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By Somanjana C. Bhattacharya 03/19/08
Women and Child Development minister Renuka Chowdhury announced a “daring pilot project” named Dhanlaxmi(goddess of wealth) to combat female foeticide and gender discrimination in various parts of India to commemorate International Women’s Day. This insurance scheme is a conditional cash transfer for a girl child with insurance cover (CCT) and will start in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab this year.
'This is to encourage parents to educate the girl child and to help in changing their mindsets towards the girl. This will force them to look upon girls as an asset rather than a liability,' said Chowdhury.
West Bengal with its illustrious penchant for misrepresentation of data to manipulate public image in reference to vital societal problems is not amongst the initial beneficiaries of this scheme. Perhaps, the veteran partisans of the Leftist government still daydreams to elude the gentry and commoners en masse of the garish face of female foeticide, wide-spread women trafficking, juvenile prostitution, violence and exploitation of female counterparts in this state.
According to Dr. Prasenjit Maiti, writer of Women and War, “There is a general civil societal perception in the state and elsewhere that the Bengali Hindu middle class bhadralokian ethos acts as a deterrent to gender violence”. However, he elaborates, “Eve teasing is on the rise in Calcutta and Salt Lake City, witch hunting continues unabated in tribal belts of Midnapore and Purulia, incidents of gang rape are reported from South 24 Parganas, dowry deaths happen in Bengal’s cities and villages, instigation to suicide and actual bride burning are not entirely unknown, underprivileged girl children are either smuggled out across the international border to Bangladesh from bordering districts like Malda and Murshidabad, domestic violence in Muslim families is a reality while rape in police custody takes place along with infamous incidents like Bantala and Birati”.
A survey conducted across several districts in West Bengal has indicated that a rising awareness against dowry is fuelling the incidence of child marriage and trafficking. The data quoted in the report (sourced from the 2001Census and the National Family Health Survey) shows a high incidence of child marriage in the State — 39.16% compared to the national average of 32.10%. As quoted by Ishita Mukhopadhyay, Director, WSRC, Calcutta University, “We found that the traffickers approach the villagers in the guise of grooms without any dowry demand and lure them into marrying off even minor girls,”. “The girls are then sold and sent to other places like Mumbai, Dubai or Kashmir,” she added.
Every year thousands of minor villagers in Bengal are enticed into “fake marriages” or fall prey to “agencies” promising lucrative jobs. While part of the crowd is engaged as domestic helps, a considerable number of young women are coerced into prostitution.
The alarming rise in trafficking is triggered by its well-connectivity to the bordering countries and failing socio-economic structure. West Bengal lies on the vulnerable international trafficking route, a fact acknowledged by the United Nations, with Kolkata itself becoming a significant source and destination for traffickers.
On Jan 1, 2008, In Kolkata ,The statesman reported about the statistics of the woman trafficking:
” Despite sustained campaign against woman trafficking and state government’s claim of success in dealing with such cases, West Bengal continues to top the list of states selling girls for prostitution. The latest report of National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) revealed that nearly 93 per cent of girls, sold for prostitution in brothels across the states in 2006, were from West Bengal. The report comes at a time when the state government is claiming success in dealing with issues related to human trafficking.
The report also mentioned that 123 cases of “selling of girls for prostitution” were reported from various police stations in the country. West Bengal alone registered a total of 114 cases of girls being sold for prostitution in the same year, says the report. As part of its initiatives to nab persons involved in human trafficking racket, the state police have already set up Anti-Human Trafficking Cell in the Criminal Investigation Department.
According to the NCRB report for the year 2006, the number of girls being sold for prostitution has gone up rapidly in the country over the past three years. When contacted, Mr DP Tarania, inspector-general of police, Criminal Investigating Department, said: “I’m not aware of the latest NCRB report. If it is mentioned in the report that West Bengal accounted for 92 percent of the total cases of girls being sold for prostitution, then there is something wrong in the report.”In 2004, the NCRB had received only 19 cases of girls being sold in brothels for prostitution. The figure rose to 50 in the year 2005 registering a growth of 163 percent. The recent NCRB report set alarm bell ringing by revealing that girls being sold for prostitution in the country has gone up by 146 percent during 2005-06. “
In the slums surrounding the Kalighat temple, one of the holiest sites for the Hindus in Kolkata, lies the birth place of the city's sex industry. Years ago, widows and other socially outcast women would seek refuge here from temple priests. While they were provided with food and lodging, resident priests and upper caste men who visited the temple often demanded sex as a form of payment. Recognizing that desire for sex far exceeded the returns they received, these women began a community alongside the temple and started charging for their services, and organized prostitution was born.
"Hundreds of years later the life of a widow or rape victim hasn't really changed," explains Urmi Basu, who founded an organization called New Light to provide support for sex workers and their families in the Kalighat community. "Usually you're here because you've been abused or thrown out, or you were sold as a child when someone came to your poor village and said 'come with me I'll find you work in the city' and then you end up locked up in a brothel getting beaten and not seeing a cent."
As per The Hindu Business Line, Sonagachi, the biggest brothel in Kolkata is home to 9000 prostitutes. It is estimated that one third of the 9,000 prostitutes there are under the age of 18. The forum of Indomitable Women’s Solidarity Committee consist 60, 000 sex workers in West Bengal alone!
Besides, West Bengal is the state with the highest number of HIV infected patients:150,000.
Rajeev Shukla, Project Director, West Bengal State AIDS Prevention and Control Society substantiated that Bengal's open borders with Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan are the biggest challenge for HIV infection. Migrants from these countries carry the virus and further spread the disease.
In reference to child labor, according to ‘The State Plan of Action for Children 2003’, a report jointly compiled by West Bengal’s state social welfare department and Unicef, there has been “a decline in the incidence of children (5-14 years) in work for male children, but a very sharp increase in the case of female children between the two rounds of the National Sample Survey Organisation.
The first round, in 1993-1994, registered 2.91 lakh girls within the age-group 5-14 engaged in work, and 4.83 lakh boys. The 1999-2000 survey showed a sharp increase to 4.38 lakh for girls with the figure for boys down to 3.48 lakh.
The various statistical projections of female trafficking and exploitation are shocking indeed but more alarming is the fact that the projected data is often a fraction of the actual magnitude of offense. Thanks to the corrupt law enforcement officers and the totalitarian government. Besides the voluntary work of handful of NGOs sponsored by foreign organizations, little has been done by the state government in terms of Prevention, Advocacy and Aftercare.
Last but not the least, in regards to land reforms in the state, Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at the Centre of Economic Studies and Planning, JNU writes, “Until recently, the allocation of pattas (small land holdings) reinforced existing gender inequalities. Joint pattas for husbands and wives started only from the mid-1990s. Before that, when most of the land was redistributed, pattas were granted only to the head of household, who was typically male. Joint pattas account for less than 10 per cent of the total, while pattas in the name of women as single holders account for less than 6 per cent of the total”.
So much for women’s liberation in Bengal!
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