How is the National Population Register compiled? How is it related to citizenship and the decennial census? And, can States refuse cooperation with the NPR process?
The story so far: As protests spread all across the country against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019 and the proposed National Register of Indian Citizens (NRIC), West Bengal and Kerala suspended work related to the preparation and update of the National Population Register in their respective States. The NPR, a register of residents of the country with demographic and biometric details, was supposed to be prepared between April 2020 and September 2020 ahead of the Census slated for 2021. Preliminary work on the NPR has begun in several States. In Bengal, civil rights activists had been protesting against the compilation of the NPR alleging that it had nothing to with the Census, but the “first step to initiate the National Register of Citizens” in the State. According to Section 14A of the Citizenship Act, 1955 (which was inserted in 2004), the Central Government may compulsorily register every citizen of India and issue a national identity card to him; and it may maintain a National Register of Indian Citizens.
What is the National Population Register (NPR)?
The NPR is a database containing a list of all usual residents of the country. Its objective is to have a comprehensive identity database of people residing in the country. It is generated through house-to-house enumeration during the “house-listing” phase of the census, which is held once in 10 years. The last census was in 2011, and the next will be done in 2021 (and will be conducted through a mobile phone application, according to the Home Minister, Amit Shah).
A usual resident for the purposes of NPR is a person who has resided in a place for six months or more, and intends to reside there for another six months or more
The census involves a detailed questionnaire — there were 29 items to be filled up in the 2011 census — aimed at eliciting the particulars of every person, including age, sex, marital status, children, occupation, birthplace, mother tongue, religion, disability and whether they belonged to any Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. On the other hand, the NPR collects basic demographic data and biometric particulars.
Once the basic details of the head of the family are taken by the enumerator, an acknowledgement slip will be issued. This slip may be required for enrolment in NPR, whenever that process begins.
And, once the details are recorded in every local (village or ward), sub-district (tehsil or taluk), district and State level, there will be a population register at each of these levels. Together, they constitute the National Population Register.
What is the legal basis for the NPR?
While the census is legally backed by the Census Act, 1948, the NPR is a mechanism outlined in a set of rules framed under the Citizenship Act, 1955.
Section 14A was inserted in the Citizenship Act, 1955, in 2004, providing for the compulsory registration of every citizen of India and the issue of a “national identity card” to him or her. It also said the Central government may maintain a “National Register of Indian Citizens”.
The Registrar General India shall act as the “National Registration Authority” (and will function as the Registrar General of Citizen Registration). Incidentally, the Registrar General is also the country’s Census Commissioner.
The NPR is the first step towards establishing the NRIC.
Is there any link between the NPR and Aadhaar?
Better targeting and delivery of benefits and services under the government was one of the early objectives of the NPR. During the early days of the NPR enrolment, under the United Progressive Alliance regime, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) scheme for issuance of Aadhaar numbers was also concurrently on. There was a conflict between the Union Home Ministry, which administers the NPR, and UIDAI, leaving the impression that there was duplication of work, as both involved gathering personal particulars, including biometric data.
Ultimately, they agreed that both databases will exist with different objectives, and that each will use the other’s biometric data. Those already enrolled for Aadhaar need not give their biometric details again during NPR. At the same time, data captured for NPR would be sent to UIDAI for “de-duplication”. In case of discrepancy between Aadhaar and NPR data, the latter would prevail. The present regime decided to update the NPR originally created after the 2011 Census.
What will happen after the NPR is compiled?
Out of the NPR, a set of all usual residents of India, the government proposes to create a database of “citizens of India”. Thus, the “National Register of Indian Citizens” (NRIC) is a sub-set of the NPR. The NRIC will be prepared at the local, sub-district, district and State levels after verifying the citizenship status of the residents.
The Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003 spells out the rules for operationalising the idea of registering all citizens and issuing national identity cards to them. However, so far, there has been no decision on introducing a national identity card.
The rules say the particulars of every family and individual found in the Population Register “shall be verified and scrutinized by the Local Registrar …”. In the process, details of those “whose citizenship is doubtful” will be entered with a comment suggesting further inquiry. The family or individual will be informed about it and given an opportunity of being heard by the Sub-district or Taluk Registrar of Citizen Registration before a final decision is made on excluding them from the NRIC. The decision should be made within 90 days.
Is the NRIC complete after this step?
No. A draft of the Local Register of Indian Citizens shall be published to invite objections or claims for inclusion or corrections.
Any objection or request for inclusion must be made within 30 days of the publication of the draft. The sub-district or taluk registrar shall summarily dispose of the objections within 90 days. Thereafter, the entries in the Local Register will be transferred to the National Registrar.
Any person aggrieved by an exclusion order can appeal to the District Registrar within 30 days, and the appeal should be disposed of within 90 days. In case, the appeal succeeds, the names of those concerned would be added to the NRIC.
What are the documents that would help establish citizenship?
The government is yet to notify a date for generation of the NRIC. It has not yet prescribed rules for the sort of documentary proof that would be required to prove citizenship. The government says any document that shows date of birth or place of birth, or both, will be sufficient. And that common documents will be accepted, and those unable to produce documents may produce witnesses or other proof supported by members of the community.
Many State governments have said the NPR would not be implemented. Is this possible?
As of now, this is a political decision. Kerala and West Bengal have put on hold activities related to NPR work. Most State governments would have, by now, re-issued a Central government notification on the initiation of work to update the NPR.
As the house-to-house enumeration is a part of the Census operation, it is unlikely that the NPR process can go ahead without State governments agreeing to deploy their staff for the purpose. The legal position is that while the Centre is in charge of the census, the State governments are expected to provide staff whenever required.
Section 4A of the Census Act, inserted through a 1994 amendment, says: “Every local authority in a State shall, when so directed by a written order by the Central Government or by an authority appointed by that Government in this behalf, make available to any Director of Census Operations such staff as may be necessary for the performance of any duties in connection with the taking of census.”
Further, Rule 5 of the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003, lays down that “Every official of the Central Government, State Government, local bodies or their undertakings shall assist the Registrar General of Citizen Registration or any person authorized by him in this behalf, in preparation of the database relating to each family and every person, and in implementing the provisions of these rules.”
In any case, it is compulsory on the part of every citizen to assist in the preparation of the National Register of Citizens, the rules say.
In practical terms, it may not be possible for the process to be undertaken without the State government’s cooperation at the local level.
What is the relationship between the NPR and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act?
There is no direct link. But remarks by the Home Minister that the CAA would be followed by the NRC has given rise to fears that when people are excluded from the final citizenship register, the CAA may help non-Muslims take the CAA route to apply for citizenship, and leave Muslims with no option. However, the government seeks to allay these fears.
Half a world away from the elegant confines of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Myanmar is being accused of genocide in a landmark case that opened this week, a Rohingya Muslim man was preparing to die.
It was, he said by phone on Thursday, going to be a slow demise. His village in Rakhine State in far western Myanmar had been attacked in recent weeks. The rice had been ready to harvest, but Buddhists had stolen the crop. Aid from international groups had ceased. People were hungry, sick and desperate.
“I have a home and a rice field, but I am just waiting to die,” said the man, who did not want his name used because he feared he would be killed for speaking out.
This week’s dramatic opening in The Hague saw agonizing testimony about the mass slaughter and rape of Rohingya Muslims by Myanmar’s military and local mobs, followed by strenuous denials from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate who is Myanmar’s de facto civilian leader, that there had been any orchestrated persecution of the Muslim minority.
But the three days of hearings, which ended on Thursday, had a narrower objective than deciding whether Myanmar’s treatment of the mostly stateless minority group constitutes the gravest of international crimes. A determination of whether Myanmar, a mostly Buddhist country, is guilty of acting with genocidal intent could take years to make.
The point of this week’s legal proceedings, instead, was to determine whether judges need to issue an emergency order to protect the Rohingya still in Myanmar from what United Nations investigators say is an ongoing genocidal campaign. The judges said on Thursday that they would issue a decision as soon as possible.
After decades of discrimination, capped by slaughter, rape and wholesale village burnings in 2017 — atrocities that have been well documented by human rights groups and journalists — there are now far more Rohingya living outside of their homeland in Rakhine than inside it.
Over the years, about a million have fled to neighboring Bangladesh, where they live in a series of settlements that constitute the world’s largest refugee camp. Others survived perilous passages by boat to work as migrant workers elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Thousands more toil in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia.
The roughly half a million Rohingya still in Rakhine survive at the whim of a security state that considers them foreign interlopers. Their tenuous situation has been aggravated in recent months by open warfare between Myanmar’s military and another ethnic group native to the state, the Rakhine.
In testimony presented to the court this week, lawyers for Gambia, the West African country that has brought the case against Myanmar in the International Court of Justice on behalf of other Muslim-majority nations, said that the Rohingya in Rakhine are facing mounting pressure, even the risk of starvation.
“The evidence of Myanmar’s genocidal intentions has actually strengthened over the past year,” said Tafadzwa Pasipanodya, a lawyer on the Gambian team.
Officials in the state, however, said the fact that Muslims still lived in Rakhine proved that crimes against humanity were not unfolding.
“Gambia’s accusation that genocide is going on in Rakhine is nonsense because there are some Muslims still living here peacefully,” said U Win Myint, a spokesman for the Rakhine State government. “If you still can see them in Rakhine State, how can you say there is a genocide?”
