Round up of regional news

The Stolen Children of Bangladesh

" I want to go home… I want to go home… I want to go home…" The drone goes on like the chant of a mystic as if the words will magically transport her thousands of miles back to her home in rural Bangladesh where she has left an 18-month-old daughter and memories of endless hunger. Rashida sits on the airy verandah of a custody home run by the Edhi Foundation in Karachi as she continues her refrain. She is already mentally unstable and her talk follows the course of her mind as it shifts from one place to another, from one language to another, from one nightmare to another. She has travelled from a distant Bangladesh gram to a faraway gaon in Punjab, and then to the shahar of Karachi.

Hunger holds a special meaning for Nadia who was smuggled into Pakistan, just a month or so before she found herself in the home. She has a horrible limp. The man who was buying Nadia threw her down from the first floor for refusing his advances, breaking her leg. Before that she had been beaten by iron rods. She burst into tears when-she showed the body wounds. She cries incessantly and the 13-year-old´s eyes and face are distorted with pain and fair.

Yet, Rashida and Nadia are among the lucky ones for having found sanctuary in a home. Thousands of others like them from Bangladesh roam the villages and cities of Pakistan and India, as prisoners of a hell that does not end. It is just a handful that land up at institutions like the one set up by Edhi where many of them spend years, if not decades, waiting for something to happen. Most have even forgotten Bangla and their children do not learn the language.

Nadia is a double migrant, having first moved to Dhaka from her native village and then on to Pakistan through India. As she explains: "When we hadn´t eaten for eight days, 1 couldn´t take it any more…couldn´t watch the faces of my younger brothers and sisters. So I came to Dhaka and through the help of my village people got a job and also got a decent meal after months. It was a good life and I was sending money to my family but then I was abducted by this man I came to know through those who had brought me to Dhaka. He and his friends beat us up and made us walk across India. I was so scared. Then they brought me to Karachi and sold me to someone in Hyderabad. When I refused to do what they asked, they beat me."

Stories of smuggled Bangladeshi girls and boys surface regularly and some get international publicity. "We really don´t know how many children are involved but it runs into thousands. Most of them are girl children who are smuggled into Pakistan and some into the Middle East," says Tariq Ahmed of Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (Child Rights Forum) who attended a recent meeting in Delhi on child trafficking. "It is a huge problem."

In a well-known case that has yet to be decided, the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA) filed a lawsuit against the Government and the respective secretaries in charge of various ministries for failing to prevent the smuggling of Bangladeshi children to the Middle East. These young children, some as young as six years old, are used in camel races. Tied to camel bellies, the children cry and the sound of their weeping agitates the camels and they run faster. Meanwhile, on the top, a slightly older but underweight Bangladeshi child jockeys it along, giving the animal an ever-so-slight edge in the race.

A number of Bangladeshi NGOs are supporting the government´s efforts to bring the children and women back but success is not yet in sight. The lukewarm attempt is limited to setting up "cells" and committees, granting funds and establishing linkages— quite inadequate to solve the problem.

The line between the willing and the unwilling child who is smuggled is also often difficult to draw. Many seek out the middlemen, many are abducted, most are simply duped.

Rashida had already been married before she ran away to Pakistan to be married again to a Punjabi. What the man didn´t know was that she had had a ´family planning´ operation for which she had received Taka 200. Why?

"To feed my baby, to feed my baby, to feed my baby…"

"But why did you leave your home and come here?"

"1 wanted to earn money to feed my baby, to feed my baby…"

Talking to Rashida is like talking to a nightmare. When her second husband sold her because she had not given him a child even after five years of marriage, she thought she was being taken home. She ended up discarded on the violent streets of Karachi, which was where the police found her and had her admitted to the safety of the Edhi home.

South Asia vs The Rest

INDIA AND PAKISTAN rarely agree on anything. But those who look will find increasing instances when the two countries are to be found on the same side. Their refusal to endorse the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is one such instance, although their intrangisence springs from very different roots.

