(MODEL)There is little point in making rules and regulations to safeguard women from sexual exploitation when the rules are so easily and blatantly flouted.
To check the racket in sex trafficking of women who seek to work overseas, the emigration rules say that no ‘Emigration Certificate Not Required’ stamp will be issued to unskilled or semi-skilled women seeking to work abroad who are below 30 years of age.
This rule was introduced because many girls and young women were being recruited for what they thought were genuine jobs overseas, and then pushed into the sex trade.
However, unscrupulous recruiting agents have found a way around this age provision thanks to the laxity of the passport office and the emigration authorities and a flourishing trade in bogus age certificates. Two sisters from Mandapeta, one aged 18 and the other 21, were recently rescued from their employer in Dubai who was sexually exploiting them. Says the 18-year-old, who is now in the city: “Three of us from Mandapeta went to Deira in Dubai because we were promised a salary of Rs 13,000 a month for domestic work. Each of us paid Rs 60,000 to get a work permit. I was only 16 at the time, but in the affidavit the agent put my age as 30. From the very second day they began torturing us and exploited us sexually. We got in touch with one Raju, a native of Valigonda in Nalgonda district, a trader. He informed the Dubai police who rescued us and we landed in Hyderabad on March 2.”
The Mandapeta police have registered a case and arrested two persons including the local agent, Suleman. A police team that went to Chennai arrested others in the racket from Chennai and Vellore. Thousands of girls and women who faked their age and were sent to work as house maids, beauticians, hairdressers and baby sitters are now languishing either in the sex trade hubs in the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Singapore and Malayasia, or are exploited by their employers who pay them paltry sums as salary. It is the responsibility of the Regional Passport Office, which issues the passports, to check that the age is correct.
Applicants whose educational qualification is below SSC (Class X) must get notarized affidavits as age proof. Here, another scam comes into play. While probing the recent case of a threat letter sent to the Chief Justice of the AP High Court, the Hyderabad police came across large numbers of blank notarized affidavits which were being used for illegal purposes, including providing proof of age for passport purposes. The Protector of Emigrants can issue an Emigration Check Not Required certificate if the woman’s age on her passport is above 30. But crooked job recruitment agents, some of whom are not even licensed, manage to get fraudulent affidavits certifying that the women are over 30 and no authority further down the line bothers to check whether the affidavit is genuine.
These illegal agents work mostly in East Godavari, West Godavari, Kadapa, Anantapur, Nizamabad and Hyderabad districts.
The Eluru range deputy inspector-general of police, Mr Mahesh Muralidhar Bhagawat, says, “The local agents have a network of agents in Bengaluru and Chennai who in turn have connections with agents in Dubai. Minor and unmarried women who trust them land up in brothels. Most of them are run by people from India, particularly Chennai, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.” Mr Bhagawat said that the kingpin of the racket that involved the two sisters is Abdul Hameed of Kulai in Mangalore, Karnataka, who lives in Dubai. “He is assisted by people from Chennai, Bengaluru and one Bhanu from AP. At least seven of them are yet to be arrested in this case.
The victims say there are 15 to 20 other girls from the state in Dubai being forced into the sex trade.” The state police have approached the joint secretary in the ministry of external affairs, Mr Ravi Shankar Aisola, who in turn has contacted the consul general of India in the UAE to seek the arrest of the seven accused as well as to rescue the other girls.
According to officials in the office of the Protector General of Emigrants, there are 87 registered and licensed recruiting agents in the state, most of them in Hyderabad, Secunderabad, Rayachoti, Kadapa, Nizamabad and Adilabad. At least one lakh people, including semi-skilled and unskilled men and women, were issued a work visa in 2009, up from 31,000 in 2008.
Emigration officials say that it is up to the passport officials to cross-check the details of the affidavit giving proof of age, or to get an applicant medically tested if there is any doubt. Immigration authorities at airports are also not vigilant or else they would soon spot the obvious fraud. For those born after 1989, the only age of proof that is accepted by passport authorities is the municipal birth certificate or a certificate from the registrar of births. But for those born earlier, a certificate attesting to age from an educational institution or an affidavit sworn before a magistrate or notary stating date and place of birth is also accepted. Crooked agents use this latter provision by managing to get fake affidavits. The police register cases under Section 24 of the Emigration Act and 420 of the IPC (cheating) against the bogus agents. In Kadapa, police booked around 35 such agents and in East Godavari two agents were arrested recently.
The Regional Passport Officer was not available for comment for this article. Clearly, greater vigilance is required by the passport and emigration authorities, and by the police to nab traffickers and unscrupulous agents. A massive information campaign to warn poor women desperate for a job about the pitfalls ahead would also go a long way in preventing their exploitation.
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