It may be an election ploy but Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra has captured the imagination of many Indian commentators who hail its non-sectarian message. Source: BJY/Twitter

By Mehru Jaffer
GOA, INDIA, Jan 26 2023 (IPS)

When countless supporters of the Indian National Congress, the main opposition party, arrive in Srinagar on January 30 to hoist the Indian flag, they would have walked 3,570 kilometres over 150 days.

The Congress Party organised the Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY), a long march to counter what it calls the divisive politics of the ruling party. The exercise was to revive the idea of India as a country united in all its diversity. The BJY is led by senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, 52, who met countless citizens on the way at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not held a single press conference in the last nine years that he has been in power.

Founder and editor of The Citizen Seema Mustafa told the IPS Rahul Gandhi gained by leading the BJY.

“He has emerged as a leader of substance with courage and honesty and compassion on display. What the Congress Party has gained will only be known once Congressmen can take it all forward. Other gains and losses will come after that, but for now, the BJY has indeed cut through the prevailing atmosphere of fear and hate,” said Mustafa.

The BJY will culminate in the Himalayan region of Kashmir on January 30 but will it receive the same kind of welcome as it has in the rest of the country, is the question. For nearly half a century, the people of Kashmir have complained of Delhi’s stepmotherly attitude towards them.

Spymaster and former head of India’s Intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), AS Dulat, had a personal invitation to join the BJY. He walked for one hour with Rahul Gandhi, but Dulat did not say whether they talked about the troubled province of Kashmir.

Dulat’s latest book, A Life in the Shadows, is about Kashmir, a place he loves passionately. He was first posted to Kashmir in the late 1980s. As a former Prime Minister’s advisor on Kashmir, he understands the Kashmiri psyche and empathises with the problems in the province. Because he is seen as a problem solver and well-wisher of all the people suffering in Kashmir, including separatists, militants, and Pakistanis, he is called Mr Kashmir.

In the book, he implies that the problem of militancy is no longer about joining Pakistan or seeking independence but resistance to the harsh majoritarian policies of muscular power tactics used against the people of Kashmir by the present government in Delhi.

Rahul Gandhi greets well-wishers during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which started in September 2022 and is due to be completed by January 30, 2023. Source: BJY/Twitter

Dulat told the media that participating in the BJY was a wonderful experience. Gandhi wrote in a letter inviting Dulat to join the march, “We listen to anyone who wants to be heard. We offer no judgment or opinion. We walk to unite every Indian regardless of their gender, caste or religion because we know they are equal citizens. We walk to fight hatred and fear.”

Dulat commented: “I think what this young man is doing is certainly something exceptional… incredible.”’ He doesn’t think that anyone will ever do it again, and nobody is going to walk so many kilometres again.

However, his walk has had its critics – with the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh accusing Gandhi of tarnishing the image of India by creating the impression that only hatred prevails in the country.

The BJY was started last September on the southern tip of the Indian peninsula in Kanyakumari, and it has marched non-stop through 12 provinces. During the march, Gandhi spent time with scores of citizens from different walks of life. After walking about 25 kilometres daily in two shifts, the Congress workers slept in makeshift accommodations at night.

Talking to IPS, a professor at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Zoya Hasan, agreed that the march had succeeded.

“If crowds are any indicator, the BJY got an enthusiastic response in all the states it traversed. This shows that there is still space in the country for inclusive politics,” Hasan said.

Many see the march as altering the country’s mood. It has brought hope into the lives of citizens who have been feeling increasingly fearful of their future and security. Largely ignored by (mainly pro-government) mainstream media, the BJY has been streaming live on social media. Watching supporters walk thousands of miles and meet hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths mingling, embracing, shaking hands and making friends has reinforced positive ideas of bonhomie and togetherness amongst citizens.

Ever since the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, the mood in the nation has been grim. Apart from tackling the never-ending scourge of poverty, the country has had to deal with repeated incidents of public violence.

The BJP has been criticised for being communitarian, and commentators say this, at best, ignores and, at worst, encourages violence by citizens against each other and divides Indian society by religious affiliation.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, in an interview, Sen had told Le Monde, the French daily newspaper, that the Indian government is one of the most appalling in the world because it is communitarian in the narrowest sense of the term. It harms India by attacking Muslims and propagating the idea that Hindus form the nation.

Many consider the BJY march a success as a political protest against the alleged divisive politics of the right-wing ruling party in power.

“I joined the march and walked with Rahul Gandhi not because I am a fan of the Congress Party but because I thought the young man (Rahul Gandhi) has stood up for the right values at the right time, and I support similar values,” filmmaker Saeed Mirza said at the launch of his latest book I Know The Psychology of Rats in Goa recently.

“I believe every Indian who wants love and inclusiveness should be participating in the yatra beyond political identity. Although it is a predominately Congress-organised event, it is not exclusively a Congress event. So every Indian has been welcomed with open arms, and that is how it should be. If political pettiness comes in the way, it will be a self-defeating attitude,” said Tushar Gandhi, who joined the march last November. Tushar is Mahatma Gandhi’s great-grandson, and Rahul Gandhi is the great-grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India.

The Congress Party says the objective of the BJY is to fight against the politics of fear, bigotry and prejudice and the economics of livelihood destruction, increasing unemployment and growing inequalities.

“What the yatra has achieved is way beyond what the sceptics anticipated. They have been proved wrong, and I include myself in the category. A suffocated nation was waiting for some such happening,” wrote journalist Saeed Naqvi.

Hasan adds that the BJY has refurbished the Congress’s credentials as a party of national unity and social cohesion, upholding the values of secularism, the welfare of the masses and their constitutionally granted rights. This marks an important wedge in a hyper-nationalist narrative of the ruling party’s politics.

Hasan said the impact of the BJY was that the ruling party wasn’t setting the narrative but was forced to react to the Congress Party. While only time will tell whether the march will bring electoral gains to the Congress Party in the general elections to be held in 2024, Hasan says:

“It is the necessary first step in building a politics of change.”

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India’s new Chief Justice, Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud has significant challenges ahead as activists hope he will continue with his legacy. Credit: Subhashish Panigrahi and Charmanderrulez

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, Dec 14 2022 (IPS)

India’s new Chief Justice, Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud, has a significant challenge ahead – as activists and minorities remain hopeful that he will remain true to his legacy of delivering judgments that enshrined the Constitution, especially on personal liberty.

Sanjay Kapoor, founder editor of Hardnews Magazine and political analyst told the IPS that many of the rulings by Indian courts in recent times have been deeply disturbing.

“In the name of national security, draconian laws are evoked to curb personal liberty. Journalists and activists have been arrested and locked away under anti-terror law without evidence,” said Kapoor.

He gave the example of Siddique Kappan, who has remained in jail for more than two years for unknown reasons. Kappan got bail from the Supreme Court, but anti-money laundering laws were immediately slapped upon him to ensure that he remained in prison.

Kapoor’s main concern is the undermining of courts by the government, which is sure to weaken institutions and harm democracy in India.

Meanwhile, the CJI also warned that he was not here to do miracles.

“I know that challenges are high; perhaps the expectations are also high, and I am deeply grateful for your sense of faith, but I am not here to do miracles,” Chandrachud said after his appointment.

The challenges facing the judiciary include a backlog of cases, delays in appointing Supreme Court judges, and significant inconsistencies in judicial approaches.

Soon after Chandrachud took oath on November 9, Chandrachud expressed concern over the long list of requests before the Supreme Court for bail. He said that district judges are reluctant to grant bail in a fair manner out of fear of being targeted.

Activists say that this is the same reason that media personnel, political opponents, and social activists are languishing behind bars without bail today.

Activist Teesta Setalvad was arrested in June 2021, and her bail plea was only accepted three months later when she was finally released. There are others, like student leader Umar Khalid, who has languished in jail for more than two years.

The judicial system in India is under tremendous pressure. Until last May, countless cases were pending in courts across different levels of the judiciary. Many of the cases were pending in subordinate courts, a large percent in High Courts, while a hundred thousand cases have been pending for over 30 years. Amid the rising trend of litigation, more and more people and organisations seek justice from courts today. However, there are not enough judges to hear the cases. The courts are overburdened, and the backlog of cases is intimidating.

The reluctance to grant bail to especially political opponents has only aggravated the matter. Most recently, Sanjay Raut, senior opposition party leader, said that he had lost 10 kgs while in prison. The legislature was accused of money laundering. He was in jail for 100 days before bail was granted to him in November. He was kept in a dark cell where he did not see sunlight for 15 days.

Raut said that he would not have been arrested if he had surrendered to the will of the ruling party and remained a mute spectator to the politics of the day. He wondered if only those who oppose the politics of the ruling party would continue to be arrested.

The use of the justice system as a political tool and reluctance to grant bail at the district level has clogged the higher judiciary with far too many cases.

“The reason why the higher judiciary is being flooded with bail applications is because of the reluctance of the grassroots to grant bail, and why are judges reluctant to grant bail not because they do not have the ability to understand the crime. They probably understand the crime better than many of the higher court judges because they know what crime is there at the grassroots in the districts, but there is a sense of fear that if I grant bail, will someone target me tomorrow on the ground that I granted bail in a heinous case. This sense of fear nobody talks about but, which we must confront because unless we do, we are going to render our district courts toothless and our higher courts dysfunctional,” Chandrachud said at an event hosted by the Bar Council of India last week to felicitate his appointment as the country’s 50th CJI.

The Supreme Court of India is perhaps the most powerful Court in the world. However, in recent times the judiciary has been criticised for its uneven handling of cases. It is under scrutiny over contradictions found in its functioning. The fact that a former CJI accepted a seat in the upper house of parliament soon after his retirement two years ago had raised eyebrows.

The judiciary’s perceived deference to the present government is a major concern, including the ongoing arrest of political opponents, and refusal to grant bail to those arrested is becoming the norm. On the other hand, ‘friends’ of the ruling party are allowed to get away with murder and rape.

The nation was shocked after a document was made public last October as proof that the premature release of 11 men convicted for the gang rape of Bilkis Bano and the killing of her family during the 2002 Gujarat riots was approved by the home ministry despite opposition by a special court. A Communist Party of India (Marxist) member Subhashini Ali, journalist Revati Laul and Professor Roop Rekha Verma together filed a public interest litigation (PIL) against a remission granted to 11 convicts who were released on August 15, India’s 75th Independence Day celebrations this year on account of good behaviour.

Bano was gang-raped along with 14 members of her family. Her 3-year-old daughter Saleha was killed by a mob in a village in the province of Gujarat as they fled communal violence in 2002. Bano was 19 years old and five months pregnant at that time. Shobha Gupta, the lawyer for Bano has battled for years for the rape survivor to get justice. Gupta told Barkha Dutt, a senior journalist, that she is shattered and unable to face Bano. That after the release of her rapists from custody, Bano is silent and feels alone.

Dutt had interviewed Bano 20 years ago. Today she wrote in her column that an unspeakable injustice is unfolding with brazen impunity. Its legality is dodgy. Dutt said, “Let’s raise hell”.

After the men who raped Bano and killed her child were freed, they were greeted outside the prison with sweets and garlands. This is the story of a very seriously ill nation, columnist Jawed Naqvi said.

“The nation that was baying for the execution of men who raped a young woman in a bus in Delhi in 2012 seemed deaf to Bilkis’s trauma,” Naqvi wrote. The executive has turned its back on Bano. The media is disinterested and civil society has been bullied into silence at a time when principles are passe for most politicians.”

So who will give justice to citizens like Bano?

The Supreme Court?

In a plea filed by Azam Khan last July, the opposition party leader pointed out a new trend amongst the high courts to impose unnecessary bail conditions. Khan said that a high court had ordered the politician to hand over allegedly encroached land as a condition for bail. The ruling was overturned.

Seeking justice these days is tough within the courts and outside.

The 74-year-old Khan has been behind bars since early 2020. Multiple charges have been slapped on him, including corruption, theft, and land grab, in an effort to make sure that he remains behind bars on some charge or the other. However, Khan was granted interim bail last May. A few months later, he was fined and has been sentenced to three more years in prison for a hate speech made in 2019. At that time, Khan was accused of blaming the Prime Minister for creating an atmosphere in the country in which it was difficult for Muslims, the largest minority community in India, to live.

A new report published by the USA-based NGO Council on Minority Rights in India (CMRI) and released on November 20 at New Delhi’s Press Club found that by helping offenders, detaining victims, and failing to register first information reports (FIR) in some cases, law enforcement agencies play a role in furthering hate crimes.

Discussing the legal aspects of persecution, lawyer Kawalpreet Kaur said that minorities are facing the brunt of the state to varying degrees. Cases of the pogrom against Muslims during the Delhi riots have been lying in the high court for the last two years.

“Indian courts need to keep their eyes and ears open; it is not a one-off case of Afree Fatima’s house bulldozed or when the stalls of working-class Muslims were razed in Delhi despite a stay from the court,” she said.

The lawyer called it an attack by the Indian state against its minorities and a campaign of misinformation and Islamophobia witnessed every day.

The release of the CMRI report comes at a time when numerous countries and organisations are calling upon India to take stock of the plight of its religious minorities.

Six international rights groups – the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT), Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), Inter­national Dalit Solidarity Network, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have reminded New Delhi in a joint statement that it is yet to implement recommendations of a recent UN report on India which cover topics which include the protection of minorities and human rights defenders, upholding civil liberties, and more.

“The Indian government should promptly adopt and act on the recommendations that United Nations member states made at the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review process on November 10,” the joint statement read.

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Journalists, writers, both local and international, have called on the authorities in India to respect human rights and release imprisoned writes and dissident and critical voices. Protests about media freedom have become more urgent in recent years since this protest by the Mumbai Press Club. Credit: Facebook

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, Aug 17 2022 (IPS)

On the eve of India’s 76th Independence Day, the president of the country, Droupadi Murmu, received a letter signed by 102 international writers, including authors from India and the Indian diaspora expressing “grave concerns about the rapidly worsening situation for human rights” and calling for the release of imprisoned writers and “dissident and critical voices”.

Salman Rushdie signed the letter before the attack on him on August 12, 2022. Rushdie joined PEN America and PEN International, two worldwide associations of writers, to convey his anguish to the highest office in India.

Dated August 14, 2022, the letter urged the President of India to support the democratic ideals promoting and protecting free expression in the spirit of India’s independence and to restore India’s reputation as an inclusive, secular, multi-ethnic and -religious democracy where writers can express dissenting or critical views without threat of detention, investigation, physical attacks, or retaliation.