Recently the two countries found themselves on the same side of the fence over the chairmanship of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

With the firm support of Pakistan´s cricket authorities, Jagmohan Dalmiya, Secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCC1), put his hat in the ring for the highly prestigious post as boss of the cricketing world´s supreme body. He scored a convincing 25-13 win over his rival from Australia.

But the crown was not to be Mr Dalmiya´s, for the ICC cited something called a "Binding Resolution Clause" (which makes it mandatory that decisions over any matter have the backing of two-thirds of the full members, i.e. the nine test-playing nations). Mr Dalmiya´s 25 votes included the support of only four full members—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe.

The voting pattern showed a clear schism between the "whites" and the "blacks". Australia, England, New Zealand and the West Indies (wrong colour) backed Mr Dalmia´s competition, the Australian Malcolm Gray. Probably sensing the racial divide, South Africa chose to abstain.

Coming to his Indian colleague´s defence, Pakistan´s representative accused the ICC of racism, charging that it had been unable to digest the idea of an Asian as head.

In the meantime, Mr Dalmiya has decided not to contest the ICC ruling and has decided to wait for another election to be held in July 1997. Then, too, hopefully, Pakistan will side with India.

Police Decoys

THE COLOMBO PRESS recently reported that the police, using a "private decoy", had successfully raided a suburban brothel, nabbed four young women and seven clients, some driving expensive cars and carrying cellular phones, and taken a lady described as the "vice madam" into custody. That worthy was described as the middle-aged daughter of a doctor.

All that is commonplace in most parts of the world. The spice in this story is elsewhere. The cops had been asked why they needed to use an outsider rather than a policeman as their decoy for the raid. Their excuse was that departmental regulations, following a rule that came into force 25 years ago, prohibit the use of policemen for such work.

That stricture was the result of another brothel raid where the cops had used their own man as the decoy. The prosecution which followed was widely reported in the press with details of evidence given, including that by the named decoy. His teacher wife, whose colleagues had made her a butt of ridicule, had eventually left the policeman. That had prompted the then Inspector General of Police to slap down a ban on police decoys for brothel raids.

But according to The Island newspaper, the ban did not stop policemen from being used as decoys in brothel raids. "What´s wrong with it?" one cop was quoted saying. "There is nothing wrong in unmarried (and presumably unnamed) policemen being engaged in such work."

Another cop who did not wish to be identified had added: "It´s business with pleasure."

A Load of Bull

YOU WOULD THINK that these oxen are off for a weekend in the country—lined up by the side of a boat and taking in the Brahmaputra breeze, or being chauffeured through smooth highways of northern Bangladesh in an open-topped tour coach.

Even the oxen might believe so, but these are cattle who have been smuggled from far corners of India and are headed for the abattoirs of Dhaka. Recent years have seen a boom in the smuggling of cattle into Bangladesh, with nearly 200,000 cattle (worth over INR 1 billion) exported annually from the various states of North and Northeast India.

A few, however, do get caught. According to Border Security Force sources who confided to The Indian Express, 30,688 animals originating in West Bengal alone were seized last year. "The bovines were also sourced in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh," the paper wrote. (Interesting, only seven animals originating in Rajasthan were seized.)

In Bangladesh, the slaughtered animals are consumed locally, and are also exported to Northern Africa and West Asia. The hides end up as vital inputs for Bangladesh´s leather industry. These Indian cattle might think they are on holiday, but they are actually out to help Bangladeshi economy.

The Apartheid of Caste

THOUGH HINDU, THEY are not allowed to enter Hindu temples. They are traditional khukuri-makers, but are denied regular army service. Their children are sometimes not allowed to eat together with classmates at school, while their women cannot use community water taps.