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has said that her government is committed to welcoming back Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh. But since the Rohingya exodus, the local government has taken over some of their villages, which had been razed by fire, and built security bases and government buildings on the land.
Since outbreaks of sectarian violence in 2012, Rohingya living in and around Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, have been confined to internment camps. Sittwe’s grandest mosques have fallen into disrepair. Others were reduced to rubble.
Fatima Khatun, a 30-year-old Rohingya who graduated from what was once a religiously mixed high school in Sittwe, said her husband had died this year of what should have been an easily treatable case of kidney stones.
“We couldn’t get him to the hospital in time,” she said, sitting in her wooden shack in an internment camp on Sittwe’s outskirts. “Now my family has nothing.”
Late last month, 95 Rohingya, including 23 children, boarded a boat to try to escape the country, only to be caught by the authorities as their vessel rounded the bulk of the Myanmar landmass for the Andaman Sea. They are now in prison, charged with illegal movement, according to a rights group, Fortify Rights.
Because most Rohingya lack citizenship in their homeland, they are not allowed to travel freely inside Myanmar.
At the International Court of Justice on Wednesday, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi disputed the notion that the military, with whom her government now shares power, had planned a genocide of the Rohingya.
She accused the Gambian team of painting “an incomplete and misleading factual picture” of what happened in Rakhine and insisted authorities in Myanmar were trying to help the Muslim group.
Scholarships would be made available to Muslim students, she said, even though almost no Rohingya have had access to higher education for years.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi also said on Wednesday that Myanmar could depend on its own justice system to prosecute any crimes that might have occurred in Rakhine, obviating the need for an international court to get involved.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi pointed to a guilty verdict in which a military tribunal convicted seven soldiers for their roles in the killing of 10 Rohingya in the village of Inn Din in Rakhine in 2017. Details of that massacre were uncovered by two Reuters reporters of Myanmar nationality, who spent more than 16 months in jail for their exposé.
U Aung Than Wai, a politician from the ethnic Rakhine minority, which is embroiled in its own insurgency with the state of Myanmar, was in jail with the seven soldiers back when he was a political prisoner. The military men were given premium cigarettes by their jailers, he said, and beer, too.
In November 2018, less than a year into the soldiers’ 10-year sentences, Mr. Aung Than Wai looked at a notice board of inmates who would be released in the coming week and saw the soldiers’ names listed, he said.
“I was shocked that they killed innocent people in cold blood and they were being released early,” he said. “I knew then that there was no rule of law in Myanmar.”
Hannah Beech reported from Bangkok and Saw Nang from Mandalay, Myanmar. Marlise Simons contributed reporting from The Hague.
THE CITIZENSHIP (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2019
A BILL
further to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955.
BE it enacted by Parliament in the Seventieth Year of the Republic of India as
follows:—
1. (1) This Act may be called the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
(2) It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification
in the Official Gazette, appoint.
Short title and
commencement.
Bill No. 370 of 2019
AS INTRODUCED IN LOK SABHA
5
2
2. In the Citizenship Act, 1955 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act), in section 2,
in sub-section (1), in clause (b), the following proviso shall be inserted, namely:—
“Provided that any person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or
Christian community from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, who entered into
India on or before the 31st day of December, 2014 and who has been exempted by the
Central Government by or under clause (c) of sub-section (2) of section 3 of the
Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 or from the application of the provisions of the
Foreigners Act, 1946 or any rule or order made thereunder, shall not be treated as
illegal migrant for the purposes of this Act;”.
3. After section 6A of the principal Act, the following section shall be inserted,
namely:—
‘6B. (1) The Central Government or an authority specified by it in this behalf
may, subject to such conditions, restrictions and manner as may be prescribed, on an
application made in this behalf, grant a certificate of registration or certificate of
naturalisation to a person referred to in the proviso to clause (b) of sub-section (1) of
section 2.
(2) Subject to fulfilment of the conditions specified in section 5 or the
qualifications for naturalisation under the provisions of the Third Schedule, a
person granted the certificate of registration or certificate of naturalisation under
sub-section (1) shall be deemed to be a citizen of India from the date of his entry into
India.
(3) On and from the date of commencement of the Citizenship (Amendment)
Act, 2019, any proceeding pending against a person under this section in respect of
illegal migration or citizenship shall stand abated on conferment of citizenship to him:
Provided that such person shall not be disqualified for making application for
citizenship under this section on the ground that the proceeding is pending against
him and the Central Government or authority specified by it in this behalf shall not
reject his application on that ground if he is otherwise found qualified for grant of
citizenship under this section:
Provided further that the person who makes the application for citizenship
under this section shall not be deprived of his rights and privileges to which he was
entitled on the date of receipt of his application on the ground of making such
application.
(4) Nothing in this section shall apply to tribal area of Assam, Meghalaya,
Mizoram or Tripura as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution and the
area covered under “The Inner Line” notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier
Regulation, 1873.’.
4. In section 7D of the principal Act,—
(i) after clause (d), the following clause shall be inserted, namely:—
“(da) the Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder has violated any of the
provisions of this Act or provisions of any other law for time being in force as
may be specified by the Central Government in the notification published in the
Official Gazette; or”.
(ii) after clause (f), the following proviso shall be inserted, namely:—
“Provided that no order under this section shall be passed unless the
Overseas Citizen of India Cardholder has been given a reasonable opportunity
of being heard.”.
5. In section 18 of the principal Act, in sub-section (2), after clause (ee), the following
clause shall be inserted, namely:—
“(eei) the conditions, restrictions and manner for granting certificate of
registration or certificate of naturalisation under sub-section (1) of section 6B;”.
Amendment
of section 2.
Reg. 5 of 1873.
34 of 1920.
31 of 1946.
Insertion of
new section 6B.
Special
provisions as
to citizenship
of person
covered by
proviso to
clause (b) of
sub-section (1)
of section 2.
Amendment
of section 7D.
Amendment
of section 18.
57 of 1955.
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
3
6. In the Third Schedule to the principal Act, in clause (d), the following proviso shall
be inserted, namely:—
‘Provided that for the person belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or
Christian community in Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan, the aggregate period of
residence or service of Government in India as required under this clause shall be
read as “not less than five years” in place of “not less than eleven years”.’.
The Citizenship Act, 1955 regulates who may acquire Indian citizenship and on what grounds. A person may become an Indian citizen if they are born in India or have Indian parentage or have resided in the country for a period of time, etc. However, illegal migrants are prohibited from acquiring Indian citizenship. An illegal migrant is a foreigner who: (i) enters the country without valid travel documents, like a passport and visa, or (ii) enters with valid documents, but stays beyond the permitted time period.[1]
Illegal migrants may be imprisoned or deported under the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920. The 1946 and the 1920 Acts empower the central government to regulate the entry, exit and residence of foreigners within India. In 2015 and 2016, the central government issued two notifications exempting certain groups of illegal migrants from provisions of the 1946 and the 1920 Acts.[2] These groups are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who arrived in India on or before December 31, 2014.2 This implies that these groups of illegal migrants will not be deported or imprisoned for being in India without valid documents.
In 2016, a Bill was introduced to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955.[3] The Bill sought to make illegal migrants belonging to these six religions and three countries eligible for citizenship and made some changes in the provisions on registration of Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) cardholders. It was referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee, which submitted its report on January 7, 2019.[4] The Bill was passed by Lok Sabha on January 8, 2019.[5] However, it lapsed with the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha. Subsequently, the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 is being introduced in Lok Sabha in December 2019.
The 2019 Bill seeks to make illegal migrants who are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, eligible for citizenship. It exempts certain areas in the North-East from this provision. The Bill also makes amendments to provisions related to OCI cardholders. A foreigner may register as an OCI under the 1955 Act if they are of Indian origin (e.g., former citizen of India or their descendants) or the spouse of a person of Indian origin. This will entitle them to benefits such as the right to travel to India, and to work and study in the country. The Bill amends the Act to allow cancellation of OCI registration if the person has violated any law notified by the central government.
Table 1 below compares the provisions of the 2016 Bill (as passed by Lok Sabha) with that of the 2019 Bill.
Table 1: Comparison of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, as passed by Lok Sabha, with the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019
The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (as passed by Lok Sabha)
Citizenship (Amendment) Bill 2019
Eligibility for citizenship for certain illegal migrants: The Act prohibits illegal migrants from acquiring Indian citizenship. Illegal migrants are foreigners who enter India without a valid passport or travel document, or stay beyond the permitted time.
The Bill amended the Act to provide that Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan will not be treated as illegal migrants. In order to get this benefit, they must have also been exempted from the Foreigners Act, 1946 and the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920 by the central government. The 1920 Act mandates foreigners to carry passport, while the1946 Act regulates the entry and departure of foreigners in India.
The Bill further stated from the date of its enactment, all legal proceedings pending against such an illegal migrant will be closed.
The Bill adds two additional provisions on citizenship to illegal migrants belonging to these religions from the three countries.
Consequences of acquiring citizenship: The Bill says that on acquiring citizenship: (i) such persons shall be deemed to be citizens of India from the date of their entry into India, and (ii) all legal proceedings against them in respect of their illegal migration or citizenship will be closed.
