 9.14 Bil in 1994-95, Compared With Rs. 5.23 Bil
in 1992-93," Reuters, March 27, 1996.

187 Prakash Mahtani, Chairman of the Council for Leather Exports,
predicted exports valuing seven billion dollars by the year 2000.
Sharika Muthu, Times of India, Shoe Fair Supplement, "Global Giants
Stepping into Indian Shoes," Oct. 17, 1994.

188 The Factories Act, 1948, Sec. 2(m)(i) and (ii); The Child Labour
(Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, Sec. 3. (The act does not
apply to workshops where occupier is assisted by family).

189 See chapter on the role of the government.

190 Based on our observations of the Bombay leather shoe industry,
girl workers comprise approximately 5 percent of the child workers
overall.

191 Human Rights Watch interview with local resident and shoemaker,
January 16, 1996, Bombay.

192 A small percentage of the boys are brought in from Uttar Pradesh
and other parts of Maharashtra. These children make wooden heels for
shoes, while the children from Rajasthan make the leather sandals
known as chappals. Times of India, "Children toil for 12 hours in
chappal units," February 12, 1996.

193 The information on Rajasthani shoemaking communities was gathered
during several Human Rights Watch interviews in villages near
Viratnagar, Rajasthan, Dec. 13-14, 1995.

194 At the same time, their daughters are being forced into carpet-
weaving. See chapter on carpets.

195 Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, Sec. 2(1)(g)(I)(1).

196 Ibid., Sec. 2(1)(I)(a) and (b). Because no minimum wages have been
set by the government for children's work, the second prong of this
definition applies.

197 People's Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India, (1982) 3
SCC 235, paragraphs 259-260.

198 Times of India, "Children toil for 12 hours in chappal units,"
February 12, 1996.

199 According to the Ministry of Labour, 84.98 percent of child labor
is in agriculture. Ministry of Labour, Government of India, "Children
and Work," produced for Workshop of District Collectors/District Heads
on "Elimination of Child Labour in Hazardous Occupation," New Delhi,
September 13-14, 1995, p. 3. For statistics on bonded child laborers,
see Burra, Born to Work..., pp. 32-33, the range is so great because
no definitive study has been undertaken to determine the number of
bonded child laborers in agriculture. The 85 percent of all bonded
laborers was confirmed by Anti-Slavery International in a telephone
interview with Human Rights Watch on August 14, 1996; but like other
statistics on bonded and child labor, no comprehensive survey has been
taken to document this.

200 Dalit groups have largely rejected the terms "untouchable" and
"harijan" (children of God) to describe their communities. They are
also referred to as "scheduled castes," a term which like "scheduled
tribes" refers to groups designated on a schedule attached to the
Indian Constitution as entitled to special consideration, including
some quotas for educational and career opportunities, in recognition
of their historically disadvantaged status. Many, if not the majority
of India's bonded laborers are members of the Dalit communities, or
are "scheduled tribes"-indigenous tribal people, also known as
adivasi. However, in some industries, Dalits occupy positions other
than bonded laborers. In the silk industry, for example, some loom-
owners and weavers are also Dalits.

201 See for example, A.R. Desai, ed. Repression and Resistance in
India, (Bombay: Popular Prakashan Private Ltd., 1990).

202 All interviews by Human Rights Watch, December 9, 1995, Anekal
Taluk, Bangalore Rural District.

203 Kiran Kamal Prasad, "Bonded Labour in Anekal Taluk, Bangalore
Urban District, Karnataka" (Guddhati village: Self published, March
12, 1991), p.4.

204 Ibid.

205 Government of India, 8th Five Year Plan: 1992-1997 (New Delhi:
Cosmos Bookhive (P) Ltd., 1992), pp. 64-65.

206 Kiran Kamal Prasad, "Bonded Labour in Karnataka," (Bangalore: Self
published, 1995), p. 4.

207 Ibid.

208 Ibid.

209 Ministry of Labour statistics on bonded labour are cumulative
totals. For a further discussion of these statistics and their
methodology, see below.

210 Kiran Kamal Prasad, "Bonded Labour...", p. 3.

211 Ibid, p. 2.

212 "23 Children Rescued from Bondage," The Statesman, January 26,
1996.

213 Pradeep Mehta, "Cashing in on Child Labor."

214 Ela Dutt, "Rug Firms With No Child Labor Need Help," India Abroad,
February 3, 1995.

215 See Hamish McDonald "Boys of bondage: Child labour, though banned,
is rampant," Far Eastern Economic Review, July 9, 1992, p. 19 (with
arrival of Nepali children, including girls, reports of sexual abuse
and rape increasing).

216 "Mirzapur Carpets - Taking Exports to a New High," Economic Times,
June 10, 1996.

217 Since 1994, the carpet industry has been experiencing a decline in
terms of global market share. It declined to a 17 percent share of the
global market in 1995, from 21 percent in 1994. Most reports attribute
this to increased competition from China and Iran. "Hand-Knotted
Carpet Units Losing Out to China, Iran," Financial Express, March 12,
1996; "Mirzapur Carpets - Taking Exports to a New High," Economic
Times, June 10, 1996.

218 "Steps taken to Curb Child Labour in Carpet Industry," Times of
India, December 11, 1995.