South Asia´s ´untouchable´ castes have traditionally felt the pain and humiliation of being at the bottom of the social order. But in India and Nepal, where the Hindu caste system is most entrenched, they are increasingly speaking out against this socially-sanctioned apartheid.

In India, an estimated 15 percent of the roughly 900 million people are Dalits— ´untouchable´ castes whose traditional professions have for millennia been regarded as dirty by privileged Hindus. Twenty percent of Nepal´s 21 million people are Dalits. Dalits were traditionally butchers, blacksmiths, tailors, cobblers or sweepers, and are considered ´untouchable´ today even if they have other jobs.

The caste system has been legally abolished in both India and Nepal, but discrimination persists. Furthermore, Dalit efforts to organise and fight discrimination and official affirmative action policies are creating a backlash from the ´higher´ castes.

"Our main give-away is our surname," says Dilip Pariyar, a Dalit from western Nepal. "The discrimination starts when you fill in your name while applying for a job, or renting a room." Many Dalits have shed their traditional surnames other than the ones that they were born with. "Their parents did not want their children to experience the inhuman discrimination and humiliation that they themselves faced," he adds.

In rural Nepal, where discrimination is more blatant, Dalits are barred entrance into the homes of people in the higher social strata. In cities, they have difficulty renting rooms.

"Landlords think we will pollute their homes. In fact, they don´t even allow us into their cow sheds because they think we will contaminate the holy animals. Dalits are ranked lower than animals," says Hira Viswakarma.

Moti Lai Nepali has changed his surname to the more generic "Nepali" to avoid being treated like an outcast. Nepali heads the Dalit Welfare Organisation.

"It is ironic that although we crafted the weapons that made Nepal what it is, we are denied regular military service," says Mr Nepali. "What´s worse, we are Hindus, but are not allowed to enter Hindu temples." It´s ironic that Dalits whose ancestors forged the traditional Gurkha knife, the khukri, for the armies of 18th-century kings that united Nepal are today in social limbo.

Dalit women suffer even more. Kamala Hemchuri says that women from underprivileged castes experience discrimination.

"While trying to fetch water from the village tap, we have to face this humiliation daily, waiting for our turn, and we can only get near the tap when all the other women are finished."

She adds: "Our children in school are forbidden to drink out of the common water pitcher, and Dalits have to wash their own plates after eating in a public restaurant." This discrimination is not only shameful, but it prevents Dalits from getting jobs to augment their incomes and rise above the poverty trap.

"We cannot open restaurants, who would eat there? Same goes for dairy farming: Dalits are said to pollute the milk inside the cow´s udder. There have been cases where the government dairy people have hesitated to accept milk from Dalit farmers." Because of this Dalit farmers are even refused special credit for livestock rearing from Nepal´s Agricultural Development Bank.

Although Dalits form one-fifth of Nepal´s population, their representation in the judiciary, civil service, politics and in technical fields is not proportionate. Nepal does not have official affirmative action programmes that India does.

Doubly oppressed

Nepal´s official literacy rate is 40 percent, but it is only 10.7 percent among Dalits. Among women, the literacy rate is 3.2 percent. Of the country´s two million Dalit women, only 20 have college degrees.

"The Dalit woman is doubly oppressed," says Durga Sob. "First she has to bear the brunt of being an untouchable and then further discriminated as a woman."

Most Dalit children are undernourished. An average Dalit lives only upto 42, ten years below the average national life-expectancy rate. Disturbing as these figures are, most Dalits are not even aware that they are social outcasts. A recent study showed that although 90 percent of Dalits surveyed said they had encountered practices of ´untouchability´, more than half did not see that as a problem.

Only 13.7 percent of Dalits interviewed said it was an injustice that had to be fought. Many Dalits feel that it is god´s will that things are the way they are. In a sense, Dalits are perpetuating their own untouchability.

Moti Lai Nepali summed it up: "We have to make all Nepalis aware about casteism. But we have to start within our own community. That is the only way out of this dal-dal (swamp).