Exception: Further, the Bill adds that the provisions on citizenship for illegal migrants will not apply to the tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, or Tripura, as included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution. These tribal areas include Karbi Anglong (in Assam), Garo Hills (in Meghalaya), Chakma District (in Mizoram), and Tripura Tribal Areas District. It will also not apply to the areas under the Inner Line” under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873. The Inner Line Permit regulates visit of Indians to Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland.
Citizenship by naturalisation: The Act allows a person to apply for citizenship by naturalisation, if the person meets certain qualifications. One of the qualifications is that the person must have resided in India or been in central government service for the last 12 months and at least 11 years of the preceding 14 years.
The Bill created an exception for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, with regard to this qualification. For these groups of persons, the 11 years’ requirement will be reduced to six years.
The Bill further reduces the period of naturalisation for such group of persons from six years to five years.
Grounds for cancelling OCI registration: The Act provides that the central government may cancel registration of OCIs on five grounds including registration through fraud, showing disaffection to the Constitution, engaging with the enemy during war, necessity in the interest of sovereignty of India, security of state or public interest, or if within five years of registration the OCI has been sentenced to imprisonment for two years or more. The Bill added one more ground for cancelling registration, that is, if the OCI has violated any law that is in force in the country.
When the Bill was passed in Lok Sabha, this was amended to limit the disqualification to violations of the Citizenship Act or of any other law so notified by the central government. Also, the cardholder has to be given an opportunity to be heard.
Same as the 2016 Bill passed by Lok Sabha.
Sources: The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, as passed by Lok Sabha; The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019; PRS.
Issues to consider
Whether differentiating on grounds of religion is a violation of Article 14
The Bill provides that illegal migrants who fulfil four conditions will not be treated as illegal migrants under the Act. The conditions are: (a) they are Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis or Christians; (b) they are from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan; (c) they entered India on or before December 31, 2014; (d) they are not in certain tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, or Tripura included in the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution, or areas under the “Inner Line” permit, i.e., Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, and Nagaland.
Article 14 guarantees equality to all persons, including citizens and foreigners. It only permits laws to differentiate between groups of people if the rationale for doing so serves a reasonable purpose.[6] The question is whether this provision violates the right to equality under Article 14 of the Constitution as it provides differential treatment to illegal migrants on the basis of (a) their country of origin, (b) religion, (c) date of entry into India, and (d) place of residence in India. We examine below whether these differentiating factors could serve a reasonable purpose.
First, the Bill classifies migrants based on their country of origin to include only Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Statement of Objects and Reasons in the Bill (SoR) states that India has had historic migration of people with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and these countries have a state religion, which has resulted in religious persecution of minority groups. While the SoR reasons that millions of citizens of undivided India were living in Pakistan and Bangladesh, no reason has been provided to explain the inclusion of Afghanistan.
Further, it is not clear why migrants from these countries are differentiated from migrants from other neighbouring countries such as Sri Lanka (Buddhist state religion)[7] and Myanmar (primacy to Buddhism)[8]. Sri Lanka has had a history of persecution of a linguistic minority in the country, the Tamil Eelams.[9] Similarly, India shares a border with Myanmar, which has had a history of persecution of a religious minority, the Rohingya Muslims.[10] Over the years, there have been reports of both Tamil Eelams and Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution from their respective countries and seeking refuge in India.[11] Given that the objective of the Bill is to provide citizenship to migrants escaping from religious persecution, it is not clear why illegal migrants belonging to religious minorities from these countries have been excluded from the Bill.
Second, with respect to classification based on religious persecution of certain minorities in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, it may be argued that there are other religious minorities in these countries, who face religious persecution and may have illegally migrated to India. For example, over the years, there have been reports of persecution of Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan (who are considered non-Muslims in that country)[12], and the murder of atheists in Bangladesh.[13] It is unclear why illegal migrants from only six specified religious minorities have been included in the Bill.
Third, it is also unclear why there is a differential treatment of migrants based on their date of entry into India, i.e., whether they entered India before or after December 31, 2014.
Fourth, the Bill also excludes illegal migrants residing in areas covered by the Sixth Schedule, that is, notified tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura. The purpose behind the enactment of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution was to aid in the development of tribal areas through autonomous councils, while protecting the indigenous population in these areas from exploitation and preserving their distinct social customs.[14] The Bill also excludes the Inner Line Permit areas. Inner Line regulates the entry of persons, including Indian citizens, into Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland. Once an illegal migrant residing in these areas acquires citizenship, he would be subject to the same restrictions in these areas, as are applicable to other Indian citizens. Therefore, it is unclear why the Bill excludes illegal migrants residing in these areas.
Wide discretion to government to cancel OCI registration
The 1955 Act provides that the central government may cancel the registration of OCIs on various grounds. The Bill adds one more ground for cancelling registration, that is, if the OCI has violated any law notified by the central government. It further states that orders for cancellation of OCI should not be passed till the cardholder is given an opportunity to be heard.
It may be argued that giving the central government the power to prescribe the list of laws whose violation result in cancellation of OCI registration, may amount to an excessive delegation of powers by the legislature. The Supreme Court has held that while delegating powers to an executive authority, the legislature must prescribe a policy, standard, or rule for their guidance, which will set limits on the authority’s powers and not give them arbitrary discretion to decide how to frame the rules.[15] The Bill does not provide any guidance on the nature of laws which the central government may notify. Therefore, in the absence of standards, criteria or principles on the types of laws which may be notified by the government, it may be argued that the powers given to the executive may go beyond the permissible limits of valid delegation.
[1]. Section 2(1)(b) of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
[6]. State of West Bengal vs Anwar Ali Sarkar, AIR 1952 SC 75.
[7]. Article 9 of the Constitution of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka states: “The Republic of Sri Lanka shall give to Buddhism the foremost place and accordingly it shall be the duty of the State to protect and foster the Buddha Sasana, while assuring to all religions the rights granted by Articles 10 and 14(1)(e).”
[8]. Articles 361 and 362 of the Constitution of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar state the following. “361. The Union recognizes special position of Buddhism as the faith professed by the great majority of the citizens of the Union. 362. The Union also recognizes Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Animism as the religions existing in the Union at the day of the coming into operation of this Constitution.”
[14]. Report of the Sub-Committee on North East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas (Chairperson: Gopinath Bardoloi), July 28, 1947; Constituent Assembly of India Debates, Volume IX, 5th, 6th and 7th September, 1949.
[15]. Hamdard Dawakhana and Anr., v. The Union of India (UOI) and Ors., AIR1960SC554; Confederation of Indian Alcoholic Beverage Companies and Ors. vs. The State of Bihar and Ors., 2016(4) PLJR369.
DISCLAIMER: This document is being furnished to you for your information. You may choose to reproduce or redistribute this report for non-commercial purposes in part or in full to any other person with due acknowledgement of PRS Legislative Research (“PRS”). The opinions expressed herein are entirely those of the author(s). PRS makes every effort to use reliable and comprehensive information, but PRS does not represent that the contents of the report are accurate or complete. PRS is an independent, not-for-profit group. This document has been prepared without regard to the objectives or opinions of those who may receive it.
Rohingya group condemns Myanmar rebel coalition for referring to them as ‘Bengali Muslims’
A Rohingya group has strongly rejected a joint statement by a coalition of rebels in Myanmar in which the persecuted Muslim community was described as “Bengali”.
Mohammed Ayyub Khan, president of the Rohingya Solidarity Organization (RSO), termed the joint statement as “baseless, falsification and misrepresentation of the word Rohingya”.
A coalition of rebel groups — the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, Arakan Army and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army — said on Thursday they are ready to provide international courts with evidence of war crimes by the Myanmar military between 2009 and 2019 against ethnic people, including “Bengali Muslims”, referring to the Rohingya Muslim community in the western Rakhine state.
“But the irony is that the statement mentioned the word Bengali instead of Rohingya,” Khan said in a statement, adding that the statement “hurts the feelings of Rohingya in particular and Muslims in general”.
He urged the rebel groups — which have been fighting against the Myanmar army in Shan and Rakhine state — to “concentrate their energies in their struggle against the Burmese [Myanmar] army instead of the concocted campaign against Rohingya”.
“We are Rohingya Muslim, not Bengali Muslim,” Khan told Anadolu Agency.
Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim community in Rakhine state of Myanmar, has long been facing systematic persecution and genocide by the military, according to several UN reports.
Amnesty International said that more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women, and children, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, pushing the number of persecuted people in Bangladesh above 1.2 million.
Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).
More than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown into fires, while over 114,000 others were beaten, said the OIDA report, titled Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience.
Some 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar’s army and police and over 115,000 Rohingya homes were burned down and 113,000 others vandalized, it added.
The government of Nepal should ensure that forthcoming legislation to regulate social organizations protects the right to freedom of association, Human Rights Watch said. The government should hold open consultations with activists before introducing these laws.Following previous attempts to impose draconian regulations on nongovernment organizations (NGOs), activists fear that legislation being prepared by the Home Ministry will weaken civil society, including organizations defending human rights. These groups had been supervised by the Social Welfare Council, a government body established in 1992 to “co-ordinate” and “promote” social organizations. But under the current government, the Home Ministry, which is otherwise responsible for internal security and law and order, has been taking over the regulation, registration, and supervision of social organizations.
