The Church of North India is spearheading moves to fight the exploitation of young jobseekers in northeast India, writes Beccy Beard.
Villages in West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Bhutan states in northeast India are poor and lack jobs. Those that do exist are in farming, which suffers from floods, low prices for crops and land restrictions.
So it's easy for unscrupulous people to persuade parents to send their children away for a better education elsewhere, or a better job. Youth are glad of the opportunity.
But in many cases the job is not what they expect or their schooling does not materialise. Girls have taken up their roles as domestic servants to rich families but after a few years disappeared, or been brought back dead.
At the moment traffickers are identified in India, yet lead a free life
This picture is revealed in the recent reports of Sanjana Das, children's concerns coordinator of the Church of North India (CNI). She has been leading the CNI's push against the exploitation under an anti-trafficking programme. It was launched in September 2005 in Darjeeling with a consultation "tackling newer emerging vulnerabilities leading to trafficking in children and women in the eastern Himalayan region".
It brought together representatives from the police, state government, United Nations, church and non-governmental organizations to speak to an audience of CNI pastors, community workers, women leaders and youth about the issue.
Participants have since formed an action plan to respond to the problems in the districts of Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Kokrajhar, beginning by teaching their congregations and communities.
The CNI also held awareness workshops in eight villages in the diocese of eastern Himalaya, which spans West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Bhutan.
Destination communities have formed vigilant cells of concerned people to trace the progress of people who have left their communities for work, Das says. For example, where they have discovered a child has been trafficked they have obtained the trafficker's confession and alerted the child's parents and police.
Prevention
The CNI is seeking to support women's and youth groups in identifying ways for youth to make a living so they can refuse traffickers' offers of work in the city. It is educating about traffickers so that children are not lured and parents are not deceived.
Yet the CNI is supporting safe migration. Das points out that globalisation has brought jobs in different sectors and places, especially for women and the CNI is helping them take opportunities safely with predeparture training and record management through panchyats (local government), congregations and self help groups.
The church is planning ways to ensure that when a trafficking crime is committed it is investigated, prosecuted and punished. At the moment traffickers are identified in India, yet lead a free life.
For those that have fallen into the hands of traffickers the CNI is providing counselling, job skills and health care to settle back into a community. It is fighting for their rights in court. Pastors and church members are seeking to eliminate the stigma surrounding victims.