219 India's total exports in 1995 were $26.2 billion; carpet exports
were valued at $650 million, or about 2.5 percent of the total
exports.

220 "Steps taken to Curb Child Labour in Carpet Industry."

221 Edward A. Gargan, "Bound to Looms by Poverty and Fear, Boys in
India Make a Few Men Rich," New York Times, July 9, 1992.

222 "Mirzapur Carpets - Taking Exports to a New High."

223 Molly Moore, "Factories of Children; Youth Labor Force Growing in
Asia to Meet Export Demand, Help Families," Washington Post, May 21,
1995. Although the highest concentration of carpet villages is in
Mirzapur district, carpet manufacturing is also a dominant industry in
the neighboring districts of Allahabad, Varanasi, and Jaunpur.

224 Neera Burra, Born to Work, p. xxii.

225 According to one 1995 report, carpet manufacturers have found a
new way to exploit the poverty of the Bihar inhabitants: in addition
to bringing Bihar children into bondage in the carpet belt,
manufacturers are beginning to bring bondage to the children, setting
up hundreds of looms in the poorest districts of Bihar. See "Ex-child
labourers make a fresh start," Times of India, July 31, 1995.

226 Anti-Slavery International (ASI), "Slavery Today in India,"
Factsheet B, July 1994. According to ASI, 10,000 boys have been
kidnapped from the boys' district (Chichoria, Bihar) alone.

227 Prem Bhai, "The Working Conditions of the Child Weaver in the
Carpet Units of Mirzapur and Summary of Findings," Law Relating to
Employment of Children, 1985, p. 146.

228 Shamshad Khan, "Migrant Child Labour in the Carpet Industry of
Mirzapur-Bhadohi," (undated).

229 A detailed 1984 study found that approximately 50 percent of
migrant child weavers were paid only in food; another 40 percent of
them received only one or two rupees per day. Prem Bhai, "Working
Conditions of the Child Weaver..." p. 151.

230 Except where otherwise noted, all child testimonials from the
carpet belt are drawn from Human Rights Watch interviews, December 19,
1995, in several rural villages of Mirzapur district, Uttar Pradesh.

231 See especially Prem Bhai, "The Working Conditions of the Child
Weaver in the Carpet Units of Mirzapur and Summary of Findings," Law
Relating to Employment of Children, 1985.

232 See, e.g., "Ex-Child Labourers make a Fresh Start," Times of
India, July 31, 1995.

233 Information on health risks from Human Rights Watch interviews in
Mirzapur district, Uttar Pradesh, and Jaipur district, Rajasthan; also
McDonald, "Boys of bondage...," July 9, 1992, p. 18; Shamshad Khan,
"Improvement in Health, Hygiene and Nutritional Status of Child Labour
in Carpet Industry: Experience of CREDA," February 26, 1990.

234 Molly Moore, "Factories of Children; Youth Labor Force Growing in
Asia to Meet Export Demand, Help Families," Washington Post Foreign
Service, May 21, 1995.

235 "19 Children Rescued from Bonded Labour," Indian Express, Nov. 9,
1995.

236 Bhai, "The Working Conditions of the Child Weaver...", p. 151.

237 Ibid., p. 152.

238 Pradeep Mehta, "Cashing in on Child Labor."

239 See McDonald, "Boys of Bondage...," p. 19.

240 See chapter on leather for a more detailed discussion of the
Rajasthani shoemaking communities.

241 Approximately 80 percent of the child carpet-makers in Rajasthan
are female (Human Rights Watch interview with social activist,
December 14, 1995, Viratnagar). This is quite different from the
pattern in the Uttar Pradesh carpet belt, where 95 percent of the
carpet-makers are male.

242 Human Rights Watch interview, December 13, 1995, village near
Viratnagar, Jaipur district, Rajasthan.

243 Ibid.

244 Anti-Slavery International, "Slavery Today in India," Factsheet B,
July 1994.

245 Ibid. As of 1991, the number of government-run carpet-training
centers was reported as approximately two hundred. Weiner, The Child
and the State in India, p. 86.

246 Human Rights Watch interview with local children's rights
activist, December 13, 1995, Viratnagar, Rajasthan.

247 B. N. Juyal, "Official Schemes Exacerbate Situation in Northern
States," Vigil India, No. 69, August 1995, p. 6.

248 Ibid.

249 Ibid. Under the Emergency of 1975-1977, then Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi suspended civil liberties, arrested hundreds of opposition
leaders and activists, and attempted to push through a number of
economic reforms, including new development programs.

250 Indian Constitution, Article 24.

251 Gargan, "Bound to Looms..."

252 McDonald, "Boys of bondage ..." p. 19 .

253 Ibid.

254 Human Rights Watch interview with Mirzapur District Collector
Bachittar Singh, December 19, 1995, Mirzapur, Uttar Pradesh.

255 Human Rights Watch interview with Rajasthan Labour Commissioner
Ashok Shekhar, December 15, 1995, Jaipur, Rajasthan.

0 S. B. Civil Writ Petition No. 263/1995, Ugam Raj Mohnot v. State of
Rajasthan and Others, filed January 18, 1995, before the High Court of
Judicature for Rajasthan, Jaipur Bench, Jaipur. The writ requests,
inter alia, that the Court "direct the State Government to make Rules
under the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, and to
implement the provisions of this act forthwith strictly..." The
petitioner is coordinator of the Rajasthan branch of the Centre of
Concern for Child Labour (CFCCL) and he filed the petition on behalf
of the organization.