“Nongovernmental organizations need to be independent so that they can hold the government accountable, criticize policies, propose alternative ideas, and represent different points of view,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director. “The Nepal government’s recent attempts to place constraints on groups rings alarm bells for democracy and human rights.”
Jitbir Lama, president of NGO Federation Nepal, described activists’ concerns to the Kathmandu Post, saying “We are concerned if the ministry is focusing on controlling nongovernment organizations, instead of regulating and facilitating them.” Achyut Luitel, chairperson of the Association of International NGOs, warned that the government is trying to adopt “controlling measures” to restrict groups that work on human rights.
The government’s 2019 International Development Cooperation Policy states that international aid mobilized through Nepali groups should be in line with government priorities, which it identifies mostly as infrastructure development.
The National Integrity Policy introduced in 2018 placed a number of onerous restrictions on activist groups and on the foreign funding that many rely on for their work. The policy requires groups to seek government permission to receive foreign grants. Once enforced, international nongovernmental organizations will be banned from doing advocacy on policy issues and from making “inappropriate allegations,” “spreading ill will,” or doing anything to “jeopardize the Nepali civilization, culture, social relationships and harmony.” Reports that they send to their home countries must be approved by the government.
These broadly drawn prohibitions could be used to prevent a wide range of activism on issues such as human rights, corruption, and gender and caste discrimination. Since the work of all international groups must be carried out through local partner organizations, the policy severely constrains domestic organizations supported by foreign partners.
A 2018 letter from four United Nations special rapporteurs stated, among numerous concerns, that the National Integrity Policy would “severely hinder the access of funding for associations.” They pointed out that even unregistered organizations are entitled to freedom of expression rights under international law and said that restrictions on activities of these groups under the policy do “not appear to pursue a legitimate objective under international human rights standards.” The special rapporteurs concluded that the policy was “aimed at hindering civil society’s ability to operate, especially NGOs and INGOs that are advocating for the promotion of ideas that are not shared by the Government.”
In June 2018, the government also introduced a directive that all nongovernmental groups must register with Home Ministry officials in each district, include a declaration of the personal property of all officeholders, and amend their statutes to specify just one field in which they would work. Those orders were later rolled back in the face of widespread opposition and threats of legal action.
International law protects freedom of association, including through nongovernmental groups. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) holds that no restrictions may be placed on this right other than those that “are necessary in a democratic society” such as protecting public safety or the rights of others. Any limitations should not destroy or negate the essence of the rights guaranteed in the covenant.
Groups in Nepal accept that some regulation is necessary, for example with relation to financial management. While it is appropriate to regulate and scrutinize the financial affairs of not-for-profit organizations to address corruption, the Nepali government’s approach unnecessarily infringes on the fundamental right of citizens to organize and campaign on issues of their choosing, Human Rights Watch said.
“The government should not be interfering with or constraining which issues organizations can work on, and should listen to activists, including critics, instead of treating them as a threat,” Ganguly said. “In the past, Nepali political parties, including the one currently in office, received the support of groups that backed democracy and human rights, and all members of parliament should ensure that any new regulation is bolstering these groups instead of undermining them.”
Forty-five-year-old Qasim being dragged in the presence of policemen after a violent mob attacked him. Credit: Twitter
Washington: Mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, particularly Muslims, continued in India in 2018, amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef, an official US report said on Friday.
The state department, in its annual 2019 International Religious Freedom Report, also alleged that senior officials of the ruling BJP made inflammatory speeches against minority communities.
The report says though India’s Constitution guarantees the right to religious freedom, “this history of religious freedom has come under attack in recent years with the growth of exclusionary extremist narratives”.
The report praised India’s “independent judiciary” for often providing essential protections to religious minority communities through its jurisprudence.
The “exclusionary extremist narratives”, the report says, includes “the government’s allowance and encouragement of mob violence against religious minorities”. The “campaign of violence” says involves intimidation, and harassment against non-Hindu and lower-caste Hindu minorities.
“Mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, especially Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumours that victims had traded or killed cows for beef,” it said.
According to some NGOs, the authorities often protected perpetrators from prosecution, it said.
The report said that as of November, there were 18 such attacks, and eight people killed during the year.
On June 22, two Uttar Pradesh police officers were charged with culpable homicide after a Muslim cattle trader died of injuries sustained while being questioned in police custody, the report said.
Mandated by the Congress, the state department in its voluminous report gives its assessment of the status of religious freedom in almost all the countries and territories of the world.
Releasing the report at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the state department, secretary of state Mike Pompeo said the report was like a report card which tracks countries to see how well they have respected this fundamental human right.
Government’s failure to act
In the India section, the state department said that there were reports by non-governmental organisations that the government sometimes failed to act on mob attacks on religious minorities, marginalised communities and critics of the government.
The state department said that the Central and state governments and members of political parties took steps that affected Muslim practices and institutions.
The government continued its challenge in the Supreme Court to the minority status of Muslim educational institutions, which affords them independence in hiring and curriculum decisions, it said.
“Proposals to rename Indian cities with Muslim provenance continued, most notably the renaming of Allahabad to Prayagraj. Activists said these proposals were designed to erase Muslim contributions to Indian history and had led to increased communal tensions,” the state department said.
There were reports of religiously motivated killings, assaults, riots, discrimination, vandalism and actions restricting the right of individuals to practice their religious beliefs and proselytise, the annual report said.
However, noting the positive developments, the report says some government entities made efforts to counter increasing intolerance in the country. Citing Rajanth Singh, previously the home minister, it said there was a 12% decline in communal violence compared to the previous year.
Senior US government officials underscored the importance of respecting religious freedom and promoting tolerance throughout the year with the ruling and opposition parties, civil society and religious freedom activists, and religious leaders belonging to various faith communities, the report said.
India has 1.3 billion population as per July 2018 estimate.
According to the 2011 national census, the most recent year for which disaggregated figures are available, Hindus constitute 79.8% of the population, Muslims 14.2%, Christians 2.3% and Sikhs 1.7%.
Groups that together constitute less than one per cent of the population include Buddhists, Jains, Zoroastrians (Parsis), Jews, and Baha’is.
Suggestions to the US government
The document makes recommendations to the US government to improve religious freedom in India. It says the US should press India to allow a USCIRF delegation to visit the country and evaluate the conditions for freedom of religion.
The report says since 2001, USCIRF has attempted to visit India in order to assess religious freedom on the ground. “However, on three different occasions—in 2001, 2009, and 2016—the government of India refused to grant visas for a USCIRF delegation despite requests being supported by the State Department,” it says.
The US government could work with India to “create a multiyear strategy to ebb the flow of hate crimes targeting religious minorities”, the report says. It suggests measures such as pressing state governments to prosecute religious leaders, government officials and media personalities who incite violence against religious minority groups through public speeches or articles.
The US should encourage India to pass the Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Bill, 2018 to establish national and state human rights commissions and human rights courts, the report says.
It also asked the US government to ensure that India’s Central government does not use the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) to “target international missionary and human rights groups”.
The CBI recently registered a case against the Lawyers Collective, a NGO run by prominent advocates Indira Jaising and Anand Grover, for alleged misuse of the FCRA. The NGO denies these allegations and said its office bearers were “personally being targeted for speaking up in defence of human rights, secularism and independence of the judiciary in all fora”.
(With PTI inputs)
Forty-five-year-old Qasim being dragged in the presence of policemen after a violent mob attacked him. Credit: Twitter
Rohingya Muslims, who have illegally entered India, are trying to obtain certificate of refugee status from United Nations. This has come to light on Tuesday when Railway police arrested five Rohingyas from Guwahati Railway Station here.
The GRP officials said the five arrested Rohingyas were trying to go to Delhi to obtain a certificate of refugee status from United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) in New Delhi.
Police officials said the Government Railway Police (GRP) staff arrested them from platform no. 1 of the railway station.
At first, GRP staff had apprehended two boys and a girl when they were not able to provide valid identity proofs. After interrogation, two boys were also arrested along with the other three persons.
As per reports, the arrested persons are originally from Myanmar and were trying to go to Delhi. The arrested persons have been identified as Makakmyayum Sahenas, MD Zubar, Mohammad Kamal Hussain, Nurul Hakim and Mohammad Kalimula.
They had earlier been arrested by the Manipur police in 2018.
The GRP sleuths found Myanmar made preserved fruit packets, sweets , white coffee and various kinds of edibles in their possession.
Mizoram police had recently arrested 12 suspected Rohingya refugees—eight women and four boys—for illegally entering the state from Bangladesh.
The suspected Rohingyas entered Mizoram from Bangladesh sans valid travel documents. They were found in the residence of a woman in Bawngkwan area of Mizoram.
They had claimed that her cousin, who lives at Tahan in Myanmar, had asked her for a favour for keeping the “guests” before being taken to the neighbouring country.
Earlier in April, eight Rohingya women were detained at Vairengte along India-Myanmar border for trying to enter Mizoram illegally and were pushed back.
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled from Myanmar’s Rakhine state to neighbouring Bangladesh since August 2017 after a military crackdown, triggering a massive refugee crisis. (Source: NE Now)
Has it ever occurred to you that the shirt you wear could have been made by child labourers or that tea leaves you use could have been plucked by women who were forced into the workforce?