“Free expression is the cornerstone of a robust democracy. By weakening this core right, all other rights are at risk and the promises made at India’s birth as an independent republic are severely compromised,” the writers emphasised.

In its Freedom to Write Index 2021, PEN America considered India the only “nominally democratic country” among the “top 10 jailers” of writers and public intellectuals worldwide. The letter highlighted the arrest of writers, including poet Varavara Rao who was recently granted bail.

The “grave concern” regarding threats to free expression and other core rights has grown steadily in recent years.

The signatories underlined that writers and public intellectuals were “subject to arrest, prosecution, and travel bans intended to restrain their free speech”.

Well-known authors Amitav Ghosh, Perumal Murugan, Orhan Pamuk, Jerry Pinto, Salil Tripathi, Aatish Taseer and Shobhaa De, have signed the letter that said, “Online trolling and harassment is rife, hate speech is expressed loudly”, and criticised frequent internet shutdowns “centred on Kashmir” limit the access to news and information.

The letter registered a strong protest over the “persecution” of writers, columnists, editors, journalists, and artists, including Mohammed Zubair, Siddique Kappan, Teesta Setalvad, Avinash Das, and Fahad Shah.

In yet another PEN America initiative, 113 authors from India and the Indian diaspora have contributed to a collection reflecting on the state of free expression and democratic ideals. Titled India at 75, the collection includes original writings by Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Geetanjali Shree, Rajmohan Gandhi and Romila Thapar, among others.

Rushdie writes that India’s “dream of fellowship and liberty is dead, or close to death”.

“Then, in the First Age of Hindustan Hamara, our India, we celebrated one another’s festivals, and believed, or almost believed, that all of the land’s multifariousness belonged to all of us. Now that dream of fellowship and liberty is dead, or close to death. A shadow lies upon the country we loved so deeply. Hindustan isn’t hamara anymore. The Ruling Ring—one might say—has been forged in the fire of an Indian Mount Doom. Can any new fellowship be created to stand against it?”

On August 15, India celebrated 75 years of independence from colonial rule. The country has yet to conquer poverty, but the largest democracy in the world did enjoy an excellent track record of encouraging free and fair media.

However, press freedom, as well as the unity of the country, is threatened by communal politics. A large section of mainstream media has turned pro-government, especially after the general elections in the spring of 2019. Ever since pressure has increased on the media to toe the line of the Hindu nationalist government. For the same reason, it is often difficult to distinguish between a ruling party spokesperson and a journalist in India today.

“At centre stage of media are views of political parties, their respective spokespersons making more noise than saying anything substantive on the electronic media,” Anand Vardhan Singh, Lucknow-based senior journalist and founder of YouTube channel The Public, told the IPS.

Singh regrets that the people in power have fragmented the national media between English versus regional languages, print versus electronic versus social media.

Investigative journalism is a thing of the past. The reporting aspect of media has taken a backseat.

This year’s independence day celebration will be remembered for what 9-year-old Mehnaz Kappan said.

“I am Mehnaz Kappan, daughter of journalist Siddique Kappan, a citizen who has been forced into a dark room by breaking all freedom of a citizen”.

Siddique Kappan is a Delhi-based journalist from Kerala. He was arrested in October 2020 on his way to Hathras, a poverty-stricken village in north India in Uttar Pradesh, to report on the rape and murder of a 19-year-old Dalit woman.

“Attempts to demean, belittle, and outlaw dissent and protest and the problem of growing communalisation are the principal challenges the country faces today. A journalist needs nerves of steel and tremendous courage to continue to ask questions,” senior journalist and founding editor of The Wire, Siddharth Varadarajan, said.

Siddharth Varadarajan, foundering editor of The Wire has also been targeted. Credit: The Wire

Like many others, Varadarajan, too, was punished for speaking out, and court cases are filed against him. Many journalists are booked for sedition to intimidate those scribes who refuse to toe the line of people in power.

The problem is that mainstream media has stopped questioning the government. Public interest is no longer on the mind of the media. The purpose of mainstream journalists, nicknamed ‘godi’ media or ‘cozy’ journalism, is only to praise those in power.

The media has abrogated its responsibility of asking questions, and those journalists who question, like Mohammad Zubair (33), are put into jail. The arrest of journalist Zubair marks a new low for press freedom in India, where the government has created a hostile and unsafe environment for members of the press. Zubair was arrested because AltNews,  a fact-checking website he co-founded, frequently exposed claims made by the government, making him an obstacle to false propaganda. Zubair was arrested last June. He spent 23 days in prisons and police custody in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and was released on July 23, 2022, after the Supreme Court granted interim bail to him.

Soon after he had walked out of prison, Zubair told the national daily The Hindu that he thinks his arrest was made an example for others.

Zubair said that multiple First Information Reports (FIR) filed against him were a message from the government that it could book 10-15 random FIRs in different states to keep one in jail for years. Zubair was released after a Supreme Court ruling to grant him bail. The FIRs filed against Zubair are random and bizarre, like two FIRs in Uttar Pradesh are for fact-checking a media channel-which is his job. There is another FIR for calling an accused in a hate speech case a hate monger in a tweet!

Zubair happens to be a Muslim. Another Muslim journalist Sana Mattoo was prevented from flying abroad for a book release. To intimidate Zubair, money-laundering charges were filed against him. Maria Ressa, the Nobel Prize-winning journalist from the Philippines, said that she was shocked at the arrest of Zubair and human rights activist Teesta Setalvad. Ressa told a digital media reporter in India that all journalists should unite to oppose what has happened.

“Everyone should be talking about it; everyone should be writing about this,” said Ressa.

In a population of 1.4 billion people, 14 percent are Muslim, but the practice of majoritarian politics in recent times has made the ruling party increasingly intolerant of Muslim voices in the country. Kappan, a Muslim, was denied bail.

Millions of tweets are directed at journalist Rana Ayyub, another Muslim, making her one of the most brutally targeted journalists in the world.

Ayyub, an independent journalist and a Washington Post columnist, has used her social media heft and the global attention she receives to highlight the plight of Indian Muslims and the arrest of journalists in India. She was accused of money laundering and tax fraud related to her crowdfunding campaign to help those affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Ayyub has denied any wrongdoing, calling the allegations baseless. Early this year, the United Nations appointed independent rights experts issued a statement calling Indian authorities to stop the systematic harassment against Ayyub.

“Relentless misogynistic and sectarian attacks online against journalist Rana Ayyub must be promptly and thoroughly investigated by the Indian authorities, and the judicial harassment against her brought to an end at once,” the statement said.

For the same reason, India ranks as one of the most dangerous and restrictive countries for journalists today. Despite its secular and democratic status, India is ranked 142nd in the Reporters Without Borders 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

There are other ways to make journalists feel uncomfortable. Notices were sent to the Indian Women Press Corps (IWPC) to vacate the accommodation allotted to them as their lease will soon end. A similar notice was also sent to South Asia’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Both organisations are Delhi based.

Shobhna Jain, President of IWPC, said, “It’s a routine procedural thing. The government is giving us renewals, and we are quite hopeful that this year too, we will get the lease renewed for a longer period”.

The IWPC is the country’s first association of women journalists, founded in 1994 as a support group to help women meet challenges unique to women. It was to ensure that women’s by-lines were respected and heard. Today more than 800 women are members of the IWPC who use the premises to network, access news sources, exchange information and share experiences to advance the profession. Located in the heart of New Delhi and equipped with a library and computer centre, the premises are a boon for journalists wanting to save time from commuting in the city.

Often children accompany the women journalist as she works while they play on the premises. Here press conferences are organised and exclusive interactions with newsmakers.

July this year was a terrible month for journalists around Asia.

On July 3, journalist Hasibur Rehman Rubel left his office in the Kushtia district in western Bangladesh, never to return. On July 7, his decomposed body was found in a river.

On July 7, Peer Muhammad Khan Kakar, a Pakistani journalist, was arrested in the Loralai district of southwest Balochistan on complaints related to his Facebook posts.

On the same day in July, Ressa’s prison sentence was increased by several months. A court in the Philippines affirmed the libel conviction of Ressa, Rappler’s head and co-founder.

Two days later, on July 9, members of a television team were attacked in Sri Lanka. The paramilitary police Special Task Force assaulted journalists reporting a protest in the capital city of Colombo.

The BBC reported that a video journalist in Colombo was allegedly punched by a member of the Sri Lankan army, his phone snatched, and footage deleted.

What is the solution to the vicious attack on journalists today? According to Varadrajan, it is unity amongst all media persons that can together fight the assault on the media and freedom of speech in the country.

Despite differences in political beliefs, scribes need to stand by each other today like never before. Varadrajan suggests building a team of lawyers to defend media persons in court.

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Activists have asked for gender sensitizing of the police, rather than the so-called Romeo squad. Source: Twitter

By Mehru Jaffer
LUCKNOW, India, Jul 27 2022 (IPS)

Romeo is a bad word in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s largest province with nearly 25 million people.

While the name symbolises love, various shows of affection and love between women and men can be seen as a criminal offence in UP. For their safety, women are advised not to be seen cosying up with their lovers, especially in public places – because the state police department’s anti-Romeo squads could arrest them.

“The Indian Penal Code (IPC) has sufficient sections to arrest and prosecute men harassing women. The anti-Romeo squad has become a tool to harass and embarrass young men and women. It has no place in a civilised democracy,” Bobby Naqvi, senior journalist and former editor of Gulf News, told the IPS. “Disturbing images of these squads harassing youngsters spoil India’s reputation as the largest democracy and a nation where almost 230 million people fall between the age group of 15 years and 24 years.”

Soon after the government was installed in office on March 25, an order was passed reviving the anti-Romeo squads. The squads were first launched in 2017 to safeguard women in public places.

Advocates of women’s rights, including activists Aruna Roy, Kavita Srivastava, Kalyani Menon Sen and lawyers Indira Jaising and Vrinda Grover, had released a joint statement in 2017 demanding that anti-Romeo squads in UP be disbanded immediately and replaced by long-term legal and institutional measures to ensure women’s safety. However, the unpopular squad is now back in action.

Renu Mishra, executive director of the Association for Advocacy and Legal Initiatives (AALI), a Lucknow-based non-profit organisation, sees the anti-Romeo squad as another way to keep women in check.

Women activists say that gender-sensitising of the police, an increase in the number of policewomen, an enabling environment for women to file FIRs, and more frequent convictions are needed.

They argue that the anti-Romeo squads are a physical manifestation of patriarchy that views women as helpless creatures to be protected rather than empowered.

According to Namita Bhandare, a writer on social and gender issues, there is no need for a squad.

In their previous incarnation, stories abounded of the excesses of the squad. Several young men accused of allegedly harassing girls were forced to shave their heads. A female police officer asked a young man to do sit-ups for being in the company of a female friend. A video of the same incident went viral and led to anger against similar excesses.

While crimes against women are high in Uttar Pradesh, activists fear squads like the so-called Romeo Squad will not resolve the issues. Source: Twitter

The Romeo hunters were disbanded, but now that the same government has returned to office for another five years and they are back. In the eyes of the ruling party, the name Romeo conjures up images of an ‘Eve’ teaser, a female harasser and a stalker. The anti-Romeo squads are expected to perform the role of gallant knights who help women safeguard their purity and honour. The UP Police says that they are trying to book as many roadside Romeos as possible to put an end to the harassment of women.

The squads are viewed with fear by many in the community, and when IPS tried to talk to former victims of the anti-Romeo squads, they declined for fear of retaliation.

Despite the squad’s return, there is no indication that crimes against women have decreased. In statistics released earlier year by the National Commission for Women (NCW) more than 31,000 crimes against women were reported, and over half were from Uttar Pradesh.

The anti-Romeo squad seems helpless before politically powerful men who claim to be religious and dress in flowing saffron robes but threaten to rape women.

In April, a video emerged on social media showing a clean-shaven man in saffron robes speaking on a megaphone from inside an automobile. He threatened to kidnap and rape Muslim women.

The speaker was identified as Mahant Bajrang Muni Das of the Maharishi Sri Laxman Das Udasin Ashram in the Khairabad area of Sitapur, some 80 km from Lucknow.

“I am saying this with love for you that I will publicly drag your daughters-in-law and daughters out of your homes and rape them if any Hindu girl is molested in Khairabad. Muslims will be killed if any Hindu is killed here.”

NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma wrote to the state police chief to register an FIR and arrest the accused. Opposition party spokesperson of the Congress party Supriya Shrinate said that Bajrang Muni is an insult to the Hindu religion and his rape threat mocks law and order in UP.

Shrinate told the Chief Minister that he should act against anyone threatening to rape women.

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Activists, Tahira Hasan, and Shahira Naim welcome the Supreme Court ruling which recognises sex work as a profession. However, questions are asked about whether the ruling is enough to guarantee that those in the profession no longer face harassment.

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, Jun 9 2022 (IPS)

Social activists, including Lucknow-based Tahira Hasan, have welcomed the Indian Supreme Court’s recent ruling recognising sex work as a profession.

The top court ruled that sex workers should be treated with dignity and that workshops be held to make them aware of their rights.

“This is a welcome step taken by the country’s top court. It is only fair to reiterate that sex work is a profession like any other. It is the duty of society to ensure that sex workers can earn a living without harassment,” Hasan told the IPS.

In the absence of a law, the Court invoked its special power under Article 142 of the Constitution to issue guidelines that define sex work as a profession.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao said that sex workers are entitled to protection and dignity in the eyes of the law.

“Notwithstanding the profession, every individual in this country has a right to a dignified life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” said the Supreme Court order, as published on LiveLaw.

“Whenever there is a raid on any brothel, since voluntary sex work is not illegal and only running the brothel is unlawful, the sex workers concerned should not be arrested or penalised or harassed or victimised.

“When it is clear that the sex worker is an adult and is participating with consent, the police must refrain from interfering or taking any criminal action,” reads the judgment.

According to the ruling, sex workers cannot be discriminated against by police officials when they lodge a criminal complaint, especially if the offence committed against them is of a sexual nature.

It said that the police could not intervene unnecessarily in the business of sex workers, and the police should be sensitised towards them. The latest guidelines rule that sex workers be provided medical and legal care.

(The) “basic protection of human decency and dignity extends to sex workers and their children, who, bearing the brunt of social stigma attached to their work, are removed to the fringes of the society, deprived of their right to live with dignity and opportunities to provide the same to their children.”

The Court made particular reference to the children of sex workers, noting that “if a minor is found living in a brothel or with sex workers, it should not be presumed that he/she has been trafficked. In case the sex worker claims that he/she is her son/daughter, tests can be done to determine if the claim is correct and if so, the minor should not be forcibly separated.”