1 Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of 1985 with Civ. Writ Petition No. 153
of 1982, Record of Proceedings, August 7, 1995.

2 Human Rights Watch interview with Ms. Srilata Swaminathan, Rajasthan
Kisan Sangathan, December 13, 1995, Jaipur, Rajasthan.

3 Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade, Child Labour
in India..., p. 41.

4 This section discusses the government's child labor programs. These
are not programs designed specifically to address the needs of bonded
child laborers; as of July 1996, the Indian government has no such
program.

5 UNICEF, "Child Labour: UNICEF India Position," 1995, p. 4. There are
467 districts in all of India.

6 See Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade, Child
Labour in India..., p. 42-45 (describing eighteen policies, laws,
committees, etc. established by central government since 1921).

7 Ibid., p. 45.

8 Ibid.

9 "Non-formal education" is typically part-time instruction that
emphasizes basic literacy and life skills. It is geared toward working
children.

10 The majority of the funds for this program were provided by the
International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), a
program of the International Labour Organisation. IPEC focuses on "the
worst abuses of child labour: hazardous work, forced labour, the
employment of working children who are less than 12 or 13 years old,
girls and street children." The NGO Group for the Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 1993, "Eliminating the Exploitation of Child
Labour: International, national and local action," May 1993, p. 8.

11 Commission on Labour Standards, "Child Labour in India," p. 49
(source: Ministry of Labour). Additional IPEC programs serve nearly
55,000 children. Ministry of Labour, Government of India, "Children
and Work," Workshop of District Collectors/District Heads on
"Elimination of Child Labour in Hazardous Occupations," New Delhi,
September 13-14, 1995, p. 11.

12 Ministry of Labour, "Children and Work," p. 5.

13 "Data on Child Labour yet to be Compiled," The Hindu, April 10,
1995, p. 13. The article uses the figure of 850 crore rupees; one
crore is equal to ten million.

14 Ministry of Labour, "Children and Work," p. 5.

15 "India has told the International Labour Organisation it requires
no external financial assistance for the various remedial measures it
is taking [to eliminate children from the workforce in hazardous
industries]." "Collectors Meeting on Child Labour," The Statesman
(Calcutta edition), September 10, 1995; "Government today informed the
Rajya Sabha that it had rejected the offer by some countries to help
India check the problem of child labour, saying it preferred to depend
on its own resources." "India rejects aid to tackle child labour," The
Statesman, March 12, 1996; "India spurns aid to abolish child labour,"
Times of India, February 11, 1996.

16 The issue of foreign aid also underscores the government's
sensitivity to external critiques of child labor in India. According
to one diplomat in New Delhi, "the Indian government is known to have
discouraged suggestions, including one from the European Union, for
financial assistance." The diplomat attributed this stance to a desire
by the government "to avoid any meddling in its programme for
abolition of child labour," pointing out that international funding
brings with it accountability for the use of funds, something the
Indian government may wish to avoid. "India spurns aid," Times of
India, Feb. 11, 1996. Others believe that the government is
positioning the issue of external aid as a bargaining chip in the
ongoing debate over a linkage between trade and labor. Under this
view, "[i]f the developed countries demand that the pace of compliance
with international labour standards should be faster... India could
then ask for a substantial part of the cost of the programmes to be
shared by the developed countries." Ibid.

17 The twenty million figure was used by then-Prime Minister Rao on
August 15, 1994, when he announced the government's goal of releasing
two million child workers from hazardous industries by the year 2000.
Campaign Against Child Labour, "Reference Kit for Media Persons,"
January 1995, p. 8.

18 Department of Women and Child Development, Indian Council for Child
Welfare, and UNICEF, India Country Office, "Rights of the Child:
Report of a National Consultation, November 21-23, 1994, p. 102.

19 N.K. Doval, "Double-speak on child labour," The Hindu, December 28,
1994; Ministry of Labour, Children and Work, September 13-14, 1995.
Based on 1981 figures, the Planning Commission for the Census of India
estimated that there were seventeen and a half million child laborers
under the age of fourteen in 1985, eighteen million in 1990, and 20
million in 1995 See Commission on Labour Standards, Child Labour in
India, p. 3

20 Gerry Pinto, UNICEF, "Child Labour in India: The Issue and
Directions for Action," 1995, p. 2; UNICEF et al., "Rights of the
Child," p. 101.

21 Ministry of Labour, Children and Work, September 13-14, 1995, p. 2.
Preliminary numbers released from the 1991 census include a total
population of 844 million people, 298 million of whom are children
under the age of fifteen. Of these children, 221million live in rural
areas and seventy-one million in urban areas. These numbers are
already considered out of date, with most sources reporting an overall
population of more than 900 million. India's population is expected to
cross the one billion mark by the turn of the century.

22 Human Rights Watch interview with National Human Rights Commission,
Secretary General R. V. Pillai, New Delhi, December 28, 1995.