A panel discussion on reporting fairly and sensitively on human trafficking in India, organised by Thomson Reuters Foundation, at Salt Lake in Kolkata turned out to be an eye opener for many. ”Even some of the legitimate supply chains like coal mines, mica making and government manufacturing units have victims of forced child labour and human trafficking working in them,” said Anindit Chowdhury, global programme manager, gender justice and human rights, C& A Foundation who was part of the panel.
Moderated by Kieran Guilbert, slavery and trafficking editor at the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the panel comprised of five eminent speakers including Hasina Kharbhih, founder, Impulse NGO Network, Mathew Joji, director of advocacy, Partnership Development and Communications, International Justice Mission and Chandreyee Ghose Dutta, journalist at The Telegraph, Kolkata.
There seems to be gender discrimination in news, too. Trafficking is typically considered a women’s news and hence it hardly makes it to page 1, said Chowdhury. “However, media coverage of trafficking has improved a lot over the years. The language has become a lot more positive in that it goes beyond incident-based reporting and allows people to relate to the issue as a whole,” he said.
Trafficking stories do generate reader interest now, said Dutta. “Initially trafficking stories would be perceived as just another incident. It would be covered only when there were some arrests or incidents that had happened. It was covered by crime reporters,” she said. “While working on a story on adoption, I came across shelter homes that were offering babies for 10 lakhs or even less. Some of those children were trafficked,” she recalled.
“Illegal sale of trafficked babies still occur in the country,” said Dutta adding that there are many layers to human trafficking.
This Shillong-Based NGO Has Saved Over 72,000 Victims of Human Trafficking!
“If women have the power to choose, they can nip unsafe migration in the bud and consequently human trafficking,” says Hasina Kharbhih, founder of Impulse NGO Network.
Meet 47-year-old Hasina Kharbhih from Shillong, whose organisation, the Impulse NGO Network (INGON) has been battling the scourge of human trafficking in the Northeast for more than two decades, and has saved approximately 72,442 people and empowered over 30,000 women artisans.
Initially founded in 1993 as a rural livelihood initiative for women artisans in the East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya, the focus of her organisation began to shift after a historic 1996 Supreme Court order, which called for a complete ban on the felling of trees in the Northeast.
“There shall be a complete ban on the movement of cut trees and timber from any of the seven North-Eastern States to any other State of the country either by rail, road or water-ways,” the court said in the landmark TN Godavarman Thirumulkpad vs Union of India case.
Although conservationists celebrated this order, for many women artisans in the Northeast, who depended on access to bamboo and cane for their work, it came as a devastating blow.
“The forest resources ban forced the rural communities, who had lost their livelihood, to seek employment in urban areas, and that eventually led many to become victims of human trafficking,” says Hasina, speaking to The Better India. “Meanwhile, the conflict situation in the Northeast around that time also added to the frenzy of mass migration.”
As a result, there was a rampant increase in the cases of missing children all over the Northeast. “We were approached to investigate certain cases. When we looked into it, we found that all these children were being taken away by recruiters who promised them better-paying jobs and put them into forced labour as domestic maids, tea stall helpers, miners or sex slaves,” says Hasina.
It was only last November when the Centre decided to amend the Indian Forest Act and exclude bamboo from the ambit of the ban. Anyway, for these women, who were equipped with traditional skills of weaving, the Supreme Court’s order tore any potential commercial opportunities to shreds.
Restructuring and focus on human trafficking
“On February 11, 1999, we restructured the organisation and re-registered it into a professional organisation as Impulse NGO Network (INGON) under the Meghalaya Societies Registration Act (1983) and pursued the issue of addressing human trafficking more doggedly, researching and documenting the facts we discovered,” says Hasina.
Hasina Kharbhih, the winner of the 2012 CNN-IBN India Positive Award. It recognises those Indians who spread the spirit of goodness, and bring about positive change around them.
At the turn of the 21st century, INGON took on its first case after a Mumbai-based NGO Prerna informed them that they had rescued three girls from the Northeast—two from Meghalaya and the other from Tripura—from Kamathipura, a famous red-light area in the city. This was INGON’s first real experience with a human trafficking case, and Prerna soon became a networking partner.
INGON’s work against human trafficking in the Northeast, however, began to pick up, after Hasina attended the 2001 National Consultation on Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Kolkata, organised by Action Against Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation of Children (ATSEC).
Following the 2001 Kolkata conference, the organisation started an email campaign reaching out to various NGOs that had attended at the conference, and asking them to inform INGON if they came across any girls rescued from the Northeast.
Their immediate challenge was how to work with the government, as it could help the artisans get their children and livelihood back. For that, they needed a plan of action. While they worked towards making these artisans financially independent, INGON also became pioneers in conducting full-fledged research and developing an action module against human trafficking based on the cases they had encountered thus far. With the application of provisions under Indian law, INGON developed what’s today known as Meghalaya Model and presently the Impulse Model.
So, what is the Impulse Model?
“It is a case management system which follows the route of what is popularly known as the 6Rs (Reporting, Rescue, Rehabilitation, Repatriation, Re-integration and Re-compensation) and the 6Ps (Partnership, Prevention, Protection, Policing, Press and Prosecution). We wanted the Impulse Model to be a single-window platform. So, we formed the Impulse Case Info Centre (ICIC), which records, compiles, and keeps track of all relevant information on human trafficking cases, adhering to the 6 R’s of the Impulse Model formula of 6R + 6P,” Hasina says.
The ICIC has more than 1000 NGOs and government departments from not just in India, but also Southeast Asia, on its network. This is an extremely valuable database.
(Source: Impulse NGO Network)
At its very essence, the Impulse Model is based on the notion of needs-based intervention (how to rehabilitate victims of human trafficking) and partnerships with other organisations fighting the same battle so that they can collectively respond to different cases and share resources.
It was their email campaign, for example, which enabled them to receive information about the girls rescued in Mumbai. To wage a lone battle against human trafficking is a futile exercise. For this system to work, different stakeholders involved with solving the problem must come together, coordinate and follow a common model of addressing the issue, argues INGON.
Given below is Hasina’s explanation of how this model works on the ground:
As for how it works, any concerned person can report a case at ICIC. They are then assisted by the ICIC case manager in filing a First Information Report (FIR). The case is then recorded in the database of ICIC and other stakeholders. The ICIC then refers it to the respective Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) in that particular State or Union Territory and partner organisations at the source and destination points. Complainants can also directly report the case at an AHTU or a police station, after which they take support from us to carry forward the ensuing operations.
Rescue operations are then carried out by the respective AHTUs, along with ICIC or an ICIC State Partner Organisation. After the person is rescued, ICIC collaborates with social welfare departments of respective provinces or a government-registered and approved NGO-run shelter home to provide short-term shelter for the rescued person(s) for rehabilitation. ICIC also ensures that the survivor is provided medical and other support services and actions are undertaken for the best long-term plans. Based on a Home Investigation Report (HIR) by the relevant stakeholders, to find if it is safe for the survivors to return to their homes, the process of repatriation is then initiated.
If that is not possible, ICIC collaborates with the social welfare department to arrange long-term rehabilitation for them while also offering vocational training, education or employment, depending on the person’s age and personal interests.
Further, ICIC and its partner organisations discreetly follow up with the survivors for two years after repatriation, to check if they are safe and on the road to recovery so that they can be reintegrated into society. ICIC also facilitate compensation of survivors to State Legal Services Authorities (SLSA) to ensure that all rescued persons of human trafficking receive financial re-compensation.
Apart from ICIC, INGON also assists both private and public sector agencies (police, governments) for prevention of human trafficking and trains law enforcement officers on how to deal with victims of trafficking. Earlier this year, it also launched the Impulse Model Press Lab on January 26, offering fellowships to journalist and trains media personnel to publish articles and report on human trafficking ethically and treat survivors with respect and dignity when interacting with them.
While INGON has many successful interventions to their name, there are two that stand out for Hasina. Across coal mines of the Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, contractors would employ children as young as six years in the harmful practice of rat-hole mining. The passages in these mines were so narrow that only a little child could manoeuvre into it and extract coal. By some estimates, these mines had employed over 70,000 children ranging from the age of six to sixteen.
Rat-hole mining. (Source: Facebook/TNT Magazine)
“Children from neighbouring countries and states were trafficked and indulged in forced labour. Many of them died while at work while many others lived to carry on, without any possibility of returning to their home or parents. We wrote plenty of letters to the state government to intervene and address the matter, but years went by without any affirmative action. So, we filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2013,” explains Hasina.
Finally, on April 17, 2014, the NGT passed an order banning rat-hole mining in the state. Backed by this order, INGON was able to rescue nearly 1200 children. Thanks to partner organisations in Nepal and India, India via the Impulse Model, INGON was able to reunite them with their families.
“We have also been able to put around 40 such children in schools. Some are in boarding schools. A couple of them have completed matriculation, and some others are going to,” adds Hasina.
Hasina with some of the children who were rescued from the coal mines. They are now back in school.
Another major success story was the rescue of Ella Sangma early in 2009.
Thanks to the Impulse Model, Ella was rescued from a red-light area in the national capital after her plight was notified by another INGON-partner organisation called Stop Trafficking and Oppression of Children and Women (STOP) based out of Delhi.