The apex Court has also ordered the police not to reveal the identity of sex workers to the media and has asked the Press Council of India to issue appropriate guidelines in this regard.

According to the Court, what the sex workers do for their health and safety cannot be construed as an offence. It reminded the country that Article 21 of the Constitution gives every citizen the right to live a dignified life and practice their profession without fear.

The Court has asked the government for its opinion on the guidelines for sex workers. It asked the government to clarify its stand on recommendations made by a panel in 2011 for exempting adult sex workers who engaged in consensual sex from being criminalised.

The central government needs to develop a law for sex workers. Until that happens, the Court would like to see the rehabilitation of sex workers. Police, it said, should undergo sensitisation training because they are often accused of abusing and subjecting them to violence.

However, Shahira Naim, journalist and social activist, wonders if the recent Court ruling will improve the plight of sex workers. While sex work has always been legal in India, but society treats those involved with contempt.

Despite the concern expressed by the Court, sex workers, especially women, continue to be denied dignity.  When hotels are raided, it is often the prostitute who is arrested while the male client and the pimp are allowed to escape. Training the police is necessary where it is not easy to wash away the stigma connected to the profession.

It is the enforcement of laws that will restore dignity.

“Till the stigma attached to the profession is dealt with, sex workers will continue to be disrespected in society. A good law alone cannot make life easy for them, but practising the spirit of the law will help,” Naim said.

Sex workers remain vulnerable to this day. There is the example of the 42-year-old woman killed in the southern Indian city of Bangalore by a security guard for refusing to have unprotected sex with him. In January 2020, the security guard was kicked by a sex worker when he tried to force himself upon her without a condom. He asked her to return the money he had already paid her for sex. Angry and afraid because she made a noise, the security guard allegedly slit the throat of the prostitute and escaped.

According to newspaper reports, the police eventually traced the murderer and took him into custody.

A sex worker who did not want to reveal her name said the existing laws are not bad, but they are not implemented in the way they should be. The court’s recent ruling is yet another appeal to society to practice the law of the land in spirit.

The ruling puts the plight of sex workers at the centre of a public debate at a time when people continue to be embarrassed to talk about it. The topic is taboo. Even mentioning sex workers is considered sinful in a society that once celebrated prostitutes. In Indian mythology, prostitutes are described as celestial beings. They are mentioned as a perfect incarnation of beauty and whose musical talent and masterful dance steps were appreciated by ancient society.

But it has been a long haul for contemporary sex workers who continue to struggle for a little more dignity in life. While voluntary sex work is legal, running a brothel is illegal in India. If brothels, hotels, pimping and propositioning are all illegal, then how and where the sex worker is supposed to carry out her business, questions Naim.

This kind of harassment ought to end as the Court reiterates that sex work is a profession like any other and that the police should neither interfere nor take criminal action against adults and consenting sex.

But if and when the harassment will end is the question.

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Pooja Shukla may have lost an election, but the 25-year-old activist is determined to ensure the poor are catered for and women are protected. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/ IPS

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, India, Apr 4 2022 (IPS)

Pooja Shukla, 25, a socialist candidate, has lost her maiden elections to the provincial parliament in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India. But Shukla is no loser.

A day after the results were announced on March 10, Shukla was back to a rousing reception in her constituency in North Lucknow to thank her supporters for polling 1,04,527 votes for her.

She was with the people again on March 18 on Holi, the festival of colour held annually to celebrate the end of winter and in anticipation of new beginnings.

Shukla told the IPS that she was hoping to win. Of course, she is disappointed, but electoral defeat would not stop her from continuing her struggle to get economic and social justice for the people of her constituency.

Although Shukla belongs to the upper caste community of Brahmins, she has worked hard to develop a personal connection with a cross-section of those who live in North Lucknow, one of the city’s nine constituencies. Lucknow is the capital of UP, the country’s largest, but economically and socially, it is one of its least developed states. More than 400,000 voters are registered in North Lucknow, nearly half of whom are impoverished women.

The constituency is home to Muslims, upper-caste Hindus and thousands of impoverished people belonging to communities who have been living for decades in makeshift shanties, often on the bank of open drains. Some are daily wage earners, and others are without paid work.

Shukla won hearts because she has knocked on every door in North Lucknow and continues to spend time with citizens.

“I have visited every single home in every single neighbourhood in North Lucknow. I will continue to do so as I really care for members of all communities that reside within my constituency,” Shukla adds.

This first-time contestant had faced Dr Neeraj Bora, a seasoned politician from the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), a right-wing party. Despite the formidable challenge, Shukla was leading on the day the votes were counted. She was ahead before her rival finally defeated her by 33,985 votes until noon.

Out of 403 seats in the UP-state parliament, the socialists won 111 seats. The Samajwadi Party (SP) of socialists came a distant second to BJP’s 255 seats, but the party has emerged as the largest opposition party in UP.

This was a golden opportunity to strengthen democracy by converting the numbers won by the SP into a viable opposition to the ruling party, Shukla believes. A well-meaning, vocal opposition is needed, she says, when the ruling party seems to want to wash its hands of all its social responsibility in favour of outsourcing businesses and privatising even essential services like education, health, and employment opportunities.

“Democratic values strengthen when the opposition to the ruling party is strong,” says Shukla, who believes that elections are held to elect representatives who will provide affordable homes, education, and health facilities to voters.

Shukla feels that socially conscious people don’t have to be Marxists to dream of justice in society. The desire to want to see all citizens cared for fairly and equally by the state is a desire of all decent human beings.

Shukla was the youngest candidate in the polls, nursing a constituency that is a sprawling, chaotic cluster of college campuses, traffic jams, markets spilling from every corner and rows of slums with open drains that overflow and swallow up lives during rainfall.

Her dream is to invite educationists to open model public schools for the majority of the poor people in her constituency. She wants low-cost houses for the poor and free health services. She says that time is on her side. She will find many more opportunities to contest elections.

“To win elections is important for me as I want to be a lawmaker and make sure that people-friendly legislation is passed in parliament to protect the interest of the most vulnerable in the country,” Shukla says.

Until she makes it to parliament, she plans to work tirelessly to raise literacy in her constituency and lower the poverty rate. She wants clean drinking water, cleaner drains, and better roads. Women’s safety is her priority, as is a regular and fair wage for the many communities of artisans like potters and weavers.

Shukla has witnessed the police lathi-charge citizens who dared to ask the government for jobs. Social activists have been jailed, kicked around, and beaten in lockdown for participating in protests and questioning the government in UP. There are countless incidents of gruesome crimes perpetrated against women.

Most political parties want women’s votes but are reluctant to share power with them. Therefore, politics in UP today is a constant struggle for any woman who joins the male-dominated world of politics. Shukla’s biggest strength is her belief in herself.

The daughter of a small property dealer, Shukla, learnt to be fearless from Beena, her mother. At first, Beena wanted her to marry a suitable Brahmin boy. However, the constant cry to marry died down after she decided to contest the elections.

Her parents suggested that Shukla choose a more respectable profession like teaching instead. The parents were pained when she was jailed in 2019, and countless criminal cases were filed against her for participating in street demonstrations.

Shukla is the eldest of three sisters, and she feels responsible for her siblings. The family reminded her she was a role model, but she refused to give up her politics. Her determination to remain engaged in public life is less frowned upon now. At least her immediate family members and neighbours are supportive. She is no longer considered a black sheep within the Brahmin community that sees itself as exceptionally respectable.

Shukla has been in the limelight since 2017 when she and fellow students waved black flags at the motor convoy of those in power. She was part of a group of students protesting against the use of Lucknow University funds for a political party event.

She was angry when jailed for protesting peacefully. After 20 days in jail, the University refused her admission for postgraduate studies. Shukla started a hunger strike and forced the University to allow all the students to continue their studies.

Today she is a youth icon. She has emerged as a leader and a role model not just for her siblings but for thousands of other youngsters, students, women and some male members of society.

Shukla says that she stands for a democratic, secular and inclusive India. How will she realise her dream in the cutthroat political culture where all that matters is power and money?

There is no substitute for commitment and hard work, she says with a smile.

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Tahira Hasan poses under the Fearless Collective public wall artwork, she and others in India and internationally are calling for tolerance and an end to hate speech in India. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/IPS

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, Feb 24 2022 (IPS)

More and more women from different walks of life and corners of the world are raising their voices against the treatment of minorities in India today.

“Unity and the safety of citizens is the first and foremost condition of a country’s security,” Roop Rekha Varma, former vice-chancellor of Lucknow University (LU), told IPS.

With Ramesh Dixit, a former professor LU, Varma walked into a local police station to file a police report against hate speech against those who have threatened to kill Muslims in India.

In a recent case, provocative speeches allegedly calling for a genocide of Muslims were made at a December 2021 conclave held in the Himalayan town of Haridwar.

“If 100 of us become soldiers and are prepared to kill two million (Muslims), then we will win … protect India, and make it a Hindu nation,” said Pooja Shakun Pandey, a senior member of the right-wing Hindu Mahasabha political party in a video recording of the event.

Pandey, Wasim Rizvi alias Jitendra Narayan Tyagi, Yati Narsinghanand Saraswati, and Sagar Sindhu Maharaj are facing hate speech charges for their utterances.

The Fearless Collective public wall artwork. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/IPS

Varma is shocked at rising incidents of unprovoked targeting of Muslims, including Muslim women, in recent times.

Sunita Viswanath, founder and executive director of Hindus for Human Rights, a US-based civil society organization, is equally anxious.

“Muslim women in India are being barred from entering college for wearing the hijab. This is a country where the Prime Minister rode to power promising equal rights for women. Clearly, not everyone is equal. If this is not apartheid, please tell what is,” Viswanath says. She referred to the controversy that erupted in January when a government-run college in the Udupi district of Karnataka state barred girls from attending lectures for wearing headscarves. The matter is now under judicial review.

Along with 16 other civil society organizations in the US, Viswanath organized two Congressional briefings on India’s treatment of Muslims.

“We are US citizens of Indian origin, and we have the power to influence and to move US lawmakers and the Biden Administrations to speak out,” says Viswanath on social media. She feels that the world needs to understand that something is wrong in India, that India is on a perilous path.

“India’s tryst with hate is on overdrive. The only way we can fight systematic hate is to stand by India’s tried and tested secular fabric,” Saumya Bajaj told IPS on the phone. Bajaj is associated with Gurgaon Nagrik Ekta Manch (GNEM), a Delhi-based group for unity among citizens.

“Terrorizing Muslims and Christians on a daily basis seems to be the new norm. We, as citizens, can no longer afford to remain silent spectators to this macabre celebration of hate engulfing us?” reads a circular, inviting citizens to say no to hate mongers.

GNEM demands that the police investigate all violence cases against fellow citizens, including online abuse.

Nayantara Sahgal, 94, an award-winning Indian, says she does not recognize the new India.

“Today, that India is disappearing. My country is unrecognizable. It seems like a foreign country full of hatred and exclusion. There is a deep slide in democracy. It is utterly despairing. Yet we cannot be silent. A writer has to speak loud and clear,” the former vice president of PEN International said in a recent interview.

Booker Prize-winning author and essayist Arundhati Roy fears that Hindu nationalism could break India into little pieces like Yugoslavia and Russia. The hope is that ultimately the Indian people will resist what she calls the fascism of the ruling party.

Sahgal is pinning her hopes on the elections in five Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh (UP), until March 7.

In UP, interfaith marriages have been restricted in recent times. Muslim men married to Hindu women have been harassed by vigilante mobs and often arrested by the police. Many online attempts to humiliate and terrorize Muslim women continue.

Sahgal is the daughter of Vijay Laxmi Pandit, sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, first prime minister of independent India. She is also the widow of the late bureaucrat Edward Nirmal Mangat Rai, an Indian Christian. Today she is concerned about the safety of her Christian relatives and Muslim friends as incidents of majoritarian hate against minorities peak.

Sabika Naqvi, community and advocacy head at The Fearless Collective, says that vocal and assertive Muslim women have woken up in India to find their names on Auctioning apps – from Sulli Deals over the last two years to Bulli Bai. The call to rape and kill Muslim women is routine, and efforts to dehumanize Muslim women is on the rise, she says.

“They fear our ability to write, to speak, to journal, to dream, articulate, assert, organize, and fiercely fight the oppressors. They either sexualize us, try to act as our messiahs or plot to kill. But we are here to conquer the world. We are lawyers, poets, journalists, actors, activists, entrepreneurs, scholars and much more,” says Naqvi, adding that this is not just a ‘prank’ or mere ‘bullying’ but harassment that Muslim women face every day.

The Fearless Collective is a movement that helps citizens move from fear to love through the creation of participatory art in public space.

Naqvi feels that the time has come to speak up and ensure that solidarity voices are louder than those who support hatred.

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Friends Ajay and Durgesh are returned to their families with the help of ActionAid India and the All India Bonded Labour Liberation Front. The boys were tricked into bonded labour by a trusted fellow villager. Credit: ActionAid

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, India, Jan 28 2022 (IPS)

Friends Ajay and Durgesh were lured from the same village in the remote and poverty-stricken countryside of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) in January 2021.

Friends Ajay and Durgesh were lured from the same village in the remote and poverty-stricken countryside of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) in January 2021.

The boys, aged 16, were whisked away from their homes, transported, and sold as bonded labour to a garment factory in Rajkot in the western state of Gujarat. Rajkot is some 2000 km from Ajay and Durgesh’s village in UP.

Along with two other boys from the same village, Sanjay (15) and Pavan (14), Ajay and Durgesh were befriended by a man, only identified as Gulab, and promised an eight-hour a day job, with a salary of Rs 7500 (about US 100 dollars) per month at a garment factory. The boys accepted the offer immediately because Gulab was from the same village and had known them since childhood.

“At the factory, the boys were thrown in with dozens of other children who were never paid. They were woken at 7 am and forced to work till 11 pm. The factory owner threatened to kill them if they stepped out of the factory,” Dalsinghar told IPS speaking from Lucknow. “The children were abused and kicked when the supervisor felt that they were not working fast enough. None of the children was given enough to eat.”

Dalsinghar, who goes by his surname, is a trade union leader and head of the UP office of the All India Bonded Labour Liberation Front. With ActionAid India, Dalsinghar helped to rescue the four boys in August 2021. The boys are now finishing their studies in their village.

These boys are lucky to have escaped the clutches of traffickers. Ajay found a mobile phone one day and quickly called his family. He told them the exact location of the factory in faraway Gujarat.