23 This chapter discusses only certain aspects of the Bonded Labour
System (Abolition) Act. For a more comprehensive overview, see the
chapters on the legal context of bonded child labor and on the beedi
industry. The full text of the act may be found in the appendix.

24 Bonded Labour (System Abolition) Act, Ch. IV, Art. 10, Art. 12 and
Ch. V, Art. 14. There are twenty-five states in India and 467
districts. Stanley Wolpert, India (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1991), p. 199; UNICEF, "Child Labour: UNICEF India Position,"
1995, p. 4.

25 See chapter on applicable law for details of the committees'
duties.

26 Judgement in Writ Petition No. 1187, 1982 (cited in Vivek Pandit,
"Prevention of Atrocities (Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes): Bonded
Labour, Their Rights and Implementation", 1995), p. 7.

27 Neeraja Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 3 SCC, paragraphs
243, 255 (1984).

28 For details, see chapter on applicable law.

29 Neeraja Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 3 SCC 243, paragraphs
245-246 (1984).

30 Pandit, "Bonded Labour," p. 18.

31 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-1995, p. 97.

32 See, e.g., Mahajan and Gathia, Child Labour: An Analytical Study,
p. 25. Not only is the incidence of bonded child labor increasing, but
the wages paid to bonded laborers are steadily decreasing in real
terms. S.P. Tiwary, "Bondage in Santhal Parganas," Chains of
Servitude..., p. 206.

33 "Citizen's [sic] Body on Bonded Labour," Times of India, November
18, 1994.

34 Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour in Tamilnadu, October 31,
1995, Madras, p. 208, Part VIII, para. A. This report was submitted by
order of the Supreme Court in connection with Supreme Court Civ. Writ
Petition No. 3922 of 1985 (Public Union for Civil Liberties v. State
of Tamil Nadu and Others).

35 Sarma, Welfare of Special Categories of Labour, p. 55, citing
1989-90 Ministry of Labour statistics.

36 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-95, p. 97.

37 "Citizen's [sic] Body on Bonded Labour," Times of India, November
18, 1994.

38 Ibid.

39 Affidavit on behalf of the State Government of Tamil Nadu, October
7, 1994. This affidavit was submitted by order of the Supreme Court in
connection with Supreme Court Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of 1985
(Public Union for Civil Liberties v. State of Tamil Nadu and Others).

40 The case that sparked this inquiry, Public Union for Civil
Liberties v. State of Tamil Nadu and Others, was filed in 1985. Much
of the delay in its resolution is due to the state governments'
failure to respond to court directives in a timely manner. In its
order requiring the states to report on bonded labor practices, the
court noted that "It does appear to us that no significant progress
has been made by the concerned authorities and it is not unlikely that
the attitude of the concerned authorities is not enthusiastic as one
would expect in a matter of such significance." Record of Proceedings,
May 13, 1994. As of August 1996, Human Rights Watch has been unable to
find out whether the case has been resolved.

41 Human Rights Watch interview with Ashok Shekhar, Labour
Commissioner for Rajasthan, December 15, 1995, Jaipur, Rajasthan.

42 Human Rights Watch interview with Ashok Bhasin, Deputy Labour
Commissioner for Gujarat, December 15, 1995, Jaipur, Rajasthan.

43 Manoj Dayal, "Abolition of Bonded Labour an Eye-wash in Bihar,"
Patrika, December 26, 1995.

44 Department of Women and Child Development, Indian Council for Child
Welfare, UNICEF-India, "Rights of the Child: Report of a National
Consultation, November 21-23, 1994, p. 102.

45 The inability to come up with basic statistics regarding
enforcement was not an aberration, but rather just one example of a
chronic failure to keep-and make public-this information. See, e.g.,
"Scheme to divert kids from hazardous units," Indian Express, February
27, 1995.

46 The questions we asked of the Director General of Labour Welfare
included questions regarding: agency estimates of the number of bonded
child laborers in India; the number of district vigilance committees
currently in operation, and their activities to date; the number of
cases prosecuted under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act and
the results of these prosecutions; the number of people rehabilitated
under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act; whether any bonded
child laborers have ever been rehabilitated under the act; and the
agency opinion regarding the case of bonded labor currently before the
Supreme Court, in which thirteen states are accused of allowing
widespread bonded labor to flourish.

47 Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade, Child
Labour in India: A Perspective, June 10, 1995, p. 33. Inspections by
the national government presumable took place in New Delhi and other
centrally-administered territories.

48 Ibid.

49 N.K. Doval,"Double-Speak on Child Labour," The Hindu, December 28,
1994.

50 Molly Moore, "Poverty Weaves Harshness Into Lives," Guardian
Weekly, June 4, 1995, p. 19 (reprint from Washington Post) (of 4,000
convictions reported under the Act since 1986, 3,500 offenders got off
with a fine equivalent to five dollars or less; figures from report by
an Indian Chamber of Commerce and the International Labour
Organisation). The assertion that there have been 4,000 convictions
under the act does not coincide with the data released by the
government regarding 1990 to 1993 convictions, reported above. The
government's figures of 772 convictions for one three year period
indicate that, since the act was passed in 1986, total convictions
probably number 2,500 or less.

