Trafficking victims detained in India as illegal Bangladeshis

The authorities of India have continued to detain Bangladeshi victims of human traffickers without proper investigation and interrogation in direct contravention of an advisory issued by the home ministry in Delhi in 2012. In most cases, traffickers and their victims caught at the 3,909-kilometre Indo-Bangla border are being charged under India’s Foreigners Act, even though the law enforcement agencies are supposed to filter the victims and treat them differently than the traffickers. On May 30 this year, a 10-year-old Bangladeshi boy was apprehended by BSF officers in South Dinajpur district, alongside another person. BSF officials handed them both over to Balurghat police station on the same day. Later, a human rights organisation called Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM) discovered that the person with the boy was a middleman who took him over the border by claiming that his sick father had crossed without having proper papers and needed him. The 10-year-old has been living in an Indian shelter home after a criminal case was lodged against him under section 14 of the Foreigners Act of India. In another case on June 20, four Bangladeshi female migrants were arrested in the Dattapara area of India after also being taken across the border by a middleman who had promised them new jobs as domestic helpers in India. The women were sent to Dumdum Central Correctional Home for 14 days but remain stranded there, over two months later. According to records, India considers such Bangladeshi citizens as “illegal entrants” as defined in the country’s Foreigners Act 1946, but barely marks them as the victims of human trafficking. The human rights violation remains invisible in most of the cases. However, an office memorandum of Ministry of Home Affairs of India titled “Advisory on preventing and combating human trafficking in India – dealing with foreign nationals” was issued in May 2012 to stop such incidents. The advisory says: “Immediately after a foreign national is apprehended on charges of human trafficking, a detailed interrogation/investigation should be carried out to ascertain whether the person concerned is a victim or a trafficker.” It says the victims and the persons actually involved in human trafficking should be treated differently by the police authorities. “This is in line with the Saarc Convention which advocates a victim-centric approach.” In the case of women and children, the memorandum says that in general, the foreign victims of human trafficking are found without valid passport or visa. “If, after investigation, the woman or child is found to be a victim, she should not be prosecuted under the Foreigners Act. If the investigation reveals that she did not come to India or did not indulge in crime out of her own free will, the State Government / UT Administration may not file a charge sheet against the victim,” the advisory says. If the charge sheet has already been filed under the Foreigners Act and other relevant laws of the land, the advisory says steps may be taken to withdraw the case from prosecution so far as the victim is concerned: “Immediate action may be taken to furnish the details of such victims to the Ministry of External Affairs (Consular Division), Patiala House, New Delhi so as to ensure that the person concerned is repatriated to the country of her origin through diplomatic channels.” Recently, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) called for an immediate investigation into all such cases of mistreatment. The organisation sought withdrawal of prosecutions pending against these women, children and others like them, in compliance with international law. According to the organisation, cross border agencies and security forces in both Bangladesh and India, along with the police officials in border areas must take necessary steps to prevent unlawful detention of Bangladeshi citizens.