The family got in touch with Raju, a volunteer with ActionAid India, who lived near their village. With the help of Dalsinghar, Raju and the district administrations of Kushinagar in UP and Rajkot in Gujarat, the boys were rescued, and their eight-month ordeal at the hands of the garment factory owner ended.

There are numerous incidents of victims being deceived by people they know.

Families celebrate the return of four boys trafficked into bonded labour in a factory far from home. Credit: ActionAid, India

Take Gulab as an example. Gulab came from the same village as the four teenagers he trapped and sold to a garment factory owner.

In the hope of avoiding deprivation and starvation in difficult economic times, the teenagers took up Gulab’s offer. They trusted him and fell for his lies because it did not occur to them that he would betray them.

ActionAid quotes other instances when a loved one has tricked victims. When that happens, the victim often does not fight back.

Sita was sold to traffickers by her alcoholic father in a West Bengal village as a bride. She was taken from place to place until she found shelter in an ashram in a city in UP. The police were informed, and she returned to her village in West Bengal.

Frequently missing children and adults cases include abduction and trafficking. Most of the time, missing people are not reported to the police, and if reported, the reports are not registered.

Children from the poorest of low-income families are most vulnerable. They are the main target of traffickers as poor and illiterate families are most likely not to approach authorities for help. There are instances of children and adults leaving home searching for glamour and fortune in big cities like Mumbai. Once there, touts find them and force them to beg or work as sex slaves without remuneration or concern for their health.

ActionAid India continues to work in villages providing support to survivors of trafficking and violence with medical, psycho-social and legal support.

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that times are extremely challenging for communities. Schools closures and work opportunities in most villages have shrunk, which means that social activists like Dalsinghar need to be more vigilant today than ever before.

Nobel Peace Prize winners Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai have rescued thousands of children from the worst form of child labour and trafficking.

Satyarthi has led a Bharat Yatra, a nationwide march in India to demand legislation against child rape, child sexual abuse and trafficking.

The Kailash Satyarthi Children Foundation conducted a study in 2020 that concluded there was a high likelihood of an increase in human trafficking in the post-lockdown period for labour.

About 89 per cent of NGOs surveyed said that trafficking of both adults and children for labour would be one of the biggest threats in the post-lockdown period as household incomes of the most vulnerable deplete.

There is concern that the desperate and vulnerable populations of unorganised workers, who are in no position to negotiate wages or their rights, will be a massive pool for cheap labour. Many of these labourers could be children, forced out of school and forced to earn a living.

The fear is that thousands of children will likely be trafficked across the country to work in manufacturing units where they will be paid meagre to no wages and will most likely face extreme physical, mental and sexual violence.

Thousands of children like Ajay, Durgesh, Sanjay and Pavan are easy targets for an organised crime network of human trafficking. It is feared that many more children will be enslaved during the pandemic by those looking for cheap labour when many economic activities have come to a standstill.

“It is tragic when people betray the trust of children,” concludes Dalsinghar.

This article is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.
The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) http://gsngoal8.com/ is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7, which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.
The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such as exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

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Nina has found peace after being rescued from human traffickers and pimps in Goa, India. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/IPS

By Mehru Jaffer
Goa, India, Jan 3 2022 (IPS)

For over two decades, Nina tossed around like a leaf in a storm. While a teenager, she was lured into the sex trade, and pimps kept a huge chunk of the money that she earned as a sex slave. Nina was often bruised. Once, she refused sex with a man who did not want to use a condom. He beat her so severely that she had found it difficult to breathe.

One day the police raided the premises where Nina and other girls were kept as prisoners and arrested the pimps. The girls were taken to a protective home run by the local government. She like many other trafficked women abused alcohol and smoked to drown her sorrows.

Nina is now in her thirties and cured of her addictions. Her life is comfortable compared with her twenties when she was forced to live in the company of traffickers and pimps.

Lisa Pires of the Presentation Sisters Order told IPS that she had first met Nina in 2019. However, Pires declined to share Nina’s name and whereabouts. Today both government officials and social activists jealously guard the identity of all trafficking survivors who struggle to lead normal lives.

The survivors need help to deal with post-rescue trauma, and the experience they go through during identification interviews and legal proceedings is painful. Some face re-victimisation and are punished for crimes traffickers force them to commit. Others are stigmatised and don’t have a support system.

“We are happy to share stories of victims without revealing their exact identity as society needs to listen and to learn from those who have survived trafficking,” adds Amala Kulandaisamy, 40, social activist and administrative head at the Nagoa centre.

The Presentation Sisters have been working in Goa since 1967.

Amala Kulandaisamy and Lisa Pires from the Nagoa Centre for the rehabilitation of trafficked persons in Goa. The centre is run by the Order of the Presentation Sisters. Credit: Mehru Jaffer/IPS

The Nagoa Centre opened in 2001 in the ancestral home of Pires. Her parents gifted the 110-year-old house to the Order of the Presentation Sisters.

Pires joined the order in 1958 and shares her concerns about what is happening to young women today.

Nina’s story is similar to that of countless Indian women from poverty-stricken parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) trafficked to Goa for commercial sexual exploitation, Pires says.

Surrounded by half a dozen starving siblings, a mother with mental health issues and an alcoholic father, Nina had fled her village when she was barely 15 years old. Soon after, a gang of boys picked up the vulnerable Nina. They promised her a job in Goa.

Goa is considered a significant destination in India for human trafficking and related commercial sexual work. Girls and women are trafficked to Goa from most states in India, including the countryside near Goa. They are also trafficked from Nepal, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Russia, and Thailand. While fewer women are trafficked from Nepal, the number of those sold and bought from Bangladesh increased.

The sex work is primarily concentrated in the coastal belt of North Goa, with maximum rescue operations by the police taking place around the stunningly beautiful beaches of Calangute and Arjuna. Now commercial sex work is said to be spreading from the tourist areas of the coastal belt of North Goa to the mainland and away from tourist hubs.

Throughout last year, Pires worked to reduce trafficking. The theme for 2021 was Victims’ Voices Lead the Way, with social activists spending time with human trafficking survivors counselling them. The survivors are seen as key in the fight against human trafficking. The theme focused on preventing the crime, identifying, and rescuing survivors, and supporting them on the road to rehabilitation.

Local people are encouraged to check the background of those wanting to rent accommodation and ensure that tenants are not part of any human trafficking activity.

The Presentation Sisters are diligent in their work against the trafficking of women and children and sensitive to their sexual exploitation. They provide alternative employment opportunities to survivors and constantly raise awareness against this organised crime.

A vital exercise today is to document the experience of survivors without revealing their identities.

The idea is to turn the suggestions of survivors into concrete action – a more survivor-centred approach to combat human trafficking and encourage lawmakers to pass legislation that will better protect citizens vulnerable to sexual exploitation and ensure they receive justice.

They say that there is a need for stricter regulation of massage parlours and dance bars where sexual exploitation of the vulnerable is high.

ARZ, based in Vasco, Goa that recommends women engaged in commercial sexual activities be rescued and not arrested by the police. It recommends, among other things, the speedy trial of offences under the Immoral Prevention Act and the establishment of a special court that will convict offenders – who generally get away unpunished.

ARZ is the publisher of Beautiful Women, a book about ten inspiring stories of women who survived the sex trade and some of whom are employed at Swift Wash, a laundry founded by the organisation.

Nina is fortunate. She survived the exploitation and has recently visited Potta, a well-known temple town in Kerala. Here she experienced spiritual calm and has returned to Goa to find a regular job as a caretaker in a private home.

This is part of a series of features from across the globe on human trafficking. IPS coverage is supported by the Airways Aviation Group.

The Global Sustainability Network ( GSN ) http://gsngoal8.com/ is pursuing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 8 with a special emphasis on Goal 8.7 which ‘takes immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms’.

The origins of the GSN come from the endeavours of the Joint Declaration of Religious Leaders signed on 2 December 2014. Religious leaders of various faiths, gathered to work together “to defend the dignity and freedom of the human being against the extreme forms of the globalization of indifference, such us exploitation, forced labour, prostitution, human trafficking”.

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Farah Usmani, a director at the UNFPA headquarters in New York, set about changing the stereotype of Indian Muslim Women. As a result of her efforts a book, Rising Beyond the Ceiling, documents the lives of successful Indian Muslim women. Credit: Twitter

By Mehru Jaffer
Lucknow, India, Dec 23 2021 (IPS)

It’s time the achievements of Indian Muslim women were documented to make their contribution to society visible, says international health and gender expert Dr Farah Usmani.

“The idea is to drive a new narrative about the inspiring life some of them lead today.”

Usmani was speaking to IPS in an exclusive interview in Uttar Pradesh (UP) – the largest state in India with a population of about 240 million, of which 44 million are Muslims. Half of the Muslim population in the state are women.

Usmani, a director at the UNFPA headquarters in New York, originates from UP. She wonders how such a large number of people have remained invisible in this day and age of technology.

She said that a chance remark made by a journalist in New York led her to start the Rising Beyond the Ceiling (RBTC) initiative in UP, her place of birth.

The male journalist told her that she was the first Indian Muslim woman he had spoken to in his life.

Celebrating the success of Indian Muslim women and the publication of a book, Rising Beyond the Ceiling were (back) computer science engineer Sameena Bano, and drone pilot Mohsina Mirza with (front) educationalist Dr Farzana Madni and biotechnologist Seema Wahab. Credit: Mehru Jaffer

Long after her meeting with the journalist, Usmani could not stop thinking of how millions of Indian Muslims remain unknown despite their creative contributions to society.

Colourful and inspiring images of countless Muslim women she knows flashed across her mind. She decided to share her troubling thoughts with other female friends and family members.

Usmani has over 25 years of experience in policy and programming leadership, focusing on women and girls and their reproductive health and rights. She reached out to like-minded women in UP, and within days a team of six professional Muslim women was formed.

The RBTC initiative is referred to as the team’s ‘COVID’ baby because it was initiated in early 2020 at the peak of the second wave of the deadly pandemic in India.

“Our brief was to work online and to scout and profile 100 Muslim women in UP. The purpose was to document the inspiring lives led by some Indian Muslim women,” Sabiha Ahmad, team coordinator and social activist, told IPS.

The idea of documenting the extraordinary lives of Indian Muslim women was born out of the urgent need to change the stereotypical narrative about women by women.

The team liked the idea of getting women to build an alternative narrative of each other by curating real-life stories of successful Muslim women in all their diversity.

The goal was to make these lives visible and drive a new narrative around Indian Muslim women. The result was a 173-page book. It documents the women from the state who drones and aeroplanes, weave carpets, serve in the police and army, write books and poetry, paint and bag trophies in tennis and snooker competitions.

There are profiles of politicians, trendsetters, doctors, entrepreneurs, and corporate professionals who met in Lucknow recently to celebrate the RBTC book and meet each other in person.

Usmani used her latest visit to Lucknow to release Rising Beyond The Ceiling formally. The directory details the lives of 100 Indian Muslim women whose inspiring stories shatter the stereotypical narrative a group perceived as primitive, veiled and suffering.

Faiza Abbasi, 47, contributor and co-editor, says the RBTC directory dares to write a different story. It is a step by women to celebrate each other.

“We come forward to highlight each other’s achievements and to take the road our grannies left untrodden,” smiles Abbasi.

Abbasi is an educationist, environmentalist, and outstanding public speaker with a popular YouTube channel. She recalls how her father celebrated her birth by distributing sweetmeats to family and friends. However, an elderly aunt questioned the festivities. The aunt asked why the energy and resources were being wasted, and a fuss made over the birth of a girl?

Not used to the relatively progressive environment of today, many women still hesitate to celebrate their achievements.

“We at RBTC want to celebrate and to learn to appreciate each other,” assures Abbasi.

The RBTC promises to branch out its research analysis and documentation to other Indian states to document the successes of Muslim women.

The work of RBTC is vital at a time when the majority of Muslim women in India are the most disadvantaged. Statistical and micro studies on Muslim women show that they are economically impoverished and politically marginalised.

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By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Jun 13 2011 (IPS)

When Farah’s 16-year-old son began to disappear for several nights a week without saying where he went, she was naturally worried. After he returned one day and shattered the television screen in their Peshawar home, the mother of three decided it was time to quit her job as a teacher and to find out what was making her youngest child so angry.

To her horror, the schoolteacher – who requested that her real name not be published – discovered that her son was spending time in the company of people belonging to terrorist groups in Pakistan’s Swat Valley where Farah’s family originally comes from. The boy’s newly found friends were teaching him that it is a sin for his mother to leave home to work everyday and for his sister, a medical student, to talk to friends on the phone.

The teenager, whose name is also withheld for security reasons, was made to believe that it is a sin for good Muslims to watch television as it can distort their way of life and religion. He was being groomed to protect Islam – even if it meant with his life.

“This happened two years ago and I still don’t have the entire story from him,” Farah told IPS. Farah was here along with six other mothers from Egypt, Yemen, Nigeria, Israel and Palestine to participate in Mothers MOVE (Mothers Oppose Violent Extremism), a panel presentation hosted by the Vienna-based Women Without Borders (WWB).

“Farah is a perfect example of how educated mothers can act as an early-warning signal to stop radicalisation in its tracks,” Edit Schlaffer, founder and head of WWB told IPS.

Farah agrees that more women must be educated to ensure that they are able to creatively guide their children away from dangerous influences. At present the literacy rate of women in Pakistan is 45 percent, in comparison to 69 percent amongst the male population of the country.

Farah appeared at the open house panel presentation in a veil that revealed little else but her eyes, and she told the audience that she would not reveal her real name as she does not want to attract the attention of those she has successfully stopped from brainwashing her son.

What is common amongst Farah and the other women who also shared their experiences with terrorism is the conviction that the personal is political, and that peace starts at home.

“These women are a glowing example of the potential of mothers to counteract the allure of violent extremism in the family. It is the right and the duty of us women, of us mothers, to be engaged actively in the public arena to ensure the security of the future generation,” Schlaffer said.

Farah was able to save her child by taking the change in his personality seriously – early enough. Her son had turned aggressive and secretive and she wanted to know why. Farah feels that because she is a teacher, because she is an educated mother, she was perhaps better equipped to deal with the problem.

“He fought with me and his sister for not veiling ourselves and for driving a car,” Farah explained. “He objected to us talking to anyone except to female members of the family.”

After discussing with her husband, a medical doctor, both decided to resign from their respective jobs in Peshawar. Their neighbours and friends were told that they were moving abroad.

Farah then moved with her family to another part of the city. Farah and her husband devoted a year to spend time with the teenager – explaining to him what they knew about Islam.