51 Hema Shukla, "India Insincere in Ending Child Labor," United Press
International, September 12, 1994.

52 Human Rights Watch interview with North Arcot District Collector M.
P. Vijaykumar, November 27, 1995, Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

53 Human Rights Watch interview with senior state official, a former
district collector of Tamil Nadu, November 22, 1995, Madras, Tamil
Nadu.

54 Human Rights Watch interviews, November 17 - December 1, 1995,
Tamil Nadu.

55 Human Rights Watch interview with social activists, December 22,
1995, Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh. See also Burra, Born to Work, p. xxiii
(of 200,000 glass workers in Firozabad, 50,000 are children).

56 Srawan Shukla, "Childhood goes up in Smoke in the `Land of Glass,'"
Times of India, November 19, 1994.

57 Human Rights Watch interview with R. V. Pillai, Secretary General,
National Human Rights Commission, December 28, 1995, New Delhi.

58 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-1995, pp. 96-97.

59 Ibid., p. 97.

60 The case, Public Union for Civil Liberties v. State of Tamil Nadu
and Others (Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of 1985), is investigating the
practice of bonded labor, and the states' failure to eradicate that
practice, in the states of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala, Andhra
Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh,
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, and Meghalaya.

61 Public Union for Civil Liberties v. State of Tamil Nadu and Others,
Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of 1985 with Civ. Writ Petition No. 153 of
1982, Record of Proceedings, August 7, 1995, p. 2.

62 Ibid., p. 3.

63 G. V. Krishnan,"TN has 10 Lakh [one million] Bonded Workers, says
Panel," Times of India, March 1, 1996.

64 Ibid.

65 Reddy, Bonded Labour System in India, p. 153. Citing 1988-89
Ministry of Labour statistics.

66 Sarma, Welfare of Special Categories of Labour, p. 55, citing
1989-90 Ministry of Labour statistics.

67 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-95, p.97.

68 Manoj Dayal, "Abolition of Bonded Labour an Eye-wash in Bihar,"
Patrika, December 26, 1995.

69 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-95, p. 97.

70 Hoshiar Singh, Administration of Rural Development in India (New
Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1995), pp.165-188.

71 "Allocations for Labour Schemes Unutilised," Times of India, March
15, 1996.

72 Human Rights Watch interview, December 29, 1995, New Delhi.

73 Ibid. See also Reddy, Bonded Labour System in India, p. 171.

74 Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour in Tamil Nadu, October
31, 1995, Madras, submitted for Supreme Court Civ. Writ Petition No.
3922 of 1985, Part V, p. 1.

75 We asked the Director General of Labour Welfare for India for these
statistics, but he declined to respond.

76 Reddy, Bonded Labour System in India, p.161.

77 Human Rights Watch interview with District Collector M. P.
Vijaykumar, November 27, 1995, Vellore, Tamil Nadu.

78 Ibid. See also "8 Beedi Agents held under Bonded Labour System
(Abolition) Act," Indian Express, September 10, 1995.

79 Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade, Child
Labour in India..., p. 9 ("There is also apathy amongst State
Governments. Most states do not have yet in place the framing of rules
for the enforcement of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation)
Act of 1986, nearly a decade later!"). The Commission on Labour
Standards and International Trade was appointed by the Indian
government in August 1994 for the purpose of studying "Issues
Concerning the Protection of Labour Rights and Related Matters."
Ibid., appendix 1.

80 Human Rights Watch telephone interview with Belgian journalist Rudi
Rotthier, October 19, 1995.

81 The Supreme Court noted this in directing states to include social
action groups in their efforts against bonded labor, stating that
"patwaris and tehsildars [local leaders] [are] either in sympathy with
the exploiting class or lacking in social commitment or indifferent to
the misery and suffering of the poor . ." Crim. Writ Petition No. 1263
of 1982, Neeraja Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh, 3 SCC
paragraphs 243, 251 (1984).

82 Human Rights Watch interview with attorney Jose Varghese, November
15, 1996, New Delhi.

83 Child Workers News, Vol. 2, No. 2, April-June 1994.

84 Crim. Writ Petition No. 1263 of 1982, Neeraja Chaudhary v. State of
Madhya Pradesh, 3 SCC 243, paragraph 252 (1984).

85 Tiwary, "Bondage in Santhal Parganas," Chains of Servitude, p.
207.

86 "Bonded labour is employed by powerful landlords from whom the many
political parties draw political support and this poses a major
obstacle to implementation of the legislation. The power of those
opposed to the eradication of bondage ensures the continuation of the
economic conditions which nurture the system." See Mahajan and Gathia,
Child Labour: An Analytical Study, p. 25.

87 Human Rights Watch interviews with local social activists, December
1, 1995, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, and December 18, 1995, Varanasi, Uttar
Pradesh.

88 These phenomena are discussed in previous chapters.

89 Human Rights Watch interview with Jose Varghese, November 15, 1995,
New Delhi.

90 Human Rights Watch interview with Supreme Court attorney, December
29, 1996.

91 For example, see Ajoy Kumar, "From Slavery to Freedom: The Tale of
Chattisgarh Bonded Labourers," Indian Social Institute, 1986, pp.
12-13.