“Ella gave us her first-hand insight into the importance of training people like her in a well-paid marketable skill, to prevent them from resorting to prostitution again for lack of income.
She suggested that along with a post-rescue measure, we could use employment to prevent human trafficking in vulnerable villages. Her input was instrumental in helping me enhance the Impulse Model, helping us create a for-profit branch of INGON called Impulse Social Enterprises (ISE), which now supports 30,000 artisans inducted through INGON from different states in the Northeast who develop products ranging from accessories to home furnishing products.
Ella Sangma with Hasina Kharbhih.
7000 of them have been moved to the brand Empower under ISE which is connected to a global online customer base, and the rest are connected to a direct market base,” says Hasina.
Today, she assists both INGON and ISE in repatriating victims and guiding them to acquire economic freedom. Given a chance, every survivor can turn their life around.
Ella embodies that spirit.
Challenges remain
Despite all the work that has gone into battling human trafficking, the challenges before organisations like INGON remain steep. Northeast India shares international borders with China, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan. Transit points in the region provide an easy passage in and out of India for organised human trafficking syndicates to operate undetected.
Since 2015, there has been a spike in the number of girls trafficked from the Northeast and northern part of North Bengal to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
“Nearly 50-60% of them had passports issued by Nepal and even Myanmar because it is easier to obtain visas for these women to traffic them into the Middle East and Southeast Asia. We have also been working towards repatriating many girls from Rohingya back home, after being trafficked into India to be sold here, either for sexual slavery or marriage. They have been living in government-run shelters because it has been difficult to trace their families,” says Hasina.
Nonetheless, INGON has found some success in replicating its ICIC model in countries like Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh to hasten the repatriation process of those rescued.
Despite suffering physical attacks and having her office ransacked in 2009, Hasina Kharbhih remains undeterred in her battle against human trafficking. Along this journey, Hasina has won numerous accolades.
It is also working with the Centre to spread this model across India, which will not only establish a single window platform for better coordination between governments and stakeholders but also set up a centralised repository of data on human trafficking.
“To address human trafficking in a major way, we have to give importance to home-based production and economic independence of women. If women have the power to choose, they can nip unsafe migration in the bud and consequently human trafficking,” says Hasina.
r-old Hasina Kharbhih from Shillong, whose organisation, the Impulse NGO Network (INGON) has been battling the scourge of human trafficking in the Northeast for more than two decades, and has saved approximately 72,442 people and empowered over 30,000 women artisans.
Initially founded in 1993 as a rural livelihood initiative for women artisans in the East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya, the focus of her organisation began to shift after a historic 1996 Supreme Court order, which called for a complete ban on the felling of trees in the Northeast.
“There shall be a complete ban on the movement of cut trees and timber from any of the seven North-Eastern States to any other State of the country either by rail, road or water-ways,” the court said in the landmark TN Godavarman Thirumulkpad vs Union of India case.
Although conservationists celebrated this order, for many women artisans in the Northeast, who depended on access to bamboo and cane for their work, it came as a devastating blow.
“The forest resources ban forced the rural communities, who had lost their livelihood, to seek employment in urban areas, and that eventually led many to become victims of human trafficking,” says Hasina, speaking to The Better India. “Meanwhile, the conflict situation in the Northeast around that time also added to the frenzy of mass migration.”
As a result, there was a rampant increase in the cases of missing children all over the Northeast. “We were approached to investigate certain cases. When we looked into it, we found that all these children were being taken away by recruiters who promised them better-paying jobs and put them into forced labour as domestic maids, tea stall helpers, miners or sex slaves,” says Hasina.
It was only last November when the Centre decided to amend the Indian Forest Act and exclude bamboo from the ambit of the ban. Anyway, for these women, who were equipped with traditional skills of weaving, the Supreme Court’s order tore any potential commercial opportunities to shreds.
Restructuring and focus on human trafficking
“On February 11, 1999, we restructured the organisation and re-registered it into a professional organisation as Impulse NGO Network (INGON) under the Meghalaya Societies Registration Act (1983) and pursued the issue of addressing human trafficking more doggedly, researching and documenting the facts we discovered,” says Hasina.
Hasina Kharbhih, the winner of the 2012 CNN-IBN India Positive Award. It recognises those Indians who spread the spirit of goodness, and bring about positive change around them.
At the turn of the 21st century, INGON took on its first case after a Mumbai-based NGO Prerna informed them that they had rescued three girls from the Northeast—two from Meghalaya and the other from Tripura—from Kamathipura, a famous red-light area in the city. This was INGON’s first real experience with a human trafficking case, and Prerna soon became a networking partner.
INGON’s work against human trafficking in the Northeast, however, began to pick up, after Hasina attended the 2001 National Consultation on Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Kolkata, organised by Action Against Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation of Children (ATSEC).
Following the 2001 Kolkata conference, the organisation started an email campaign reaching out to various NGOs that had attended at the conference, and asking them to inform INGON if they came across any girls rescued from the Northeast.
Their immediate challenge was how to work with the government, as it could help the artisans get their children and livelihood back. For that, they needed a plan of action. While they worked towards making these artisans financially independent, INGON also became pioneers in conducting full-fledged research and developing an action module against human trafficking based on the cases they had encountered thus far. With the application of provisions under Indian law, INGON developed what’s today known as Meghalaya Model and presently the Impulse Model.
So, what is the Impulse Model?
“It is a case management system which follows the route of what is popularly known as the 6Rs (Reporting, Rescue, Rehabilitation, Repatriation, Re-integration and Re-compensation) and the 6Ps (Partnership, Prevention, Protection, Policing, Press and Prosecution). We wanted the Impulse Model to be a single-window platform. So, we formed the Impulse Case Info Centre (ICIC), which records, compiles, and keeps track of all relevant information on human trafficking cases, adhering to the 6 R’s of the Impulse Model formula of 6R + 6P,” Hasina says.
The ICIC has more than 1000 NGOs and government departments from not just in India, but also Southeast Asia, on its network. This is an extremely valuable database.
(Source: Impulse NGO Network)
At its very essence, the Impulse Model is based on the notion of needs-based intervention (how to rehabilitate victims of human trafficking) and partnerships with other organisations fighting the same battle so that they can collectively respond to different cases and share resources.
It was their email campaign, for example, which enabled them to receive information about the girls rescued in Mumbai. To wage a lone battle against human trafficking is a futile exercise. For this system to work, different stakeholders involved with solving the problem must come together, coordinate and follow a common model of addressing the issue, argues INGON.
Given below is Hasina’s explanation of how this model works on the ground:
As for how it works, any concerned person can report a case at ICIC. They are then assisted by the ICIC case manager in filing a First Information Report (FIR). The case is then recorded in the database of ICIC and other stakeholders. The ICIC then refers it to the respective Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) in that particular State or Union Territory and partner organisations at the source and destination points. Complainants can also directly report the case at an AHTU or a police station, after which they take support from us to carry forward the ensuing operations.
Rescue operations are then carried out by the respective AHTUs, along with ICIC or an ICIC State Partner Organisation. After the person is rescued, ICIC collaborates with social welfare departments of respective provinces or a government-registered and approved NGO-run shelter home to provide short-term shelter for the rescued person(s) for rehabilitation. ICIC also ensures that the survivor is provided medical and other support services and actions are undertaken for the best long-term plans. Based on a Home Investigation Report (HIR) by the relevant stakeholders, to find if it is safe for the survivors to return to their homes, the process of repatriation is then initiated.
If that is not possible, ICIC collaborates with the social welfare department to arrange long-term rehabilitation for them while also offering vocational training, education or employment, depending on the person’s age and personal interests.
Further, ICIC and its partner organisations discreetly follow up with the survivors for two years after repatriation, to check if they are safe and on the road to recovery so that they can be reintegrated into society. ICIC also facilitate compensation of survivors to State Legal Services Authorities (SLSA) to ensure that all rescued persons of human trafficking receive financial re-compensation.
Apart from ICIC, INGON also assists both private and public sector agencies (police, governments) for prevention of human trafficking and trains law enforcement officers on how to deal with victims of trafficking. Earlier this year, it also launched the Impulse Model Press Lab on January 26, offering fellowships to journalist and trains media personnel to publish articles and report on human trafficking ethically and treat survivors with respect and dignity when interacting with them.
Working with various police departments both in the Northeast and around India. (Source: Impulse NGO Network)
Major successes
While INGON has many successful interventions to their name, there are two that stand out for Hasina. Across coal mines of the Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, contractors would employ children as young as six years in the harmful practice of rat-hole mining. The passages in these mines were so narrow that only a little child could manoeuvre into it and extract coal. By some estimates, these mines had employed over 70,000 children ranging from the age of six to sixteen.
Rat-hole mining. (Source: Facebook/TNT Magazine)
“Children from neighbouring countries and states were trafficked and indulged in forced labour. Many of them died while at work while many others lived to carry on, without any possibility of returning to their home or parents. We wrote plenty of letters to the state government to intervene and address the matter, but years went by without any affirmative action. So, we filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2013,” explains Hasina.
Finally, on April 17, 2014, the NGT passed an order banning rat-hole mining in the state. Backed by this order, INGON was able to rescue nearly 1200 children. Thanks to partner organisations in Nepal and India, India via the Impulse Model, INGON was able to reunite them with their families.