They checked his mobile and discovered that he was called from countless different numbers – when they dialled those same numbers there was no response. To this day the parents don’t know where the child had gone and whom he had met.

Farah told IPS that each time she tries to find out the names of the people he had met and the place he had visited, her son tells her that it is all over, and in the past. He has made it clear to Farah that he does not want to talk about the incident.

After having missed a year of school he is now back in college. That is the good news. The bad news is that he is now introverted and often depressed.

“He likes to write and I encourage him to do so. But he writes the most heart breaking verses that are full of pain and pessimism,” says Farah who prays that like her son has been returned to her, happiness too will return to him one day.

According to the U.N., an estimated 103 million Pakistanis, or 63 percent of the population, are under the age of 25. However due to difficult economic conditions the future of the majority of youth in Pakistan seems bleak.

In Swat the Pakistan Army and Taliban have been fighting for control for over a decade. Militants are forever on the lookout to recruit youngsters like Farah’s son to train them to become suicide bombers.

Excerpt:

Despite being at the forefront of sweeping changes taking place in the country, the lives of the majority of Yemeni women are restricted to early marriage, motherhood and serving husbands, according to a new study by Women Without Borders (WWB), a Vienna based public relations and advocacy platform for women’s voices around the world.

“Most of the women talked to, even those from a traditional background, do express a desire for more independence in many aspects of their lives,” Edit Schlaffer, founder-director of WWB told IPS.

The survey reveals that women are largely restricted to the private sphere and discouraged from participating in public life.

With a grant from the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), a team of researchers from WWB designed a 134-item questionnaire in the Arabic language that was distributed amongst 600 students at Yemen’s Sana’a University on the eve of the February uprising earlier this year.

Over half of the male respondents feel that allowing women to work undermines their religious practices. However, a majority of both men and women see changing gender roles as an opportunity to fare better in a fast globalising world

Before her first visit to Yemen in 2009, Schlaffer’s image of the country on the western border of the Arabian Peninsula was that of a hideout for terrorists and a society frozen in time.

“After my first trip to Yemen I was amazed at the work the women were doing,” recalls Schlaffer. “I was introduced to a women’s radio station in Sana’a. I met female journalists, aspiring politicians and great mothers.”

Schlaffer was introduced to a vibrant civil society that is flourishing in the face of Western mistrust and domestic roadblocks.

The idea of the fact finding mission led by Schlaffer was to find out more about women and their views on extremism in the country, and to establish a SAVE Yemen chapter.

Yemen has a young population and women spoke openly about their own government and what they thought of governments abroad.

SAVE, or Sisters Against Violent Extremism, is a worldwide initiative of WWB to counter violent extremism and to propose strategies for derailing the extremist movement.

“Yemeni women, the NGOs and the mosques can play a vital role. As mothers, women can help in educating and guiding their sons; in society they can be activists in stopping violence,” Hooria al Mashoor, Vice-Chairperson of the Women’s National Committee in Yemen told Schlaffer.

Today al-Fotih, is SAVE Yemen’s local coordinator and continues to work with mothers seen as potential ‘alarm-sounders’ when their children travel down the wrong path.

SAVE Yemen has held talks with Women Journalists Without Chains on the role of Yemeni women in confronting terrorism and extremism. Nadia al-Sakkaf, editor-in-chief of ‘Yemen Times’, the country’s leading English language newspaper has helped to host meets with local victims of violent extremism.

Fatima al-Zuhairi, principal of a local school discussed problems of extremism amongst female students in her school, and the challenges and accusations she has faced from extremist preachers in her local mosque.

After having created a network of supporters on the ground, WWB launched the latest survey to gauge the attitude of university students in Yemen on a wide range of issues – but with a focus on gender equality and the future. The findings disclose that the youth in Yemen yearns for gender equality.

The survey showed that youth is ready for change and optimistic about the future.

The survey reports two interrelated trends seen in many developing countries – including Yemen. There is a growth in the population of young people, and increased access to education for both men and women. The educated youth pose significant challenges to economic and political stability as the rate their growth rapidly outpaces available job opportunities.

The promise of free education is real but the hidden costs such as uniforms and school supplies present an overwhelming challenge to many families. Nearly half of the respondents reported that their families find it difficult to pay for their university education.

Conservative, male-dominated social norms still make access to education an insurmountable barrier for too many Yemeni women, but a move in a positive direction is visible. The majority of women predict their future career will be that of a teacher or professor – women currently represent less than a quarter of the educators at all levels.

Domestic violence is a part of many lives, 39 percent have witnessed it and 27 percent have experienced it. Little data is available about this conduct in Yemeni society due to social stigma.

The results also reveal girls are often prohibited from attending school or playing sports, and most women do not hold jobs or participate in politics because the public sphere is almost forbidden to them.

Most female respondents to the survey – despite access to education – come from families with traditional Yemeni values. They are more concerned than their male counterparts with the wishes of the family and agree that family plays a strong role in their decisions.

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Mar 10 2011 (IPS)

Female Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel are often denied legal representation and medical care while being housed in squalid conditions that can include sharing cells with rodents.

According to Fabrizia Falcione,project manager for the Women Human Rights Unit at UN WOMEN, the United Nations entity for gender equality and empowerment of women, told IPS that it is crucial to reveal the human face behind this breach of international law and international humanitarian law in order to address the plight of Palestinian political prisoners, including women and children.

Since 1967, more than 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested or detained in Israeli prisons and detention centres. Approximately 10,000 of these prisoners were women.

Today, 37 female Palestinian prisoners continue to be held in Israeli prisons – out of a total of about 7,500 inmates. The reason is primarily political – most of the prisoners are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Falcione’s work includes providing legal aid and representation to female prisoners, psychosocial support to family members of prisoners, and preparation for release and reintegration of prisoners into family and society.

This week Falcione participated in the first international meeting of its kind organised by the United Nations to focus on the question of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli detention. During the two-day meet she took time out to talk to IPS about the absolute urgency of specifically addressing the rights of female prisoners.

Q: What are the most immediate concerns for Palestinian women prisoners in Israeli prisons today? A: The situation of Palestinian women and minors in Israeli detention facilities is bad. In terms of numbers, Palestinian female political prisoners and detainees in Israel prisons almost disappear compared to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian male political prisoners. But the plight of female prisoners is worse than the men.

The situation, condition and violations faced by women in jails in Israel needs to be addressed from a gender perspective. At present the number of women prisoners is considerably lower than before, but women and girls continue to be arrested, their special needs continue to be neglected, and their rights violated.

Q: You talk of physical and psychological problems faced by female prisoners. What do you mean? A: There is medical neglect and lack of specialised medical services for the prevention and treatment of illnesses of women.

The female prisoners at present are mainly incarcerated in two Israeli facilities in Hasharon and Damon – both of them located outside the occupied Palestinian territory, in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Former Palestinian female prisoners in both these prisons and family members of women currently in prison say that the cells are infested with insects, particularly cockroaches as well as rodents. A former inmate released a few months ago said, “No matter how hard I try to describe the cell to you, I cannot. It is like an underground grave… There are so many insects in the cell, the mattresses and cover sheet were damp and smelled awful. Sewage was overflowing. I could barely make my ablutions to pray.”

Beyond general healthcare there is no gynaecological support. Women require medical attention regularly, which is their right during confinement as recognised by CEDAW [the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women].

The great majority of Palestinian women political prisoners in Israeli prisons suffer from various health problems.

Q: Is it true that pregnant women are shackled during childbirth? A: It is true. Pregnant women are shackled while giving birth, and soon after. There is a total lack of medical care, particularly during childbirth. Women lament that infants born to them are taken away after two years. In Israeli prisons, the rights of Palestinian women prisoners is recognised, but not respected.

Q: And the psychological concerns? A: Women bear the brunt of the infringement upon their cultural and religious rights. A former prisoner said, “They took away my jilbab [long dress] and gave me their special brown prisoner uniform. It was short sleeved. I asked for a long sleeved shirt that I could wear under the uniform. Again they refused. I moved between cells among male guards in a short sleeved uniform… what hurt me most were the insults they hurled at me.”

Women’s privacy is violated and male guards conduct room searches without any consideration for religious norms. Prisoners are counted four times a day, including very early in the morning, and punishment is inflicted if women are found asleep or do not reply immediately to the count.

The most troubling aspect is the denial of family visitation rights. Family visits to prisoners are allowed twice a month, theoretically, but are drastically restricted due to the fact that the prisons are outside the occupied Palestinian territory.

A round-trip visit to the prison is a ten-hour journey – not only due to geographical distance but also because the movement of Palestinians in Israel is controlled. If families succeed in making the journey, they are allowed to visit for 30 minutes – speaking through a thick glass divider that prevents any physical contact, even between mother and child. This affects the well being of not just the mother but also the children. The break in family and social relations is severe on the psychological state of the women.

Q: What exactly is the crime of these women? A: Many women are imprisoned without trial for belonging to organisations banned by Israel, under the guise of protecting the national security of the Jewish state.

Untried Palestinian women political prisoners are detained in Neve Terza prison in the women’s section allocated to convicted criminal offenders in clear violation of Rule 85 of the United Nations standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners that says, “Untried prisoners shall be kept separate from convicted prisoners.”

This allows Israeli prisoners to threaten and humiliate Palestinian women through verbal and physical abuse. Palestinian women prisoners and detainees are further prevented from using prison facilities like pens, reading material and recreational time.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Jul 26 2010 (IPS)

The global conference on AIDS in Vienna last week will be remembered for “Broken Promises Kill”, a slogan echoed by a coalition of activists who had gathered from around the world.

Throughout the week-long conference, demonstrators clamoured for attention to the funding crisis severely impacting the global fight against AIDS.

“It is important to bring the urgency faced by the AIDS crisis to as many people as possible,” Dr. Nafis Sadik, United Nations special envoy to AIDS in the Asia and Pacific region told IPS as she sidled past a crowd of demonstrators.

“This noise is to force people to recognise the crisis. It is not a party. It is a meet to confront AIDS, health and the failure of governments to live up to their responsibility,” a protester from the crowd said amid the din of sloganeering.

The conference attracted 19,300 people, including scientists and advocacy groups from 193 countries. The chief slogan of the conference was “Right Here, Right Now”. In about 248 sessions, a large number of success stories in the fight against AIDS were narrated.

The past decade has seen a slowdown in AIDS related deaths, hospitalisation and new infections. Timely investment in AIDS has strengthened health systems, reduced TB and malaria deaths, improved maternal and child health and built community reduction engagement in public health efforts like never before.

The role of social media in combating HIV was emphasised at a session on Social Media Lab for Clinicians and Health Care Workers. Alliances and partnerships for health promotion, speakers argued, will encourage an evidence-based response in the media to the complex public health challenge.

“A working group has been empowered to develop a work plan and a road map for a Global Alliance of Social Media and is a responsible response to HIV,” Joe Thomas, editor AIDS ASIA e-Forum told IPS.

However, the conference was overshadowed by much grim news like the lack of funds and inadequate government response around the world to provide universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2015.

Austria’s Dr. Brigitte Schmied, AIDS 2010 local co-chair, said in her concluding remarks that the conference had an important impact on her government’s understanding of the epidemic.

“Based on new insights gained during the conference, Austria promises to make new contributions to the Global Fund in the near future,” she announced.

But not many other governments pledged funding support.

“Vaccine research costs money. Treatment is very expensive and we need funds for prevention programmes,” Dr. Sadik said about the growing crisis in funding for AIDS care and prevention.

There are some concerns over the decision by the U.S. government to cut funding, and it is feared that some European governments are also pulling back their support for AIDS care. Governments in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe too have failed to live up to their commitment to fund AIDS treatment, experts say.

The Group of Eight (G8) industrialised nations, the European Commission (EC) and other donor governments gave 7.6 billion dollars for AIDS relief in developing countries, down slightly from 7.7 billion dollars in 2008.

Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS reiterated during the conference that reduction in funds will roll back all the progress made in the last decade.

Currently, five million infected people receive treatment, but ten million are on the waiting list. New drugs have been tested and released but there is often a shortfall. Universal access to HIV treatment is denied to the majority of people infected with the virus. Early treatment alone, experts say, can help the world to meet the 2015 target of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

“The sharp rise last year in the number of people receiving treatment is an extremely encouraging development,” said Hiroki Nakatani, Assistant Director-General for HIV, Tuberculosis, Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases of the UN World Health Organisation (WHO).

“Starting treatment gives us an opportunity to enable people living with HIV to stay healthier and live longer,” added Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of HIV/AIDS at WHO.

HIV-related deaths can be reduced by 20 percent between 2010 and 2015 if guidelines for treatment are broadly implemented, experts say. It can also help in preventing infections such as TB, the number one cause of death for people with HIV. WHO noted that deaths from TB can be curbed by up to 90 percent if people living with both HIV and TB begin treatment in the early stages.

Statistics released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveal that an HIV epidemic in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is intensifying at an alarming pace, fuelled by drug use, high-risk sexual behaviour and high levels of social stigma. Marginalised young people are exposed daily to high risks of contracting HIV, including drug use, commercial sex and other forms of exploitation and abuse. The region is home to 3.7 million injecting drug users, accounting for a quarter of the world’s total number of drug users.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Jul 23 2010 (IPS)

Kiren Kaur, 37, has come to terms with HIV she contracted from her husband in 1997. The HIV positive status, per se, is not difficult to deal with. But dealing with the stigma that comes with it is an excruciating experience.

“My HIV status does not bother me any more,” she told IPS at the global conference on AIDS that concludes in Vienna Jul. 23. “It is the double stigma that I face as a widow and an openly HIV positive person that is painful. It is stigma that prevents me from enjoying an intimate relationship (with my family).”

Kaur was 24 years old when her husband died in her arms of AIDS. She suspects he contracted HIV before marrying her.

“My husband was depressed after he was told he had AIDS and he did not talk much. He did not say how he got HIV and I did not ask,” says Kaur, who is a Bangkok-based coordinator for Women of Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS, a support group.

Kaur’s in-laws blamed her for her husband’s death. She was forced to return to her parents. For many years, she was too depressed to do anything. Her HIV positive status was holding her back, but in 2004, Kaur agreed to set up a support group at a hospital in Kuala Lumpur.

That opened up a slew of other avenues. She became a member of the Kuala Lumpur AIDS Support Services Society (KLASS), another support group, and got the opportunity to travel to Bangkok to attend the International AIDS Conference on a scholarship partly funded by the University Malaya Medical Centre.

“Today I have a great career and I am happy but I still dream of falling in love and having children,” Kaur said.