92 Ministry of Labour, Annual Report 1994-1995, p. 97.

93 See G. Satyamurty, "Trouble Dogs Freed Bonded Labourers," The
Hindu, October 27, 1994; also, in a memorandum to Human Rights Watch,
journalists Marleen Daniels and Rudi Rotthier reported their discovery
in a rural village that, of twenty-one children liberated from bondage
in 1993, nineteen had been returned to bondage one year later.
(Rotthier/Daniels memorandum to Human Rights Watch, November 1,
1995).

94 For example, in Tamil Nadu, the rehabilitation allowance for a
bonded laborer released in December 1992 was not approved for
distribution until March 1994. Report of the Commission on Bonded
Labour in Tamil Nadu, October 31, 1995, Madras, submitted in
connection with Supreme Court Civ. Writ Petition No. 3922 of 1985, p.
18.

95 See Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade, Child
Labour in India..., p. 40.

96 See Neeraja Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh, paragraph 251.

97 Report of the Commission on Bonded Labour in Tamil Nadu, October
31, 1995, Madras, submitted in connection with Supreme Court Civ. Writ
Petition No. 3922 of 1985, p. 137.

98 Sreedhar Pillai, "Of Inhuman Bondage: The Supreme Court Indicts the
Tamil Nadu Government for Failing to Abolish Bonded Labour," Sunday
Magazine (Calcutta), April 7-13, 1996.

99 Tiwary, "Bondage in Santhal Parganas," Chains of Servitude..., p.
205.

http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/India3.htm

...and I am Sid Harth


==============================================================================
TOPIC: SUPREME COURT'S SIT FRAMES CHARGES AGAINST TEESTA SETALVAD
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian/t/d0832ece337bc83e?hl=en
==============================================================================

== 1 of 1 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 4:14 pm
From: usenet@mantra.com and/or www.mantra.com/jai (Dr. Jai Maharaj)


In article <72c14d88-6e9b-4f83-ad5b-19f80dab5288@z11g2000yqz.googlegroups.com>,
uNmaivirumbi <tripurantaka@yahoo.com> posted:

> Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:
> > Forwarded article
> >
> > Thursday, April 16, 2009
> >
> > Supreme Court's SIT frames charges against Teesta
> > . . .

> Bharat waking up!!
>
> She played many games
>
> Jai Bharat

Jai ho Bharat Mata kee!

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti

==============================================================================
TOPIC: Honest questions about Islam- can you answer?
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.movies.local.indian/t/0538da13757e7be7?hl=en
==============================================================================

== 1 of 3 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 4:25 pm
From: usenet@mantra.com and/or www.mantra.com/jai (Dr. Jai Maharaj)


uNmaivirumbi <tripurantaka@yahoo.com> posted:
>
> Can muslims answer:
>
> 1) Did Mohammad hear Koran directly from God? Did he say so? Is there
> any evidence from the Koran it was directly from God? If not why do
> you say it is from God?
>
> 2) Did Mohammad hear from an angel? Did Mohammad verify it was an
> angel and how did he do that? If not why did he not do that and
> claimed it was an angel? That too Jibreel?
>
> 3) was it not true that Khadija was the one who told him it could be
> Jibreel and Mohammad did not think of that before?
>
> 4) How can God ask a 53 year old man to marry a six year old girl and
> have sex with her at age 9? Did he masturbate on Ayesha even as a
> baby as reported (thighing)?
>
> 5) Marrying a girl at age 9 is permitted in many Islamic countries by
> law even in Saudi Arabia, is it not?
>
> 6) Does God allow a man to marry his adopted son's wife- Zainab?
>
> 7) Does God allow a man to "marry" 17 year old Safiya Bint Huyay the
> same night (means sex) after murdering her husband, parents, brothers
> in front of her? How old was Mohammad then? Why did Mohammad do all
> this after Khadija died and never before?
>
> 8) Does God allow muslims as in Koran (what the right hand possesses
> also called ma malakat aymanukum in Koran), to capture nonmuslim
> women and use them as sex slaves (captured in war) -- the real reason
> for rape of nonmuslim women in many countries as this is okay as per
> Koran
>
> 9) Is it not true that Koran therefore is not from God at all? Could
> never be? That it is satan's clever work hiding that as God's work?
> Do you not think Koran is from the devil or a product of a crazed
> psychopath who cooked up this?
>
> Should you not abandon this cult and join civilized society and fight
> for true dignity,progress peace and freedom?
>
> Do you have to courage to face this and do what you have to do?
>
> Can you really answer this or are you going to evade, abuse and curse
> as usual?

Distribution widened to include more newsgroups.

Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti


== 2 of 3 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 4:34 pm
From: "Moslem cartoon character mohammed was a paedophile 6th century warlord
and goat fucker who cooked up a false religion in order to supplement
brutality as a means of bringing people (shitskin dunecoons) under subjection -
Yaako Warrior from AUZ., NZ..., Korea., Germany, RSA, USA., Sweden, Hong Kong,
Canada, Russia, China, Denmark, UK, .........., the slayer of fecal stained
moslems - KHAAYEHMANI" <" Dr. Sir John Howard, AC, WSCMoF >