“We have also been able to put around 40 such children in schools. Some are in boarding schools. A couple of them have completed matriculation, and some others are going to,” adds Hasina.
Hasina with some of the children who were rescued from the coal mines. They are now back in school.
Another major success story was the rescue of Ella Sangma early in 2009.
Thanks to the Impulse Model, Ella was rescued from a red-light area in the national capital after her plight was notified by another INGON-partner organisation called Stop Trafficking and Oppression of Children and Women (STOP) based out of Delhi.
“Ella gave us her first-hand insight into the importance of training people like her in a well-paid marketable skill, to prevent them from resorting to prostitution again for lack of income.
She suggested that along with a post-rescue measure, we could use employment to prevent human trafficking in vulnerable villages. Her input was instrumental in helping me enhance the Impulse Model, helping us create a for-profit branch of INGON called Impulse Social Enterprises (ISE), which now supports 30,000 artisans inducted through INGON from different states in the Northeast who develop products ranging from accessories to home furnishing products.
Ella Sangma with Hasina Kharbhih.
7000 of them have been moved to the brand Empower under ISE which is connected to a global online customer base, and the rest are connected to a direct market base,” says Hasina.
Today, she assists both INGON and ISE in repatriating victims and guiding them to acquire economic freedom. Given a chance, every survivor can turn their life around.
Ella embodies that spirit.
Challenges remain
Despite all the work that has gone into battling human trafficking, the challenges before organisations like INGON remain steep. Northeast India shares international borders with China, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan. Transit points in the region provide an easy passage in and out of India for organised human trafficking syndicates to operate undetected.
Since 2015, there has been a spike in the number of girls trafficked from the Northeast and northern part of North Bengal to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
(Source: Impulse Social Enterprises)
“Nearly 50-60% of them had passports issued by Nepal and even Myanmar because it is easier to obtain visas for these women to traffic them into the Middle East and Southeast Asia. We have also been working towards repatriating many girls from Rohingya back home, after being trafficked into India to be sold here, either for sexual slavery or marriage. They have been living in government-run shelters because it has been difficult to trace their families,” says Hasina.
Nonetheless, INGON has found some success in replicating its ICIC model in countries like Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh to hasten the repatriation process of those rescued.
Despite suffering physical attacks and having her office ransacked in 2009, Hasina Kharbhih remains undeterred in her battle against human trafficking. Along this journey, Hasina has won numerous accolades.
It is also working with the Centre to spread this model across India, which will not only establish a single window platform for better coordination between governments and stakeholders but also set up a centralised repository of data on human trafficking.
“To address human trafficking in a major way, we have to give importance to home-based production and economic independence of women. If women have the power to choose, they can nip unsafe migration in the bud and consequently human trafficking,” says Hasina.
Meet 47-year-old Hasina Kharbhih from Shillong, whose organisation, the Impulse NGO Network (INGON) has been battling the scourge of human trafficking in the Northeast for more than two decades, and has saved approximately 72,442 people and empowered over 30,000 women artisans.
Initially founded in 1993 as a rural livelihood initiative for women artisans in the East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya, the focus of her organisation began to shift after a historic 1996 Supreme Court order, which called for a complete ban on the felling of trees in the Northeast.
“There shall be a complete ban on the movement of cut trees and timber from any of the seven North-Eastern States to any other State of the country either by rail, road or water-ways,” the court said in the landmark TN Godavarman Thirumulkpad vs Union of India case.
Although conservationists celebrated this order, for many women artisans in the Northeast, who depended on access to bamboo and cane for their work, it came as a devastating blow.
“The forest resources ban forced the rural communities, who had lost their livelihood, to seek employment in urban areas, and that eventually led many to become victims of human trafficking,” says Hasina, speaking to The Better India. “Meanwhile, the conflict situation in the Northeast around that time also added to the frenzy of mass migration.”
As a result, there was a rampant increase in the cases of missing children all over the Northeast. “We were approached to investigate certain cases. When we looked into it, we found that all these children were being taken away by recruiters who promised them better-paying jobs and put them into forced labour as domestic maids, tea stall helpers, miners or sex slaves,” says Hasina.
It was only last November when the Centre decided to amend the Indian Forest Act and exclude bamboo from the ambit of the ban. Anyway, for these women, who were equipped with traditional skills of weaving, the Supreme Court’s order tore any potential commercial opportunities to shreds.
Restructuring and focus on human trafficking
“On February 11, 1999, we restructured the organisation and re-registered it into a professional organisation as Impulse NGO Network (INGON) under the Meghalaya Societies Registration Act (1983) and pursued the issue of addressing human trafficking more doggedly, researching and documenting the facts we discovered,” says Hasina.
Hasina Kharbhih, the winner of the 2012 CNN-IBN India Positive Award. It recognises those Indians who spread the spirit of goodness, and bring about positive change around them.
At the turn of the 21st century, INGON took on its first case after a Mumbai-based NGO Prerna informed them that they had rescued three girls from the Northeast—two from Meghalaya and the other from Tripura—from Kamathipura, a famous red-light area in the city. This was INGON’s first real experience with a human trafficking case, and Prerna soon became a networking partner.
INGON’s work against human trafficking in the Northeast, however, began to pick up, after Hasina attended the 2001 National Consultation on Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation of Children held in Kolkata, organised by Action Against Trafficking & Sexual Exploitation of Children (ATSEC).
Following the 2001 Kolkata conference, the organisation started an email campaign reaching out to various NGOs that had attended at the conference, and asking them to inform INGON if they came across any girls rescued from the Northeast.
Their immediate challenge was how to work with the government, as it could help the artisans get their children and livelihood back. For that, they needed a plan of action. While they worked towards making these artisans financially independent, INGON also became pioneers in conducting full-fledged research and developing an action module against human trafficking based on the cases they had encountered thus far. With the application of provisions under Indian law, INGON developed what’s today known as Meghalaya Model and presently the Impulse Model.
So, what is the Impulse Model?
“It is a case management system which follows the route of what is popularly known as the 6Rs (Reporting, Rescue, Rehabilitation, Repatriation, Re-integration and Re-compensation) and the 6Ps (Partnership, Prevention, Protection, Policing, Press and Prosecution). We wanted the Impulse Model to be a single-window platform. So, we formed the Impulse Case Info Centre (ICIC), which records, compiles, and keeps track of all relevant information on human trafficking cases, adhering to the 6 R’s of the Impulse Model formula of 6R + 6P,” Hasina says.
The ICIC has more than 1000 NGOs and government departments from not just in India, but also Southeast Asia, on its network. This is an extremely valuable database.
(Source: Impulse NGO Network)
At its very essence, the Impulse Model is based on the notion of needs-based intervention (how to rehabilitate victims of human trafficking) and partnerships with other organisations fighting the same battle so that they can collectively respond to different cases and share resources.
It was their email campaign, for example, which enabled them to receive information about the girls rescued in Mumbai. To wage a lone battle against human trafficking is a futile exercise. For this system to work, different stakeholders involved with solving the problem must come together, coordinate and follow a common model of addressing the issue, argues INGON.
Given below is Hasina’s explanation of how this model works on the ground:
As for how it works, any concerned person can report a case at ICIC. They are then assisted by the ICIC case manager in filing a First Information Report (FIR). The case is then recorded in the database of ICIC and other stakeholders. The ICIC then refers it to the respective Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTUs) in that particular State or Union Territory and partner organisations at the source and destination points. Complainants can also directly report the case at an AHTU or a police station, after which they take support from us to carry forward the ensuing operations.
Rescue operations are then carried out by the respective AHTUs, along with ICIC or an ICIC State Partner Organisation. After the person is rescued, ICIC collaborates with social welfare departments of respective provinces or a government-registered and approved NGO-run shelter home to provide short-term shelter for the rescued person(s) for rehabilitation. ICIC also ensures that the survivor is provided medical and other support services and actions are undertaken for the best long-term plans. Based on a Home Investigation Report (HIR) by the relevant stakeholders, to find if it is safe for the survivors to return to their homes, the process of repatriation is then initiated.
If that is not possible, ICIC collaborates with the social welfare department to arrange long-term rehabilitation for them while also offering vocational training, education or employment, depending on the person’s age and personal interests.
Further, ICIC and its partner organisations discreetly follow up with the survivors for two years after repatriation, to check if they are safe and on the road to recovery so that they can be reintegrated into society. ICIC also facilitate compensation of survivors to State Legal Services Authorities (SLSA) to ensure that all rescued persons of human trafficking receive financial re-compensation.
Apart from ICIC, INGON also assists both private and public sector agencies (police, governments) for prevention of human trafficking and trains law enforcement officers on how to deal with victims of trafficking. Earlier this year, it also launched the Impulse Model Press Lab on January 26, offering fellowships to journalist and trains media personnel to publish articles and report on human trafficking ethically and treat survivors with respect and dignity when interacting with them.
Working with various police departments both in the Northeast and around India. (Source: Impulse NGO Network)
Major successes
While INGON has many successful interventions to their name, there are two that stand out for Hasina. Across coal mines of the Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, contractors would employ children as young as six years in the harmful practice of rat-hole mining. The passages in these mines were so narrow that only a little child could manoeuvre into it and extract coal. By some estimates, these mines had employed over 70,000 children ranging from the age of six to sixteen.