What holds her back from realising her dream is social stigma.

While a great deal of success has been achieved in both the prevention and treatment of HIV, stigma and discrimination constitute the greatest barriers in dealing effectively with the epidemic, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

A combination of shame and fear leads HIV positive people to delay testing. It deters them from seeking early treatment and care, and encourages reckless sexual behaviour without contraceptives. Stigma is also known to affect the economic well being of HIV positive people.

In Asia, the spread of HIV is exacerbated by stigma and discrimination.

“Our part of the world continues to be shrouded in fairy tales. People strongly believe that our culture is self-regulatory, that young women have sex only after marriage and that men do not have sex with men,” Dr. Nafis Sadik, United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific told IPS. “There is a total lack of awareness. Most women don’t know about the use of condoms or about childbirth. Many people still think that AIDS is transmitted through a handshake.”

Research shows that illiterate women are four times more likely not to know how to prevent the contraction of HIV. Out of 875 million illiterate people in the world, 66 percent are women.

World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics reveal that HIV is the leading cause of mortality and disease among women of childbearing age between 15 years and 19 years worldwide.

Early marriage increases the risk of HIV infection. In Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India and Nigeria, 40 percent of women are married before the age of 15. And most women don’t have any knowledge about the virus.

Only 1.2 percent women in Indonesia who are married or living with a partner use condoms. That number is 1.3 percent in Thailand, 8.3 percent in Vietnam and 5.2 percent in India.

Eastern Europe and Central Asia are the world’s fastest growing epidemic region. The infection is expanding rapidly in the Baltic States, the Russian Federation and several Central Asian republics, fuelled by high rates of injecting drug use among young people.

In Southern Africa, the average HIV prevalence among young women aged between 15 and 25 is three times higher than among men of the same age. In sub-Saharan Africa, 60 percent of people living with HIV are women.

“As a woman, I am really happy to hear about microbicides (substances which reduce the risk of HIV infection), but as a HIV positive woman, it is too late for me. HIV positive women still have sex. If you have access to a female condom, you can protect your partner, and you can protect yourself from unwanted pregnancy,” said Carol Nawina Nyrienda, national coordinator of the Community Initiative for TB, HIV/AIDS and Malaria in Zambia.

Nyrienda contracted HIV from her husband. She advocates the use of female condoms because she says women can no longer take the risk of depending on male partners to keep them safe.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Jul 20 2010 (IPS)

Empowering women could more effectively help in curbing the spread of HIV, Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and philanthropist said at the AIDS conference here Monday.

Speaking to reporters at the 18th International AIDS conference, he cited the example of Avahan, a national HIV prevention programme in India supported by the Gates Foundation co-founded by him. The active participation of women, he said, has worked successfully in slowing the spread of the virus among India’s high risk population.

At the heart of Avahan’s programme is empowering female sex workers in four Indian states to insist on the use of condoms. Data from some of Avahan’s target areas suggests that the use of condoms by sex workers is responsible for a meteoric drop in the rate of sexually transmitted infections among people at risk. Several independent studies are under way to help evaluate Avahan’s long-term impact.

“It is empowering to hear Gates support the empowerment of women,” said Nazneen Damji, Gender Equality and HIV/AIDS Advisor at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). But Damji’s chief concern remains that the majority of women around the world often hold little freedom of choice over their own sexual rights.

“It is not enough that women have access to condoms. They also need to have the confidence to fearlessly refuse to have sex with men who do not use a condom,” Damji said.

At the conference, UNIFEM and ATHENA, a network to fight AIDS, released a new report highlighting how despite international commitments, HIV positive women’s participation and voices are largely missing from decision-making processes in the fight against HIV and AIDS.

The report titled ‘Transforming the National AIDS Response: Advancing Women’s Leadership and Participation’ also identifies strategies that can be adopted to advance the involvement of HIV positive women.

“Through our work on the ground we have repeatedly heard the voices of women as they provide concrete examples of what can work on the ground in preventing or reducing the epidemic. But these voices are missing in policy responses,” said Inés Alberdi, executive director, UNIFEM. “This report highlights the importance of effective participation of women, especially HIV positive women, in being part of the solutions and in finding sustainable, effective strategies to address HIV and AIDS.”

The scrupulous implementation of these recommendations by all parties involved at the national and global level can affect change on the ground, UNIFEM officials say.

“To see HIV positive women and activists endorsing it in consultations here and further defining how to implement the recommendations in their regions is a testimony to how the report can work on the ground,” said Tyler Crone, ATHENA network coordinator and lead author of the report.

HIV/AIDS is the fourth leading cause of death worldwide, claiming an estimated two million lives in 2008 alone. Of the 33.4 million individuals living with HIV, 31.3 million are adults and half of them are women.

Globally, women and men are affected by HIV and AIDS in almost equal numbers. However the proportion of women living with HIV is increasing. Young women constitute a growing share of new infections, representing about two-thirds of all new cases among people between the age of 15 and 24. In 2009, the World Health Organsiation reported that HIV was the leading cause of death of women between 15 years and 44 years in low and middle income countries.

It is estimated that more than 90 percent of the 1.7 million women living with HIV in Asia became infected from their husbands or partners they were involved with in long-term relationships. Women, experts say, are often unaware of their male partner’s sexual habits outside the relationship.

Nearly 60 percent of adults living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women. In the Caribbean, HIV prevalence rates among women have jumped from 46 percent in 2001 to 53 percent in 2008, making it the second most affected region after sub-Saharan Africa. About 40 percent newly reported HIV cases in Eastern Europe and Central Asia in 2006 were among women.

Data collected in Central Asia reveals that 90 percent of people living in rural areas are not aware of the use of condoms, and 73 percent of men and 90 percent of women are opposed to pre-martial sex.

In Central Asia, the lack of knowledge about HIV/AIDS often means women, not men, face the brunt of discrimination and stigmatisation, according to Damira Sartbzeva, UNIFEM’s regional programme director for the Commonwealth of Independent States, who is based in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Around the world, the fear of physical and psychological violence often prevents infected women from accessing treatment and counseling. It also limits their ability to mitigate the impact of the disease on their children, experts say.

The latest UNIFEM report strongly recommends that affected women should be recognised as key stakeholders in the AIDS response. It also recommends that a democratic and transparent process be ensured to represent HIV positive women in civil society bodies and community based organisations. Ensuring that, UNIFEM says, is vital in the global fight against AIDS.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Jul 18 2010 (IPS)

Scientists participating in the 18th International AIDS conference that opens in Vienna Sunday promise to share more information on vaccine research.

Dr. Alan Bernstein, Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise executive director, told journalists on the eve of the conference that the search for safe and effective HIV vaccines is one of the greatest challenges for modern science.

“However, this is also a pivotal moment in HIV vaccine research,” Bernstein said at a four-day global media training programme on HIV/AIDS held by the Washington-based National Press Foundation in collaboration with the week- long AIDS 2010 Conference that ends Jul. 23.

A scientific strategic plan by the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, a collaborative effort of more than 400 researchers worldwide, will be released in September this year.

Experts are optimistic that breakthroughs in HIV vaccine research are possible if they work together. Linda Gail Bekker, deputy director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre at the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine in South Africa, said it has become essential to pool the resources of experts working in different parts of the world.

At the moment antiretroviral drugs slow down replication of the HIV virus and can greatly enhance quality of life, but they do not eliminate HIV infection. In the absence of the magic cure that the world has been waiting for for the past 25 years, prevention and early treatment of HIV is the focus.

An estimated 5.2 million were receiving life saving HIV treatment at the end of 2009. This is just one-third of the number in need. For each person who receives treatment, 2.5 more on average are infected.

Multiple approaches to stopping HIV include use of condoms, circumcision, widespread promotion of monogamy, and safer sex. All these can slow this epidemic but not end it. Historically, vaccines have been the best tool to limit or stop the spread of a virus. Small pox and polio have been almost eliminated with use of vaccines.

HIV is the most elusive virus ever targeted for a vaccine, and requires substantial support for costly research.

Scientists call for early treatment before patients develop weakened immunity, leading to an attack on the body by infections such as tuberculosis (TB), the number one killer of people with HIV. Deaths from TB can be reduced by as much as 90 percent if people with both HIV and TB start treatment early enough.

The strength of a person’s immune system is measured by CD4 cells. A healthy person has a CD4 count of 1,000 to 1,500 cells. Previously the recommendation for starting HIV treatment was after a person’s CD4 count dropped below 200 cells, but starting HIV treatment is now recommended at 350 cells or below.

Apart from saving lives, early treatment brings prevention benefits. It reduces the level of virus in the body, and HIV positive people are less likely to pass the virus to their partners.

More than 2.7 million people worldwide are newly infected with HIV every year, and every person infected with HIV requires expensive and often complex antiretroviral treatment for life.

The budget needed for HIV treatment in 2010 will be about 9 billion dollars, according to UNAIDS. In the face of declining resources the conference is expected to see a scramble for funds by scientists, advocates and governments.

The conference will review the state of the pandemic, and examine also the complex interaction between human rights and the spread of the epidemic among people most at risk, like women and children.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, May 20 2010 (IPS)

Anti-death penalty activists meeting in the Austrian capital to discuss the eighth quinquennial report of the United Nations Secretary-General have hailed a worldwide trend towards total and universal abolition of capital punishment.

The abolitionists are euphoric although several countries, where capital punishment remains in force, also disrespect international norms and standards on three counts – in limiting the death penalty to very serious crimes, excluding juvenile offenders from its scope and guaranteeing fair trial.

The U.N. report on capital punishment and implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty was tabled Thursday before the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice at its 19th session that concludes here on May 20.

“The campaign against abolishing the death penalty is a long one requiring constant reminders. And the Secretary-General’s report is an extremely important and valuable tool in reminding the world to abolish capital punishment. The report will keep the dialogue and discussion with governments alive,” said Thomas H. Speedy Rice of the National Association of Criminal Defence Lawyers (NACDL) from the United States.

Rice told IPS that in his opinion the report contributed to a continuing and more reasoned debate on a very emotive subject. He praised the approach of the report and the contribution made by both U.N. offices and non-governmental campaigners such as the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), an alliance of NGOs, bar associations, local bodies and unions.

Together with WCADP, the NACDL hosted an ancillary meeting on Thursday that was also attended by Jacqueline Macalesher, death penalty project manager for the London-based Penal Reform International (PRI).

Macalesher highlighted PRI’s ongoing programme on the abolition of the death penalty and alternatives that respect international human rights standards.

For two years the PRI’s death penalty project will work in 20 countries in five regions to increase safeguards and promote greater accountability in criminal justice systems through holistic policy development and legal reform, including improved prison management.

The other objective of the project is to challenge governments to consider carefully whether sanctions intended to replace the death penalty and treatment of long-term prisoners comply with international standards and norms.

Macalesher, whose work began early this year, finds the Middle East and North African regions the most challenging because death penalty is seen as part and parcel of the culture and religion of populations there.

The project will take on society’s attitudes about the death penalty and support governments to move towards abolition, and transparency in the application of the death penalty.

“Even states that retain the death penalty are reported to have abolished its use either in law or in practice. The acceleration of this practice even slightly is extremely positive,” said Aurelie Placaise, a campaigner representing WCADP.

The report finds that countries that retain the death penalty are, with rare exceptions, significantly reducing its use in terms of numbers of persons executed and the crimes for which it may be imposed.

However, while working towards an international ban on capital punishment abolitionists also want those states that retain the death penalty not to violate safeguards and to fully respect existing limitations and restrictions on the use of the death penalty.

Of particular concern to abolitionists is the use of the death penalty against juvenile offenders. The Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly stipulates that capital punishment shall not be imposed for offences committed by persons below 18 years of age.

The overwhelming and growing international consensus that the death penalty should not apply to juvenile offenders stems from the recognition that young persons lack maturity and judgement and, therefore, cannot be expected to be fully responsible for their actions.

More importantly, it reflects the firm belief that young persons are more susceptible to change, and thus have a greater potential for rehabilitation than adults.

Placaise said that being the eve of the U.N. resolution on a moratorium on the use of death penalty, that faces a vote at the end of the year at the General Assembly, this is a good time to be discussing the issue.

This resolution is seen as the closest commitment of the international community to abolish capital punishment in the world.

According to Placaise more than two-thirds of the world’s countries have already abolished the death penalty in law or in practice with 95 countries having abolished the death penalty for all crimes.

Nine countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes except extraordinary crimes like those committed in times of war and 35 countries are de facto abolitionists where the death penalty is still provided for in legislation but no executions have take place for at least ten years.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Jun 25 2008 (IPS)

Climate change will top the agenda of an international food conference on Europe that begins Thursday in Innsbruck, Austria.

Experts at the conference, hosted by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), will examine ways to adapt good farming practices to changing climatic conditions.

Dr Jacques Diouf, FAO Director-General warned at a press conference held here on the eve of the 26th FAO Regional Conference for Europe that climate change is the biggest challenge that agricultural activities face in the coming years – and the most costly to cope with.

The meeting follows the 35th meeting of the European Commission on Agriculture that concluded Jun. 24.

Representative of 44 member nations from Europe and Central Asia together with experts from international specialised agencies, and inter-governmental and non-governmental partners will explore the climate factor at a time when agriculture is booming in some parts of Europe and Central Asia.

Substantive growth has been recorded in transition countries in Europe and Central Asia over the past decade. The highest growth is reported in some of the poorest countries in the region.

The agricultural growth has reduced poverty and food insecurity in many parts of the Caucasus region, including rural areas of Central Asia.

However, experts warn that the good news may be short-lived. The consequences of climate change and the significant price hikes of nearly all basic food commodities have already had a negative impact, particularly on the food security of vulnerable groups in many countries.

Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and rural development in Europe are faced with many other challenges over the coming years, including international competition, further liberalisation of trade policy, and a population decline in rural areas.

Climate change is adding to the existing pressures on agricultural activities such as crop yields, livestock management, uncertain income generation, and land abandonment in rural areas.

Many countries of southeast Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) remain extremely poor. Agriculture here is often the only source of income, employing a high percentage of the labour force.

In numerous parts of Europe local cultivation is the main economic activity that for generations has helped feed communities, and preserved the landscape and local traditions. This ancient activity coincides with a growing consumer demand today for traditional regional agricultural products.

Diversification of rural income is high on the agenda. Agricultural development in the region will be discussed, with its implications for food security, and achievement of the World Food Summit and Millennium Development Goals.

In the past FAO has helped to strengthen the capacity of governments to enable agriculture growth. Now the organisation is in the midst of facilitating an integrated approach to climate change together with farmers, scientists and policy makers.