Four Legs Good

INNOVATION COMES IN all forms. The Dutch town of Culemborg has begun using sheep to control traffic.

The project, which is still in its pilot stage, has secured the services of six sheep to act as unofficial traffic wardens to slow down the rush-hour commuter traffic in Culemborg. The sheep have "about as much traffic sense as a six-year-old boy or girl", said Henk-Jen Kievit, the human behind the plan. And so, with all due respect for the sheep, why not put them in harm´s way rather than children?

If the project proves a success, we might see it replicated in other parts of the world with similar traffic problems. Of course, each place will have to make do with sluggish species that are readily at hand—the streets of Riyadh would sport dromedaries, while Sydney would do best with elderly kangaroos. Water buffaloes would be most suitable for Bangkok, and it might be possible to persuade donkeys and elephants to take to the streets in Washington DC, particularly when the Senate or House are in session. Finding an appropriate beast for New York could be a problem, as it is unlikely that the bulls and bears would emerge from Wall Street to slow down the BMWs in downtown Manhattan.

There would be no such difficulty in the Subcontinent, however. What for the Culemborgers is an innovation has been a time-tested technique of traffic control here. The ruminating bovines on Benaras streets and the petit mountain cows on Kathmandu boulevards, do wonders when it comes to slowing down traffic to a crawl—to the extent that accidents which would kill and maim on an autobahn lead to but a scratch on the fender here. Bulls and cows also have the advantage that they drop traffic markers, which can be of assistance to motorists.

Besides bovines, South Asia also boasts of other species of traffic wardens, including donkeys, pigs (where allowed) and the takin (more on which later).

Journalists of Pakistan, Unite

A PLATFORM SET UP outside Islamabad´s parliament house bustled with activity under the scorching July sun. Journalists were making rather than reporting news, with a five-day dawn-to-dusk sit-in. Black banners, posters and placards announced the journalists´ demand: "No more exploitation". Journalists from all over the country had joined the protest, from Rawalpindi/ Islamabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Punjab and Karachi.

The target of their ire was newspaper proprietors who were showing great reluctance in implementing what is known as the Sixth Wage Board Award, which directed that journalists´ salaries be increased from 57 to 70 percent over the next five years. The award was announced in March 1996 by the Wage Board Commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Zia Mehmood Mirza.

Not that the journalists´ representatives were pleased with the award, for they point out that the prices of commodities and other essentials had risen by almost 200 to 250 percent during the last five years. For their part, the publishers pleaded that they would go bankrupt if they tried to meet the Commission´s directive. They took the case to court, challenging the very formation of the Commission and raising a host of other issues which they say prove that the Award is unjustified and impractical.

The history of the Wage Board is a chequered one. The first Wage Board Commission was set up in the 1950s, following protests by journalists over their miserable pay packets, and it announced its first award in January 1961. The establishment of the Second Wage Board was delayed by the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965 and could not be formed till 1969. Its award was delayed till 1972 because of the 1971 war which led to the formation of Bangladesh.

There was another lull as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto´s government set about consolidating its position, and before long martial law was imposed and the focus of journalists´ activism shifted from their paycheck to achieving democracy. The Third Award was finally announced in 1980, and since then, the five year term has been followed, with the Fourth appearing in 1985 and the Fifth in 1990.

Implementation, however, is another matter. Justice Mirza was shocked to learn during the course of the commission´s hearings that several major newspapers were yet to implement the Fourth and the Fifth Wage Awards. Meanwhile, his Sixth Board has announced its award. The journalists are out on the streets. The owners have gone to court. The fight continues.

Support Your Local Street Vendor!

EVEN AS THE South Asian middle class discovers Kentucky Fried Chicken, vacuum packed snacks and bottled water, EEG Features comes up with the captivating news that the much-maligned roadside food vendors stand up to the test—and more!