On 3/18/10 7:25 PM, Dr. Jai Maharaj wrote:
> uNmaivirumbi<tripurantaka@yahoo.com> posted:
>>
>> Can muslims answer:
>>
>> 1) Did Mohammad hear Koran directly from God? Did he say so? Is there
>> any evidence from the Koran it was directly from God? If not why do
>> you say it is from God?
>>
>> 2) Did Mohammad hear from an angel? Did Mohammad verify it was an
>> angel and how did he do that? If not why did he not do that and
>> claimed it was an angel? That too Jibreel?
>>
>> 3) was it not true that Khadija was the one who told him it could be
>> Jibreel and Mohammad did not think of that before?
>>
>> 4) How can God ask a 53 year old man to marry a six year old girl and
>> have sex with her at age 9? Did he masturbate on Ayesha even as a
>> baby as reported (thighing)?
>>
>> 5) Marrying a girl at age 9 is permitted in many Islamic countries by
>> law even in Saudi Arabia, is it not?
>>
>> 6) Does God allow a man to marry his adopted son's wife- Zainab?
>>
>> 7) Does God allow a man to "marry" 17 year old Safiya Bint Huyay the
>> same night (means sex) after murdering her husband, parents, brothers
>> in front of her? How old was Mohammad then? Why did Mohammad do all
>> this after Khadija died and never before?
>>
>> 8) Does God allow muslims as in Koran (what the right hand possesses
>> also called ma malakat aymanukum in Koran), to capture nonmuslim
>> women and use them as sex slaves (captured in war) -- the real reason
>> for rape of nonmuslim women in many countries as this is okay as per
>> Koran
>>
>> 9) Is it not true that Koran therefore is not from God at all? Could
>> never be? That it is satan's clever work hiding that as God's work?
>> Do you not think Koran is from the devil or a product of a crazed
>> psychopath who cooked up this?
>>
>> Should you not abandon this cult and join civilized society and fight
>> for true dignity,progress peace and freedom?
>>
>> Do you have to courage to face this and do what you have to do?
>>
>> Can you really answer this or are you going to evade, abuse and curse
>> as usual?
>
> Distribution widened to include more newsgroups.
>
> Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
> Om Shanti

HOW TO BECOME A SHITSKIN MOSLEM - this is how: fuck goats, fuck your
mother (nikomak), molest children, wear a beekeepers outfit all the
time, never shower or bath, beat your wives, learn terrorist activities
at a maddrassa, wipe your ass with stones, sell the donkey you fucked to
a nearby village, marry a nine year-old , send your child off to an
indoctrination camp, practice thighing with little kids, Hijack a plane,
Hijack a ship, ............ Practice all those and you too could
become a prophet !!

이슬람의 성기를 빨아 당나귀 -
الإسلام يأخذ الحمار القضيب في الشرج

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Ab8hlafT770nZGR6cHZqOThfMHhwY2szYmc0&hl=en

http://www.facebook.com/kangarooistan

Elif air ab tizak mohammad !!!!

helpinggaza@gmail.com
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
arah1958@gmail.com
kaled14232@gmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com
niyacn@msn.com
mehyaawaaa@hotmail.com
niyacn@hotmail.com
Thomas Santa - tsanta@med.usyd.edu.au
noujwas@yahoo.com

Wassim Noujeim = Faris Jawad

Keysborough Aus.

Jordan Data Communication Ltd.


—(¿)˝ —(¿)˝ moslem cartoon character mohammad and his bumchum
allaah were child molesting goat fuckers and nikomaks
이슬람의 성기를 빨아 당나귀 -
الإسلام يأخذ الحمار القضيب في الشرج —(¿)˝ —(¿)˝


Up your ass mohammad - Elif air ab tizak!!!

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Ab8hlafT770nZGR6cHZqOThfMHhwY2szYmc0&hl=en

http://www.facebook.com/kangarooistan

helpinggaza@gmail.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
kaled14232@gmail.com
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
arah1958@gmail.com
mehyaawaaa@hotmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com
Thomas Santa - tsanta@med.usyd.edu.au
noujwas@yahoo.com


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

moslem cartoon character mohammad and his bumchum allaah were child
molesting goat fuckers and nikomaks


_
/'_/)
,/_ /
/ /
/'_'/' '/'__'7,
/'/ / / /" /_\
('( ' /' ')
\ /
'\' _.7'
\ (
\ \

Up your ass mohammad - Elif air ab tizak!!!

helpinggaza@gmail.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
arah1958@gmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **


moslem cartoon character mohammad and his bumchum allaah were child
molesting goat fuckers and nikomaks


_
/'_/)
,/_ /
/ /
/'_'/' '/'__'7,
/'/ / / /" /_\
('( ' /' ')
\ /
'\' _.7'
\ (
\ \

Up your ass mohammad - Elif air ab tizak!!!

helpinggaza@gmail.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
arah1958@gmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

moslem cartoon character mohammad and his bumchum allaah were child
molesting goat fuckers and nikomaks


_
/'_/)
,/_ /
/ /
/'_'/' '/'__'7,
/'/ / / /" /_\
('( ' /' ')
\ /
'\' _.7'
\ (
\ \

Up your ass mohammad - Elif air ab tizak!!!

helpinggaza@gmail.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
arah1958@gmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

moslem cartoon character mohammad and his bumchum allaah were child
molesting goat fuckers and nikomaks


_
/'_/)
,/_ /
/ /
/'_'/' '/'__'7,
/'/ / / /" /_\
('( ' /' ')
\ /
'\' _.7'
\ (
\ \