Rat-hole mining. (Source: Facebook/TNT Magazine)
“Children from neighbouring countries and states were trafficked and indulged in forced labour. Many of them died while at work while many others lived to carry on, without any possibility of returning to their home or parents. We wrote plenty of letters to the state government to intervene and address the matter, but years went by without any affirmative action. So, we filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) with the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2013,” explains Hasina.
Finally, on April 17, 2014, the NGT passed an order banning rat-hole mining in the state. Backed by this order, INGON was able to rescue nearly 1200 children. Thanks to partner organisations in Nepal and India, India via the Impulse Model, INGON was able to reunite them with their families.
“We have also been able to put around 40 such children in schools. Some are in boarding schools. A couple of them have completed matriculation, and some others are going to,” adds Hasina.
Hasina with some of the children who were rescued from the coal mines. They are now back in school.
Another major success story was the rescue of Ella Sangma early in 2009.
Thanks to the Impulse Model, Ella was rescued from a red-light area in the national capital after her plight was notified by another INGON-partner organisation called Stop Trafficking and Oppression of Children and Women (STOP) based out of Delhi.
“Ella gave us her first-hand insight into the importance of training people like her in a well-paid marketable skill, to prevent them from resorting to prostitution again for lack of income.
She suggested that along with a post-rescue measure, we could use employment to prevent human trafficking in vulnerable villages. Her input was instrumental in helping me enhance the Impulse Model, helping us create a for-profit branch of INGON called Impulse Social Enterprises (ISE), which now supports 30,000 artisans inducted through INGON from different states in the Northeast who develop products ranging from accessories to home furnishing products.
Ella Sangma with Hasina Kharbhih.
7000 of them have been moved to the brand Empower under ISE which is connected to a global online customer base, and the rest are connected to a direct market base,” says Hasina.
Today, she assists both INGON and ISE in repatriating victims and guiding them to acquire economic freedom. Given a chance, every survivor can turn their life around.
Ella embodies that spirit.
Challenges remain
Despite all the work that has gone into battling human trafficking, the challenges before organisations like INGON remain steep. Northeast India shares international borders with China, Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, Bhutan. Transit points in the region provide an easy passage in and out of India for organised human trafficking syndicates to operate undetected.
Since 2015, there has been a spike in the number of girls trafficked from the Northeast and northern part of North Bengal to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
(Source: Impulse Social Enterprises)
“Nearly 50-60% of them had passports issued by Nepal and even Myanmar because it is easier to obtain visas for these women to traffic them into the Middle East and Southeast Asia. We have also been working towards repatriating many girls from Rohingya back home, after being trafficked into India to be sold here, either for sexual slavery or marriage. They have been living in government-run shelters because it has been difficult to trace their families,” says Hasina.
Nonetheless, INGON has found some success in replicating its ICIC model in countries like Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh to hasten the repatriation process of those rescued.
Despite suffering physical attacks and having her office ransacked in 2009, Hasina Kharbhih remains undeterred in her battle against human trafficking. Along this journey, Hasina has won numerous accolades.
It is also working with the Centre to spread this model across India, which will not only establish a single window platform for better coordination between governments and stakeholders but also set up a centralised repository of data on human trafficking.
“To address human trafficking in a major way, we have to give importance to home-based production and economic independence of women. If women have the power to choose, they can nip unsafe migration in the bud and consequently human trafficking,” says Hasina.
Greece’s high-security Korydallos prison acknowledges that Sara Mardini is one of its rarer inmates. For a week, the Syrian refugee, a hero among human rights defenders, has been detained in its women’s wing on charges so serious they have elicited baffled dismay.
The 23-year-old, who saved 18 refugees in 2015 by swimming their waterlogged dingy to the shores of Lesbos with her Olympian sister, is accused of people smuggling, espionage and membership of a criminal organisation – crimes allegedly committed since returning to work with an NGO on the island. Under Greek law, Mardini can be held in custody pending trial for up to 18 months.
“She is in a state of disbelief,” said her lawyer, Haris Petsalnikos, who has petitioned for her release. “The accusations are more about criminalising humanitarian action. Sara wasn’t even here when these alleged crimes took place but as charges they are serious, perhaps the most serious any aid worker has ever faced.”
Mardini’s arrival to Europe might have gone unnoticed had it not been for the extraordinary courage she and younger sister, Yusra, exhibited guiding their boat to safety after the engine failed during the treacherous crossing from Turkey. Both were elite swimmers, with Yusra going on to compete in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The sisters, whose story is the basis of a forthcoming film by the British director Stephen Daldry, were credited with saving the lives of their fellow passengers. In Germany, their adopted homeland, the pair has since been accorded star status.
Sara and Yusra Mardini with trophies at the 2016 Bambi awards, the main German media awards. Photograph: Axel Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
It was because of her inspiring story that Mardini was approached by Emergency Response Centre International, ERCI, on Lesbos. “After risking her own life to save 18 people … not only has she come back to ground zero, but she is here to ensure that no more lives get lost on this perilous journey,” it said after Mardini agreed to join its ranks in 2016.
After her first stint with ERCI, she again returned to Lesbos last December to volunteer with the aid group. And until 21 August there was nothing to suggest her second spell had not gone well. But as Mardini waited at Mytilini airport to head back to Germany, and a scholarship at Bard College in Berlin, she was arrested. Soon after that, police also arrested ERCI’s field director, Nassos Karakitsos, a former Greek naval force officer, and Sean Binder, a German volunteer who lives in Ireland. All three have protested their innocence.
The arrests come as signs of a global clampdown on solidarity networks mount. From Russia to Spain, European human rights workers have been targeted in what campaigners call an increasingly sinister attempt to silence civil society in the name of security.
“There is the concern that this is another example of civil society being closed down by the state,” said Jonathan Cooper, an international human rights lawyer in London. “What we are really seeing is Greek authorities using Sara to send a very worrying message that if you volunteer for refugee work you do so at your peril.”
Protesters in Athens demand the release of Sara Mardini and Sean Binder. Photograph: Orestis Panagiotou/EPA
Advertisement
But amid concerns about heavy-handed tactics humanitarians face, Greek police say there are others who see a murky side to the story, one ofpeople trafficking and young volunteers being duped into participating in a criminal network unwittingly. In that scenario,the Mardini sisters would make prime targets.
Greek authorities spent six months investigating the affair. Agents were flown into Lesbos from Athens and Thessaloniki. In an unusually long and detailed statement, last week, Mytilini police said that while posing as a non-profit organisation, ERCI had acted with the sole purpose of profiteering by bringing people illegally into Greece via the north-eastern Aegean islands.
Members had intercepted Greek and European coastguard radio transmissions to gain advance notification of the location of smugglers’ boats, police said, and that 30, mostly foreign nationals, were lined up to be questioned in connection with the alleged activities. Other “similar organisations” had also collaborated in what was described as “an informal plan to confront emergency situations”, they added.
Suspicions were first raised, police said, when Mardini and Binder were stopped in February driving a former military 4X4 with false number plates. ERCI remained unnamed until the release of the charge sheets for the pair and that of Karakitsos.
Refugees and migrants wave as they approach Lesbos in March 2016. Photograph: Alkis Konstantinidis/Reuters
Lesbos has long been on the frontline of the refugee crisis, attracting idealists and charity workers. Until a dramatic decline in migration numbers via the eastern Mediterranean in March 2016, when a landmark deal was signed between the EU and Turkey, the island was the main entry point to Europe.
An estimated 114 NGOs and 7,356 volunteers are based on Lesbos, according to Greek authorities. Local officials talk of “an industry”, and with more than 10,000 refugees there and the mood at boiling point, accusations of NGOs acting as a “pull factor” are rife.Advertisement
“Sara’s motive for going back this year was purely humanitarian,” said Oceanne Fry, a fellow student who in June worked alongside her at a day clinic in the refugee reception centre.
“At no point was there any indication of illegal activity by the group … but I can attest to the fact that, other than our intake meeting, none of the volunteers ever met, or interacted, with its leadership.”
Life vests are left on the shore by refugees arriving in Lesbos in 2015. Photograph: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty Images
The mayor of Lesbos, Spyros Galinos, said he has seen “good and bad” in the humanitarian movement since the start of the refugee crisis.
“Everything is possible,. There is no doubt that some NGOs have exploited the situation. The police announcement was uncommonly harsh. For a long time I have been saying that we just don’t need all these NGOs. When the crisis erupted, yes, the state was woefully unprepared but now that isn’t the case.”
Attempts to contact ERCI were unsuccessful. Neither a telephone number nor an office address – in a scruffy downtown building listed by the aid group on social media – appeared to have any relation to it.
In a statement released more than a week after Mardini’s arrest, ERCI denied the allegations, saying it had fallen victim to “unfounded claims, accusations and charges”. But it failed to make any mention of Mardini.
“It makes no sense at all,” said Amed Khan, a New York financier turned philanthropist who has donated boats for ERCI’s search and rescue operations. To accuse any of them of human trafficking is crazy.
“In today’s fortress Europe you have to wonder whether Brussels isn’t behind it, whether this isn’t a concerted effort to put a chill on civil society volunteers who are just trying to help. After all, we’re talking about grassroots organisations with global values that stepped up into the space left by authorities failing to do their bit.” (Source: The Guardian)