"There is the general notion that street food is unhygienic, but yet there is generally very little complaint about food poisoning," says the agency. "The food served by roadside vendors tends to be ´fresh´, as it is heated, boiled or fried in front of the customer. Thus, the chance of contamination is minimised."

Roadside stalls are also people-friendly. A study carried out in Pune by the Centre of Studies in Social Sciences found that on average a food cart serves over 500 people daily. "Street food is an easy-to-enter, non capital-intensive industry, and it is part of the social fabric of our societies," says Meera Bapat, a researcher. Besides, one food cart gives employment to three to four persons.

Unfortunately, for all the social needs that they fulfil, that of providing hygienic, fast-food to the public, street vending is constantly targeted by the authorities, who regard it as a vestige of backwardness. While the poor rely on street vending, the government views it as a nuisance and is constantly harassing vendors, says Ms Bapat.

As for the quality of the food, bacterial analysis by the Centre of 252 samples of food and water taken from restaurants and street vendors found that restaurant food was no better than street food in terms of conditions. Logically, therefore, there is no need to eat out, when one can "eat out".

Let Them Drink Beer

SRI LANKA´S astronomically highly taxed brewery industry (hard liquor and cigarettes suffer the same fate) has succeeded in winning substantial excise duty concessions leading to sharply lower prices and a terrific increase in demand.

Industry sources say that with beer prices down by 17 or 18 rupees a bottle, many kasippu (the local moonshine) drinkers have begun using beer rather than aerated water as chasers. Given the added ´kick´ of the combination, they find it economical enough. A litre of coke retails at Rs 33, so the Rs 41.50 for 750 ml of beer compares very favourably.

Brewers who had been paying more than 90 percent of the consumer price of a bottle of beer to government as excise and other taxes had long argued that making ´soft´ liquor cheaper would wean boozers away from the hard stuff. But their newfound tax respite has been hit from an unexpected direction. The main opposition United National Party (UNP), campaigning countrywide for lower duty on imported powdered milk, is asking the pointed question: "Are our babies to drink beer?"

Tigerless Uttar Pradesh

THE STATE OF Uttar Pradesh, which is said to host at least half of India´s tigers, has seen a drastic reduction in the big cats´ population, according to the Calcutta Telegraph. The estimated number of tigers in the state has fallen to 424, from as many as 735 tigers in 1989.

Forestry officials blame poachers in search of animal skins and tiger bones, and the easy escape these criminals can make across the frontier into Nepal. The Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in the tarai alone has a 71 km border with Nepal, with villages on the other side, says Iqbal Singh, Conservator of Forests (Wildlife).

At the very least, says Mr Singh, the Government of India should provide for joint Indo-Nepal patrolling along the border so that the poacher-smugglers do not have it so easy. "Also, the Department of Forests has no funds to pay informers or trap smugglers. With no spy system in place, the problem appears unsurmountable."

To the west of Dudhwa, in the lower Kumaon, the Corbett National Park was long considered a safe haven for tigers. However, poaching has extended there as well, with a cache of tiger skin and bone recovered by park officials in early August.

The bulk of the tiger bones, believed to have aphrodisiac properties by the Chinese, are said to be smuggled through the Nepali hinterland up to Tibet, from where they are easily transferred to the Chinese mainland. The tigers are being sacrificed to provide for the supposed sexual under-performance of a far-removed population. Hardly the reason for Uttar Pradesh to lose its magnificent beasts.

Eyeing South Asian Market U.S. Offers To Mediate

RELATION BETWEEN India and Pakistan may be as frosty as ever but that is apparently not stopping them from talking business. Islamabad journalist Nasim Zehra writes that members of the government and the opposition from India and Pakistan met in Stockholm in early July to find ways to circumvent political hurdles in implementing gas pipeline projects from the Gulf countries to South Asia. The meeting was said to be part of an US-sponsored initiative known as the Cohen Peace Plan, which seeks to bring about peace, with Washington DCs help, in a region perceived to be hurtling towards military confrontation.

