A lost paradise for non-Kashmiri minors

Rohan (name changed) was brought to Kashmir with the promise of a high paying job. Little did he know that he would end up as a household worker in Pulwama. Rohan was living in an ashram in Assam before he came to Kashmir. He used to work at weddings to earn his livelihood. One day while returning from a wedding at night, he met a person who asked him if he wanted to earn more money. Rohan who had no one in his family except his little sister, so he decided to go with the man in search of work. Exhausted by the work, he slept on the train, unknown of the place the man was taking him. When he woke up he was on his way to Jammu.

“Rohan was brought to Pulwama through a consultancy firm who told us that he was an adult,” said Tawseef Ahmad Ganai, a member of the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Pulwama. When the CWC got information about Rohan they informed the District Child Protection Unit (DCPO) who brought Rohan to the CWC. On examination, the CWC found out that he was a student of eighth class when he was brought to Kashmir which means that he was around 13 years old, said Ganai.

The consultancy firm was given a warning and since then it is under the scanner of the CWC, Ganai stressed.

People believe that there is no human trafficking in Jammu & Kashmir but they are wrong, said Mohd Sharif Bhat, J&K and Ladakh head of Save the Children, a Non-Government Organization (NGO). As a person who works in the field, Bhat has seen many people having minor non-Kashmiri servants.

Three years back Bhat came across a minor girl from Kolkata who was found on a farm in Kupwara. Bhat was informed about her by the Information District Social welfare officer. When he met her, she was traumatized and didn’t say anything, recalled Bhat.

“I took her to the hospital and informed the concerned authorities,” said Bhat. It was later found out that the girl was suffering from tuberculosis.
According to the social worker, a majority of minors come from Jharkhand through agencies that lure them for jobs.

Picture Courtesy: India.com

Most incidents of missing children are reported from Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, and Bihar according to a study by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) in 2019. The common causes of trafficking were forced marriage, child labour, domestic help, and sexual exploitation, mentioned the study.

As per the data of the 2011 Census, India had 10.13 million child labourers, between the age of 5-14 with Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh being the most affected states.

Kashmir receives many minors through consultancy firms who are employed as house workers and a majority of such helpers are employed in Srinagar, said Farooq Ahmad, a Srinagar CWC member. According to Farooq, the number of female minors is more in Srinagar than male minors and the number is increasing.

Recently he came across two-three minors who were brought to the valley through consultancy agencies. One of them was a minor girl from West Bengal whose mother has died and his father, a drunkard, sold her to the agency which brought her to Kashmir, said Farooq.

Due to the pandemic, the minor girl is kept at a shelter in Srinagar and once the conditions improve, she would be sent to the West Bengal CWC.

The condition in other districts of Kashmir is not the same as Srinagar. According to Fahmeeda Maqbool, Chairperson CWC Ganderbal, the number of cases of non-Kashmiri minor helpers is quite less in Ganderbal, and in most of the cases, the number of male minors is more than female minors.

One being asked how the CWC handles such cases, Maqbool said that at first the date of birth is checked and if it does not comply with the Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, the child is taken under the care of CWC and strict action is taken against the offender.

The Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 states that children below 14 and 15 years in certain prohibited employments have been prohibited by various Acts but there is no procedure laid down in any law for deciding in which employment children are banned. The Act was amended in 2016 and in 2017. The current Act prohibits the employment of children below the age of 14 but they can work in family business/enterprises only if they are non-hazardous.

Advocate Shah Faisal, J&K director of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) admitted that he comes across numerous cases of minors who are being held by people without their will. He came across the case of a child from West Bengal who wanted to go back home but the household where he was working didn’t let him leave. Faisal filed a complaint against the family to the Chief Magistrate. The child was brought immediately and proper action was taken against the family, said Faisal.

Another case which the advocate recalled is of a 15-year-old Rohingya girl who was sold in Delhi at Rs. 70,000 to a Kashmiri who married her when she came to Kashmir. The girl’s uncle contacted Faisal and a writ petition was filed by the advocate to rescue the girl.

According to Faisal, the consultancy agencies which bring minors to Kashmir violate many norms. They provide a fake list with numbers of fake parents of the minors, informed the advocate. “Most of the agencies claim that the child does not have a birth certificate and they consider them above 18.”

Even the families hiring minor helpers justify themselves by saying that without the family’s assistance the child would not even get food, said Faisal. Moreover, the money paid by the families is not paid to the minor but to their agents, asserted the advocate.