‘Missionaries, government employees equally guilty of human trafficking, child labour’

Eastern Mirror Desk

Dimapur, May 20: So many Nagas and ‘Christian homes’ are guilty of child labour and human trafficking that prisons would run out of space to accommodate them if they were actually arrested, according the director of Prodigals’ Home, K Ela.

However, the social activist lamented, the guilty in Nagaland continues to get away from the hands of the law.

Ela was speaking on issues of women, children and human trafficking in the context of Nagaland state to the participants of Certificate Course on Social Concern and Leadership (CCSCL) designed for church leaders, theological students and aspiring social workers on Monday at the Prodigals’ Home in Dimapur.

The activist pointed out that Christian missionaries were directly or indirectly responsible for encouraging human trafficking. Most of them, she said, are not even aware of laws related to human trafficking or child labour, which is also known as modern day slavery.

In a piercing remark, she said that the missionaries also need to know the law of the land, not just the Bible.

Together with the missionaries, she said, the government employees—especially those posted in the interior areas—are guilty of the crime as they bring underage children to work as domestic helps in their homes or the home of their relatives and friends.

Most NGO workers run children homes because they are vulnerable and soft-targets, she shared.

Ela also cited the numerous hotels run by Nagas. These hotels are the “transit points” where ‘immoral or illegal activities’ are carried out without the knowledge of the owners by the managers, workers and pimps, she said.

According to her, most hotel owners are ignorant about the activities as they rent the hotels to a second person. The owners, she said, are satisfied with the monthly payments they receive.

Citing an assessment made on human trafficking in Nagaland, with special reference to Dimapur, Ela informed that human trafficking cases were negligible when considered from the number of police records, court cases, and media reports.

There is no state-level data available and the existing reported numbers alone is misleading, she said. The actual situation is quite different and the negligible number of surveys conducted by NGOs, State Child Protection Society (SCPS) and missing cases reported in the media is worrying, said Ela.

Some visible forms of human trafficking in Nagaland, she shared, were ‘illegal/false child adoption, commercial sexual exploitation, child domestic labour, debt bondage, and employing children on the pretext of providing free education, training, job, marriage.’

According to her, those vulnerable to human trafficking were mostly ‘ignorant and uninformed, particularly children, women.’

She also said that some other factors contributing to it were “ignorance/lack of awareness, poverty, poor parenting/dysfunctional families, poor education system particularly the government institutions/failures and dropouts, unsafe migration, lack of adequate data/report about current scenario of human trafficking.”

According to the activist, poor governance right from the village-level to state-level, weak law enforcement, poor implementation of laws, and culture of silence and indifference towards social concerns in the society makes the children, women and youth vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation.

Also, she lamented that the judgemental attitude of the society prevents victims from reporting the crime committed against them to the police. She said that the system was fundamentally against the poor, illiterate and the vulnerable.

Some other hurdles, she said, include ‘misconception and lack of trust in the system; lack of adequate outreach and counselling services; lack of adequate homes, erratic and inadequate government funding for homes; inadequate training key departments’ personnel; and customary law settlement and other shortcuts to setting of cases.’

Ela also shared some of the existing response agencies/groups in the state for cases related to human trafficking and child labour: SCPS which is now called Nagaland Child Protection Service; police or Anti Human Trafficking Units (AHTU), which is available in every police station; legal services; NBCC or churches; the state Women Commission; State Resource Centre for Women (SRCW)/Sakhi 181; NGOs and tribal organisations/union.

Even those existing response agencies/groups need much improvement and strengthening, according to her.

“What we need is comprehensive and coordinated effort in planning and action, looking into all the vulnerability factors in terms of prevention, intervention, investigation, prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration; while all these have to be planned strategically in coordination with all stakeholders,” she maintained.