Of course, US interest in a peaceful South Asia is more than political. "There are strong economic and military compulsions for Washington´s hands-on diplomacy in South Asia," was the opinion of a political commentator in the Pakistani capital. The Cohen plan calculates that "reduction of military expenditure would mean increases in development funding and improvements in physical and industrial infrastructure (in the region)", and ensure good returns for American business interests.

India and Pakistan have negotiated separately for the multi-billion dollar pipeline projects in which quite a few US-led consortiums are known to be heavily involved. UNOCAL is one such consortium, which has already begun pre-feasibility studies while lobbying in Islamabad for what it calls a "peace pipeline" from Qatar, through Pakistan to India.

There have been no government-level talks between the two countries since January 1994. The Cohen Plan envisages a long-term American involvement in the region by mediating low-level negotiations to be followed by intervention at the US president-level and appointment of a special emissary. According to Dawn, the largest circulated English-language daily in Pakistan, a Camp David-style initiative was proposed by the Americans to sort out long-standing differences between the two countries.

At the Stockholm meeting, India was represented by Mani Shankar Aiyar, former Congress Party MP, and Jaswant Singh, finance minister in the short-lived BJP government, while the Pakistani delegation consisted of Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Shah Mahmud Qureshi and an opposition party leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. Shirin Taherkheli, a political scientist of Pakistani origin who has worked for the US State Department, coordinated the meeting in which the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP) was an observer.

Officialdom in both countries were reticent to talk about the meeting when contacted by Himal South Asia, and Jaswant Singh strenuously sought to underplay the importance of the Stockholm meeting, which he said was the third in a series of meetings on energy and environment at which Nepal and Bangladesh were also present. However, said a senior Pakistani diplomat, "We can toy with them (plans) but nothing can move unless sufficient confidence prevails among all parties. The Stockholm round is an effort in that direction."

Pakistan has a favourable view of the Cohen Plan whose author, Stephen Cohen, editor of The Pakistan Army, a book on the post-independence military, is rated quite highly in Islamabad. "We would be happy with any serious proposal for third party involvement," said Shahrayar Rashid, Director General in the foreign office.

But it is one thing to get the two countries talking and another to presuppose India would welcome Washington´s long standing offer to mediate over Kashmir During the current session of the Indiar Parliament, Foreign Minister Inder Kuma: Gujral reiterated the Indian stance that it is ready for bilateral talks with Pakistan, but that internationalisation of the Kashmir is sue is unacceptable.

Officials in Islamabad and New Delhi concede that better relations would help the economic liberalisation process that is underway in both countries. There are many schemes that hinge on a Indo-Pakistani entente, and the crises that periodically erupt between the two do not do anything to bolster investor confidence. These scheme include pipeline projects, a South Asian highway from Bangladesh all the way to Central Asia, and so on.

South Asia as a whole is paying heavily for the deep Indo-Pakistan mistrust. Even while denying that they are meeting (to waylay domestic hawks), perhaps the should just keep on meeting.

Bye, Bye Mumbai

OF THE 218 Nepali women who were "rescued" from the brothels of Bombay in February, 124 (only those who wanted to return home) have been brought to Nepal by a consortium of 37 Nepali ngos. Picture shows the group after alighting from a Royal Nepal Airlines flight from Bombay on 19 July.

For all of the five months the women stayed in social institutions in Bombay and Pune, the Nepali government remained inactive, but it is now indignant at the initiative taken by the ngos, which it is accusing of forming a "parallel government" for their efforts.

Housed in Kathmandu by the host ngos, many of the girls are undergoing treatment for psycho-social depression while others are receiving training on various "income-generating skills". They have also been taking HIV tests and, and out of 12 girls taken in by one ngo, seven tested positive.

In the meantime, the girls have also been identifying the persons who sold them off in Bombay, and a few of these traffickers have already been arrested.

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