The focus of FAO technical assistance is capacity building in protecting against plant and animal diseases. FAO helps also in the adoption of legal and technical requirements for European Union accession or integration to enable access to markets.

Its experts help communities to better manage land, water, forests and other natural resources, food safety and quality standards. FAO assists in land reform legislation and promotes good agricultural practices.

The FAO has broadened its activities in the region since 1996 in response to the changes in Europe and the emergence of the transition economies.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, May 28 2003 (IPS)

The IAEA is sending a team of seven inspectors to Iraq this week to investigate reports of illnesses around the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre south of Baghdad.

”We are disturbed at media reports that people around the nuclear facility area are being treated by doctors with symptoms of shortness of breath, nausea, severe nosebleeds and itchy rashes,” IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told IPS.

The centre is located just 20 kilometres south of Baghdad.

”We need to repackage, to reseal the drums containing nuclear materials,” Gwozdecky said. ”We have to make sure that the drums are not damaged and to check the exact level of radiation in the building.”

The team will leave by this weekend, he said.

Iraqi doctors have been quoted in the media as saying that they have seen many patients with worrying symptoms. This has led to fears that they could be suffering from acute radiation syndrome.

The IAEA, the international nuclear watchdog, had requested the U.S.-led coalition forces to allow its inspectors to return to Tuwaitha after television pictures of looting at the centre early April.

Iraqi forces from Saddam Hussein’s regime had deserted the site April 6, and looters soon moved in. U.S. forces moved in to guard the centre several days later. About 40 of them guard the 120-acre premises, according to reports the IAEA has received from Iraq.

Tuwaitha was once as heavily guarded as Saddam’s presidential palaces. But in the days of looting it lost even its main gates.

The Bush administration agreed last week to allow IAEA inspectors into the centre. But their access will be limited to just three buildings in the main complex known as Location C, the IAEA spokesman said.

”The inspectors will attend to safeguards issues,” the spokesman said. ”They will go and look at the damage done to the site by looters. They will find out exactly what is missing and what to do about it. So far we have only heard that the country’s largest nuclear site continues to be targeted by thieves but we do not know anything for sure.”

But the team is ”not going in search of weapons of mass destruction,” he said.

Some of the specialists on the team have inspected nuclear sites in Iraq before. They have spent months removing and destroying fuel and equipment linked to what was seen as Iraq’s clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

This time the inspectors will seek to match inventories with the materials and chemicals in storage. Iraq is obliged as a member of the NPT (Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) to allow the Agency to inspect its nuclear sites.

The reports from Iraq indicate that radiation levels at the building are higher than acceptable limits, and that it is dangerous to enter the building.

The material stored at Tuwaitha is the only known nuclear material in Iraq. It is stored in sealed barrels, and is believed to include 1.8 tonnes of low-enriched uranium and several tonnes of natural and depleted uranium. The centre was monitored by the IAEA with the cooperation of the Iraqi regime until March 2003.

Inspectors had neutralised much of the nuclear capacity at this site after the first Gulf war to prevent reconstruction and use of potentially dangerous facilities.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, May 27 2003 (IPS)

”For three months I was in tears, receiving 50 clients a day. I lost sense of time. I tried to commit suicide…in the room next door a girl did commit suicide. In the morning her body was taken away and another girl put in the same room, to do the same job!”

This is the story of a woman from Armenia as narrated by Gulnara Shahinian, director of Democracy Today, a non-governmental centre for gender studies in Yerevan, Armenia.

The woman who left home to make a living but became instead a victim of traffickers is not alone. She is among thousands believed to become the victim of traffickers every year.

Shahinian narrated the story to the United Nations Commission on Crime Prevention this week. The commission is looking at trafficking as a part of larger rings of organised crime and global terrorism.

The accounts presented suggest that Armenia woke up to the problem only after a study in 1999 pointed to it as a source country for traffickers.

”Unemployment and poverty are the main reasons,” Shahinian told IPS at the UN meeting in Vienna. But she pointed also to ”the unequal status of women, ignorance about the demands of the labour market abroad, the magic image of life in western countries, and years of isolation of Armenians under communism.”

Armenia has had to cope with many political and economic challenges since independence in 1991. Many of the young have been reduced to dire poverty in the transition stage, Shahinian says.

The conflict with Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabagh led to continued fighting until 1994. To add to the cost of war, Armenia’s Islamic neighbours curtailed trade links with Armenia. The poverty that resulted made the country a hunting ground for traffickers.

The tale of Kouessi Fanchime from Benin presented by Anti-Slavery International at a photographs gallery in Vienna is a reminder how far the problem has spread. Fanchime sent her daughter away with a friend to save the child from poverty. The friend promised to take the girl away to relatively rich Nigeria. That was 15 years ago. Fanchime never saw her daughter again.

Trafficking in people, especially women and children, has become prime concern for the 40-member commission.

The focus falls inevitably on poor countries. ”It is clear that countries with high levels of organised crime have low levels of human development,” Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN group told a meeting of the commission. ”There can be no prosperity without security.”

The UN is only now beginning to see some of the human consequences of such crimes. ”All this information brought to us by NGOs from societies that were closed until a few years ago is very valuable,” Burkhardt Dammann who heads the UN Global Programme Against Trafficking told IPS.

”Countries reluctant to admit trafficking before are increasingly saying this is an issue,” Dammann said. ”They are saying, let us discuss it and do something about it collectively. That is very encouraging.”

Kristiina Kangaspunta has used the new information to enter more than 3,000 cases into a new database on trafficking. The database shows that 83 percent of cases involve women. Almost all of them are sexually exploited, and one in five forced into labour. Most offenders seem to come from Asia.

”The new information is only a small step towards coming to grips with an elusive and dangerous problem,” Kangaspunta told IPS. ”But if there was no discussion we would have no knowledge, and no way of planning any kind of action.”

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, May 23 2003 (IPS)

About 300 experts from around the world concluded an international symposium on water resources management here Friday, but could not discuss the acute crisis in Iraq.

Iraq could not be represented because it is under foreign occupation. Only governments of member states can send scientists to meetings of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency).

And since Iraq could not speak for itself, no one else could either. ”I do not know the state of the waters of the Tigris and Eupharates rivers,” Pradeep Aggarwal, head of the Isotope Hydrology Section at IAEA told IPS. ”Iraq was not on our agenda.”

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the first water resources symposium hosted by the Vienna-based IAEA and held every four years. The meetings are called to review the role that nuclear science can play in sustainable human development.

Apart from its role as the world’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA works with governments and other international institutions to explore how nuclear science can help understand and address a range of problems including climate change, pollution of fresh water resources and contamination of the atmosphere and of oceans.

The IAEA has consistently promoted use of the isotope – the energy of a nuclear atom – to improve knowledge of water resources. The IAEA is employing techniques using isotopes in 150 projects in 60 countries.

The techniques have been found useful in tracing underground sources of water, in determining whether they are at risk of saltwater pollution, and even in separating waste from good water.

By determining how rapidly water moves isotopes, scientists can get critical information where to extract water. The isotopes of pollutants like trace metal or chemical compounds present in water also offer clues.

”In Bangladesh high levels of natural arsenic groundwater was found in many communal tube wells and efforts are being made to mitigate a complex set of problems by use of isotope hydrology,” Aggarwal said.

Dug in the seventies to provide an alternative to contaminated surface water, these wells have become a source for arsenic poisoning, causing deaths, widespread illness and disabilities.

Efforts are now made to test water from these wells and to identify other wells suspected of containing high levels of arsenic.

Only 2.5 percent of all water on earth is freshwater. Most of this is frozen in icecaps. Some is present as soil moisture and other reserves deep underground are inaccessible. This leaves just about 1 per cent accessible for use, scientists pointed out at the meeting.

With more than a third of global food production based on irrigation, the world is relying on unsustainable groundwater sources, according to official data. More than a billion people are estimated to lack adequate fresh water.

Water is becoming scarce particularly in North Africa and West Asia. Demand for water is expected to rise 40 percent over the next two decades. By 2025 two- thirds of the world’s population may live in countries with moderate or severe water shortages, going by some of the alarming statistics presented at the conference.

The IAEA believes isotope technology can play a vital role in addressing such shortage. One of the significant new projects is being conducted through the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. Isotope techniques are being used to trace groundwater resources in Kenya, Madagascar, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

More than 30 institutions in Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay are gathering data on water using both conventional and nuclear isotopic techniques, according to the IAEA. But little is being done in Iraq where the needs are most acute.

The IAEA plans to use these techniques also sto monitor rivers and their relationship to climate change.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, May 9 2003 (IPS)

Officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) say they have been reduced to bystanders in the face of reports of widespread damage to Iraq’s nuclear facilities.

"I know as much as you do," Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman at the Vienna headquarters of the IAEA told IPS. Fleming said the recent television footage of loot at the sprawling Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre south of Baghdad had been worrying.

"We would like to be there to find out for ourselves," she said. "At the moment we have deep nuclear, public and environmental concerns, and would like to make sure that the nuclear facility is adequately protected. We hope that the nuclear material is totally safe."

Mohammed ElBaradei, head of IAEA wrote to the Bush administration last month to say that the U.S. was responsible for safeguarding all the nuclear material in Iraq which had been sealed by IAEA inspectors before the U.S. army took possession of the nuclear premises.

ElBaradei also requested the U.S. to allow an IAEA investigative team to visit Iraq immediately to inspect the nuclear storage facilities. Fleming says ElBaradei has received no reply.

As the world’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA continues to express concern at the possible theft and smuggling of potentially dangerous nuclear components like uranium out of Iraq.

IAEA reports say that Iraq’s Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Tuwaitha stored 3,896 pounds of partially enriched uranium, more than 94 tonnes of natural uranium and some amount of cesium, cobalt and strontium. If further enriched, the uranium in stock could be used as the core of a nuclear device.

The greatest fear now is that someone who wants to make ‘dirty bombs’ from low-grade uranium could buy the material on the international black market if it is smuggled out of Iraq. The IAEA wants to survey the sites as soon as possible to make sure nothing is missing.

Tuwaitha’s sprawling premises spread over 120 acres were said to be under the protection of Iraq’s Special Republican Guard. U.S. forces arrived at Tuwaitha April 6 and reportedly found that the place had no guards.

The site has been under the protection of coalition forces since early April, but the premises were reported to have been abandoned by guards for a few days. Television images show that the premises are damaged but there is no indication of the extent of the damage, particularly to the seals put in place by IAEA inspectors who worked through the nineties to halt Iraq’s nuclear activities.

ElBaradei has said that only the IAEA has the right to safeguard Iraq’s nuclear material. Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) only the IAEA can reopen the tamper-proof seals it has put on rooms and on more than 400 barrels of radioactive material.

IAEA inspectors began investigating Iraq’s nuclear capabilities in 1991 to eliminate the country’s suspected weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them.

At that time inspectors reported that Iraq had a comprehensive nuclear weapons development programme and that Iraq had made continued attempts to conceal the true extent of that programme.

Besides an ambitious uranium enrichment programme, Iraq was found to be separating small quantities of plutonium at the Tuwaitha centre. A programme to produce enriched uranium was halted at two centres in Tarmiya and Ash Sharkat.

IAEA inspectors brought back samples for analysis at its laboratories in Seibersdorf. Iraq was said to have been on the verge of building a nuclear bomb.

The U.S. is reported to have reassured the IAEA that it would safeguard the nuclear material. But reports of ripped barbed wires, broken walls and files in disarray have caused great consternation in the IAEA offices.

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By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Apr 24 2003 (IPS)

OPEC, the exclusive cartel of eleven oil-producing and exporting countries stands at the crossroads as it tries to balance supply in a world where the demand for oil seems unlimited.

Adding to the uncertainty is the future of Iraq within the organization that comprises of member nations from Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America

"For the first time in its 43 year old history a decision is taken by OPEC in the absence of Iraq," Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Qatar’s minister of energy and industry told a roomful of reporters at Vienna’s OPEC Secretariat.

He met with journalists after a day-long consultative meeting where it was decided to cut back OPEC’s contribution by two million barrels a day by June first. Al-Attiyah called this a unique situation especially since little is known as to what is going on in Iraq.

There is uncertainty over who will be responsible for marketing the oil in Iraq. The Security Council has to first say goodbye to the UN resolution that allowed Iraq to exchange oil for food in the past before the United States, in control of Iraqi oil fields now, can dream of pocketing the profits.

Iraq is a founding member of OPEC but has not been contributing its quota to the cartel since 1990 after its invasion of Kuwait, a fellow member country, followed by sanctions imposed upon it in 1991.

However Dr. Amer Mohammad Rasheed Baghdad’s minister of oil till January this year remained a familiar face at all OPEC meetings and an official from the Iraqi embassy in Vienna represented the country at an earlier OPEC meeting held here in March.

It was Baghdad that hosted the first meeting in 1960 which led to the birth of OPEC as a permanent intergovernmental organisation of oil producing countries. In 1965 OPEC moved its headquarters from Geneva to Vienna where oil ministers meet regularly but under tight security. The membership of Iraq within OPEC is now a question mark in capital letters.

"We wait to welcome any future minister of oil of a free and democratic Iraq to the OPEC premises as soon as possible. There is no question of discussion about the state of oil in Iraq with the Americans as it is not America that is a member of OPEC," Al-Attiyah said.

Anxious to continue control over the world’s oil production, OPEC is concerned about news trickling in from the oil fields of Iraq that crude from the country could return to the market within weeks.

Today’s decision to return to OPEC’s lower but original official output target of 25.4 million barrels a day from 27.4 million barrels a day follows on the heels of information that Iraq’s Rumeila oil fields have started to release limited amounts of crude into storage tanks in Basra, Iraq’s southern city.

OPEC’s collective contribution is about 40 percent of the world’s output and it sits on more than three quarters of the total crude oil reserves. The cartel now hopes that by curbing over-supply it will help to stabilise the price of crude at 24 dollars a barrel, equal to about 160 litres of oil.

Iraq has the potential of being the world’s second largest supplier of crude after Saudi Arabia. It already has 112 billion barrels of crude in reserve and OPEC is nervous over the world market’s expectation of more oil from Iraq.

The demand for oil is on the rise in a world that already guzzles 78 million barrels a day. In anticipation of Iraqi crude OPEC has decided to return to its original official output target.

Once United Nations sanctions against Iraq are lifted, the country is expected to start selling up to two million barrels a day within weeks. According to reports from Iraq, the immediate flow will go to feed refineries and power plants within the country before it is sold abroad.