Up your ass mohammad - Elif air ab tizak!!!


helpinggaza@gmail.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
arah1958@gmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

moslem cartoon character mohammad and his bumchum allaah were child
molesting goat fuckers and nikomaks


_
/'_/)
,/_ /
/ /
/'_'/' '/'__'7,
/'/ / / /" /_\
('( ' /' ')
\ /
'\' _.7'
\ (
\ \

Up your ass mohammad - Elif air ab tizak!!!


helpinggaza@gmail.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
arah1958@gmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **


moslem cartoon character mohammad and his bumchum allaah were child
molesting goat fuckers and nikomaks


_
/'_/)
,/_ /
/ /
/'_'/' '/'__'7,
/'/ / / /" /_\
('( ' /' ')
\ /
'\' _.7'
\ (
\ \

Up your ass mohammad - Elif air ab tizak!!!


helpinggaza@gmail.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
arah1958@gmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com


Wassim Noujeim = Faris Jawad


Jordan Data Communication Ltd.

Keysborough Aus.


-----------------------------------------------


—(¿)˝ —(¿)˝
Skitskin moslem CA Fabian, 5 Pfeiffer Close, Mt Barker, 5251, South
Australia, +61 8 8391 1292

이슬람의 성기를 빨아 당나귀 -
الإسلام يأخذ الحمار القضيب في الشرج
—(¿)˝ —(¿)˝

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Ab8hlafT770nZGR6cHZqOThfMHhwY2szYmc0&hl=en

http://www.facebook.com/kangarooistan

Hamzeh Abu-Abed
helpinggaza@gmail.com
fesack@wn.apc.org
nextsapresidents@gmail.com
mehyaawaaa@hotmail.com
info@muslimmatch.com or apache@muslimmatch.com or
politicsIranian@googlegroups.com
arah1958@gmail.com
islamwayoflife@googlegroups.com
furtivo4000@gmail.com
Thomas Santa - tsanta@med.usyd.edu.au

Wassim Noujeim = Faris Jawad

** Posted from LINKdotNET -Jordan **
http://www.link.net
Cybertrust Australia Pty Ltd


Jordan Data Communication Ltd.

Keysborough Aus.


== 3 of 3 ==
Date: Thurs, Mar 18 2010 5:39 pm
From: "Kayed Al-Kuffar"


Honest Question about Hindu gods

Questions for Hindus

1. If scientists have proven that the world will come to an end (Day of Judgment) what will happen to all the Vedas followers who believe they will be reborn into another life form _on this earth_? If there is no more life forms on this earth, what will happen to them ?

2. If the Ancient Egyptians believed that their souls will go to Heaven, and the ancient Egyptians had Scripture centuries before the Vedas, then why do vedas followers claim their scripture is the oldest and therefore reincarnation is the right way?

3. Low caste members (untouchables) are born into certain families, for example, everyone born into the Juppy family, automatically becomes a untouched able. The woman in the Juppy family, Mrs. Juppy is the aledged door way for bad people in previous lives who did not follow the Vedas to be born through Mrs. Juppy and hence be also a untouchable like the rest of Mrs. Juppy's family members. If Mrs. Juppy converts to Islam or Buddhism which thousands are doing daily in India, what then will happen to the entrance gate for the non- Vedas followers to be reborn into? If there are no longer any untouchables because of either conversion or financial fortune, then the entire caste system would collapse (as it slowly is doing thanks to the help of humanitarian workers.) then there would no longer be a earthly Hell as the Vedas followers imagine, and no longer a reward or punishment, why then are the Vedas gods not maintaining there reward and punishment systems? Inconclusion, if there are Two doors, (door A) and (door B) the good go to (door A) and the bad go to (door B), what will happen to the bad if (door B) becomes sealed up or has disappeared?

4. If the Vedas followers desire Unity, why is it that they enforce a system where the their own members are divided into 5 levels where certain levels are not allowed to talk to, eat with, or even Touch Other Vedas followers?

5. How do Vedas followers claim they desire love and harmony when they think it is Absolute Justice that fellow Vedas followers including women and children die daily in India under the current caste system?

6. How is it a punishment to become a animal or a insect or a tree if some people can consider this to be a reward rather than a punishment? As said before, Insects are born They Fly, they Run, They Mate and they die, is that so bad? For example, Ants have the about 200 times their own body weight strength, is it so bad to be that strong and Unified as ants are?

7. How is it a reward to be born into the world as children are screaming and crying and live years before having any comprehension, and then to grow old and to again loose comprehension, where is the reward to be reincarnated into that over and over?

8. Why would God show us the Many stars and galaxies if we are only limited to this world over and over? Why would God Direct our Attention to Heaven if we are only limited to earth? Why would God make Heaven so appealing and so Majestic if we are never to leave from being born as earthly creatures over and over?

9. Would it not be a better reward to come back as a dolphin who has a higher mental capabilities than humans?

10. What would happen if I smash up every one of the 400 different statues of Vedas gods, can those gods on earth protect themselves? What will be the worst thing that can happen to me, to be reborn as a Muslim?

Also read

INVITATION FOR HINDUS TO ACCEPT ISLAM

http://www.studying-islam.org/articletext.aspx?id=783


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