Uncertain over how much crude the Iraqi fields will ultimately yield, OPEC fears that a glut in the supply of oil could drown markets, forcing prices to slump. OPEC would like to see prices balanced between 22 dollars to 28 dollars per barrel.

In January OPEC increased its average from 24.5 million barrels a day by 1.5 million barrels a day to make up for production failures caused by unrest in Venezuela and the war in Iraq, two member countries with most of the additional crude contributed by Saudi Arabia the world’s largest owner of crude oil.

From 9.1 million barrels a day, Saudi Arabia’s quota is now reduced to 8.2 million barrels a day. Ali al Naimi, Saudi Oil Minister told reporters that producers were defending crude at 25 dollars a barrel and hoped that the target would remain stable for the next decade.

"The big players in the oil market need to rally around the current price levels to have enough investment in the next ten years, to meet demand that is why we need to keep the 25 dollar target not lower, not higher," Al Nuami said.

The minister feels that it is in the interest of all oil producing countries, non-OPEC states, the International Energy Agency and oil companies as well as consumers if prices remain around 25 dollars a barrel.

But a sluggish world economy, the spread of the SARS disease and uncertainty over Iraq is not the only frown on OPEC’s brow. "It is also elections, strikes and the quota from Nigeria," oil specialist Valerie Marcel told IPS referring to domestic troubles faced by yet another member country.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Apr 17 2003 (IPS)

A summit called by the United Nations has reaffirmed its opposition to any legalisation of drugs.

The ten-day meeting ended Thursday with a joint statement by ministers from 75 countries expressing concern over policies being proposed to legalise some drugs banned by the UN.

But a parallel summit by members of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) at the Austria Centre found UN policies too rigid and narrow. The parallel summit blamed UN policies and corrupt governments for the continuing spread of drug abuse.

"What the UN calls a consensus is in fact a deadlock," said Dr Vitalino Canas, former coordinator for the Portugese government’s drive against drugs at the NGO meeting.

In the face of this kind of split, the Vienna summit was a mid-term review of progress towards a goal set in the UN General Assembly in 1998 to make the world free of drugs by 2008. That goal seems far from realisation, although V.M. Costa from the UN office for Drugs Control told reporters he saw the glass as half full.

The official summit recognised that progress has been uneven and that drugs continue to remain a global challenge. The summit saw drugs as a serious threat to public health, safety and well being, particularly of children and youth. Drugs were recognised a hindrance in efforts to reduce poverty while they encourage greed for a more materialistic lifestyle, violence and crime.

The summit recognised the unique situation of Afghanistan and of the need to end illicit cultivation of opium, which is again on the increase after being controlled effectively by the earlier Taliban government.

One way of doing this is to reduce demand, the meeting declared. But delegates expressed grave concern over policies that seek to deal with drug abuse by supporting legalisation of some narcotic drugs. Delegates expressed particular worry over the rapid growth in use of stimulants like amphetamine.

Some of the drugs are new, but former Interpol officer Raymond Kendall told NGOs there was nothing new about the UN meeting. "It is like nothing has changed in all these decades at the UN," he told IPS. "Except perhaps the larger number of security guards now."

Kendall told the NGO meeting that he wanted neither legalisation of all drugs considered illicit today, nor ruthless criminalisation of those who could not live without drugs. He asked for a more benign and rational attitude towards both the use and abuse of drugs.

Martin Jelsma from the Netherlands-based Transnational Institute (TNI), a worldwide fellowship of scholar-activists supporting political and social change, said the mid-term review was disappointing. He said the absence of significant progress over the past five years has led to little self-reflection in the UN.

Demands to scrap the UN conventions against drug abuse have been dismissed as too radical, but governments are beginning to disagree over existing laws. As the U.S. pushes to suppress supply, some European governments have been moving towards policies that seek to reduce harm, and to reduce punishment.

France backs the U.S. but Britain has got itself into some trouble over its relatively liberal policy towards use of cannabis, considered an illicit drug by the UN. The Netherlands, Switzerland, Portugal and Australia have also distanced themselves from the UN position. But they have seen now that the door to any liberalisation in the UN stands shut for at least another five years.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Apr 11 2003 (IPS)

Government representatives from over 100 countries are locked in a passionate debate at the Vienna premises of the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) over the continuing abuse of narcotic drugs by at least 185 million people around the world. And the number is said to be rising.

Today there is complete consensus amongst policy makers to free the world of drug abuse but the debate is over how to do it?

A special session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York promised in 1998 to reduce and eventually eliminate the supply and demand for illegal drugs within a decade. The Vienna meeting is important as a mid-term review of this pledge so that the target can actually be met by 2008.

Critics of the international drug control policy want reforms if better progress is to be seen in the following five years as the number of illicit drug consumers continues to rise.

UNODC director Antonio Costa, however, says that efforts to reduce the abuse of illicit drugs have shown signs of progress despite the rise in the consumption of cannabis. "These encouraging developments are mixed with alarm signals in relation to the type of drug and region. There is decline in the abuse of heroin and cocaine in some countries providing hope that greater achievements are possible," he says.

The most dangerous trend has emerged from Eastern Europe to the North Pacific in the spread of HIV/AIDS due to the abuse of drugs by injecting. The same problem of HIV/AIDS, although far more dramatic in Africa, is not directly linked to the injecting of drugs.

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has called tobacco the most dangerous of all drugs, three UN Conventions allow its use along with alcohol while cocaine, cannabis, heroin and synthetic drugs like ecstacy are illegal.

This contradictory and strictly prohibitory policy of UNODC that has the staunch support of countries like the United States and Italy is under attack today by some other European member countries and Australia who seek a more harm reduction and no punishment resolution to the grave problem of drug abuse.

The on-going debate in Vienna will culminate in a ministerial level meeting on April 16 and 17 when member states will have to further agree on the best way to prevent the illicit manufacture, import, export, trafficking, distribution and diversion of narcotic drugs and pschotropic substances.

There may be a clash of views on how to put into practice the international drug control treaties but what is now increasingly accepted by governments around the world is that most non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are an essential link to dealing with drug abuse at the grassroots level.

A parallel Mini Forum organised by the NGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs at Vienna’s UN offices on alternative methods in the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts was attended by Costa who returned to the official meeting only after he thanked the NGOs for sharing with his office their wealth of experience.

Gautam Babbar from the Demand Reduction Section of UNODC told IPS that it would be impossible for him to network with young people around the world without the close consultative cooperation of NGOs.

Babbar has participated in projects that use sports and performances like theatre, dance, music and puppetry in drug abuse prevention in different corners of the world.

Eva Tongue, vice chairman of the NGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs, who has been advocating demand reduction of illicit drugs for at least two decades, is pleased at the increasing involvement of NGOs with UNODC programmes although she continues to ask for participation also at the level of decision making.

"Just a decade ago not even 10 percent of UNODC’s resources were used for projects that involve NGOs. Today the percentage is almost 33 percent," Tongue told IPS.

Tongue’s NGO will convene yet another forum parallel to the government meeting on how NGOs can further help UNODC in operational priorities when participants from the Salvation Army and the Dhaka Ahsania Mission, Bangladesh, amongst others will speak.

However these are NGOs that have little quarrel with the UN on policy matters. They are allowed to use the premises of the UN after being accorded consultative status by the UN Social and Economic Council.

The cantankerous and more critical contingent of NGOs have restricted their activities outside the UN premises. A programme for the Alternative Drug Summit in Vienna will culminate in a demonstration from the Vienna University in the heart of the city, across a bridge on the river Danube to the doorstep of the UN offices.

The three hour walk will be accompanied by theatre performances and leaflets on cannabis paper. One of the organisers of the march and numerous workshops on topics like Drugs and Racism is the International Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ICN).

The European participants are trying to get policy makers within their respective countries to use the Vienna summit to review and reform the legal basis of drug prohibition enforced by the UN Conventions on Drugs of 1961, 1971 and 1988.

In the opinion of NGOs asking for an alternative drug policy, the existing laws that prohibit the use of illicit drugs have caused more harm than the consumption of drugs. They believe that a totally drugs free society is an impossibility and policies should concentrate on reducing the harm that the production, trafficking and consumption of drugs causes individuals, communities and humanity.

The idea is to protect the rights of citizens instead of violating them under a more rational and realistic control mechanism. Both government officials and those at the UN swear that they are prepared to listen to the other point of view but whether they will do anything about it is something to be seen at the end of the summit.

Excerpt:

By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Dec 20 2002 (IPS)

Mohamed El-Baradei, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency is still waiting for North Korean leaders to respond to his invitation for high-level talks. The agency has been more than just distressed since October when North Korean officials bragged they had a right to nuclear weapons.

As the world’s nuclear nursemaid, El-Baradei took steps to implement safeguards and denuclearise the Korean Peninsula. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sent faxes to the Korean government November 17 and 18 asking for precise information about its nuclear weapons programme, and offering to send a team to discuss safeguards. It has received no reply.

Instead, the North Korean government wrote back on December 12 asking IAEA to lift a freeze on its nuclear facilities so that it could resume generation of electricity. The government said this is necessary because the U.S. is suspending supply of fuel at the end of the year. The North Korean letters made no mention of El-Baradei’s letters.

The demands from North Korea are seen here as dangerous brinkmanship. The IAEA is insisting that containment and surveillance measures at nuclear power plants in North Korea remain in place. If these are removed or disabled, IAEA officials say North Korea could reprocess 8,000 spent fuel rods now lying in a temporary storage pond into enough plutonium to make five bombs within a month.

Pyongyang has announced that it is lifting the freeze on its nuclear programme to generate electricity, but the reactor at Yongbyon has never been connected to the power grid. The amount of electricity it could produce may not be significant.

Two other nuclear reactors under construction are also frozen under a 1994 agreement. Those reactors could greatly expand Pyongyang’s capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons. It would take three to five years before construction is complete and full-scale production begins.

One of these nuclear plants could produce about 220 kilograms of plutonium a year – enough for 30 to 40 bombs. The estimated start-up timeline for the second is also about three to five years, and this one could produce enough plutonium for seven to ten bombs a year.

In its first letter to El-Baradei, North Korea rejected a resolution adopted by the IAEA board of governors on November 29 insisting that North Korea implement the Agency’s safeguards. The letter also expressed disappointment over what it called the Agency’s unilateral and unfair approach. It blamed what it described as the IAEA’s hostile policy towards North Korea for the nuclear crisis in the Korean Peninsula.

In its second letter North Korea asked the IAEA to unseal the canisters containing the spent fuel rods so that it could generate electricity.

El-Baradei is in no hurry to comply with North Korea’s request, officials here say. He has also asked North Korea not to open the sealed canisters containing spent fuel or to tamper with the cameras keeping an eye on the cooling ponds where the fuel was canned between 1996 and 1998. The IAEA keeps a team of two international inspectors at the nuclear complex in Yongbyon.

According to U.S. authorities, North Korea acknowledged to American senator John F. Kerry in October that it had a programme to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Such a programme would violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the North Korea-IAEA Safeguards Agreement and the North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea could face serious consequences if it withdraws from the NPT or disregards the concerns of the IAEA, officials say.

Despite its monitoring moves, the IAEA has never had an exact picture of North Korea’s nuclear activities. North Korea signed the NPT in 1985 and entered into a safeguards agreement with the Agency in 1992.

The first row between the two came soon after when North Korea declared its plutonium capacity, also assessed independently by the IAEA. North Korea has been held responsible ever since for failing to comply with its non-proliferation obligations.

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By Mehru Jaffer
VIENNA, Dec 20 2002 (IPS)

Mohamed El-Baradei, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency is still waiting for North Korean leaders to respond to his invitation for high-level talks. The agency has been more than just distressed since October when North Korean officials bragged they had a right to nuclear weapons.

As the world’s nuclear nursemaid, El-Baradei took steps to implement safeguards and denuclearise the Korean Peninsula. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) sent faxes to the Korean government November 17 and 18 asking for precise information about its nuclear weapons programme, and offering to send a team to discuss safeguards. It has received no reply.

Instead, the North Korean government wrote back on December 12 asking IAEA to lift a freeze on its nuclear facilities so that it could resume generation of electricity. The government said this is necessary because the U.S. is suspending supply of fuel at the end of the year. The North Korean letters made no mention of El-Baradei’s letters.

The demands from North Korea are seen here as dangerous brinkmanship. The IAEA is insisting that containment and surveillance measures at nuclear power plants in North Korea remain in place. If these are removed or disabled, IAEA officials say North Korea could reprocess 8,000 spent fuel rods now lying in a temporary storage pond into enough plutonium to make five bombs within a month.

Pyongyang has announced that it is lifting the freeze on its nuclear programme to generate electricity, but the reactor at Yongbyon has never been connected to the power grid. The amount of electricity it could produce may not be significant.

Two other nuclear reactors under construction are also frozen under a 1994 agreement. Those reactors could greatly expand Pyongyang’s capacity to manufacture nuclear weapons. It would take three to five years before construction is complete and full-scale production begins.

One of these nuclear plants could produce about 220 kilograms of plutonium a year – enough for 30 to 40 bombs. The estimated start-up timeline for the second is also about three to five years, and this one could produce enough plutonium for seven to ten bombs a year.

In its first letter to El-Baradei, North Korea rejected a resolution adopted by the IAEA board of governors on November 29 insisting that North Korea implement the Agency’s safeguards. The letter also expressed disappointment over what it called the Agency’s unilateral and unfair approach. It blamed what it described as the IAEA’s hostile policy towards North Korea for the nuclear crisis in the Korean Peninsula.

In its second letter North Korea asked the IAEA to unseal the canisters containing the spent fuel rods so that it could generate electricity.

El-Baradei is in no hurry to comply with North Korea’s request, officials here say. He has also asked North Korea not to open the sealed canisters containing spent fuel or to tamper with the cameras keeping an eye on the cooling ponds where the fuel was canned between 1996 and 1998. The IAEA keeps a team of two international inspectors at the nuclear complex in Yongbyon.

According to U.S. authorities, North Korea acknowledged to American senator John F. Kerry in October that it had a programme to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Such a programme would violate the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the North Korea-IAEA Safeguards Agreement and the North-South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea could face serious consequences if it withdraws from the NPT or disregards the concerns of the IAEA, officials say.

Despite its monitoring moves, the IAEA has never had an exact picture of North Korea’s nuclear activities. North Korea signed the NPT in 1985 and entered into a safeguards agreement with the Agency in 1992.

The first row between the two came soon after when North Korea declared its plutonium capacity, also assessed independently by the IAEA. North Korea has been held responsible ever since for failing to comply with its non-proliferation obligations.

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