Cablegate: Tip Tidbits - Child Labor, Female Feticide, Child

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NEW DELHI 009088

SIPDIS

UNCLASSIFIED

SIPDIS

G/TIP FOR MARK TAYLOR AND SALLY NEUMANN; SA/INS FOR JENELLE
KRISHNAMOORTHY; SA/RA FOR LINDA LEE; DRL/IL FOR JDEMARIA
DEPT OF LABOR FOR ILAB - MARK MITTELHAUSER

E.O. 12589: N/A
TAGS: KCRM PHUM KWMN SOCI OTRA PREL SMIG BG
SUBJECT: TIP TIDBITS - CHILD LABOR, FEMALE FETICIDE, CHILD
MARRIAGE & FAST TRACKED COURTS

1. (U) The following describes a variety of news reports and
GOI actions on child labor, female feticide and child
marriage that we have been following over the past few
weeks.

LARGEST RAID IN DELHI HISTORY
----------------------------

2. (U) On November 21, "The Hindu" reported in their morning
paper that the Delhi State Labor Department, the Delhi
Police and the NGO Pratham planned to undertake the "biggest
ever operation against child labor." The plan was to rescue
hundreds of children working in zari (a type of embroidery
common to Indian garments that threads fine gold or silver
wire into fabrics) factories, and the government had short-
stay facilities identified for 2,000 children just in case.
Despite the fact that the newspaper had thereby warned every
factory owner of the upcoming raid, the GOI still was able
to rescue 477 children between the ages of five and fourteen
from a variety of Delhi sweatshops. The operation began
around noon, and Ravi Kant from the NGO Shakti Vahini told
post that the zari owners tipped off one another throughout
the day and fled the scene. In many cases the owners told
the children to keep quiet and/or sent them home. Ravi
reported that, "A zari unit was operating from the first
floor of a school building. The unit owner had school
identity cards issued to the children to show them as
students. In another unit we found that several children had
been hidden under heaps of quilts, while scores were sent to
parks in the area to evade detection."

3. (U) According to M. Rajan, the managing trustee of
Pratham, the children were rescued from horrible conditions.
They worked in small, poorly ventilated and badly lit rooms.
Most children worked for more than 10 hours a day. Despite
the poor conditions, the BBC reported that dozens of the
children wanted to return to work and some of them tried to
escape from the temporary shelters immediately after being
rescued. One rescued child reported to the BBC that he
worked eight hours every day and at the end of the month his
manager sent 300 Rs (about $7) to his mother in Bihar.
Other children reported working 15-hour days and getting
paid 800 Rs (approximately $18) a month. The minimum legal
wage in New Delhi is 2,800 Rs (approximately $62) a month.

4. (U) The "Express Newsline" reported that according to the
Labor Commissioner Piyush Sharma: "We have been actively
working on this matter since June 2005. Working under the
INDUS project, we sought and received cooperation from NGOs
like Pratham and Prayas." The INDUS project is the 40
million dollars joint India-US project to combat child labor
in 10 industries in 21 districts across five states. The
International Labor Organization (ILO) is implementing the
project.

5. (U) One week later, the rescues have received criticism
from those who felt that Pratham and the Government did not
do enough planning for post-raid rehabilitation. While 180
of those rescued have been put up in a rehabilitation center
run by Prayas, the remaining children are now in Juvenile
Homes -- the same homes that house juvenile delinquents --
rather than shelters. "The Pioneer" reports that there was
neither a First Information Report (FIR) (an initial police
report) for these children, nor for the employers. These
police reports are critical for the children to receive
financial compensation from various government
rehabilitation schemes; and these FIR reports are also
necessary to file charges against the factory owners. "The
Pioneer" criticized raid organizers because they did not
consult with the Labor Department Divisional Commissioner
who is normally responsible for carrying out such raids.
According to the "Times of India," The Department of Labor
criticized the media for leaking the story and consequently
the "raids were not as successful as the department had
hoped."

6. (U) Pratham released its volunteers responsible for the
rescue operations after the fact, citing the subsequent bad
press. "The Pioneer" also reported that the "lure of UN
funds" drove the NGO to rescue the kids rather than more
properly focus on their well-being. The Delhi Child Welfare
Committee (CWC) will now determine where the children will
go and it is expected that they will be turned over to their
parents. However, the victims will not qualify for
rehabilitation under the Child Labor Act since the rescue
did not follow proper procedures (such as filing an FIR).
7. (U) ILO's Indus Project Coordinator Surina Rajan told
post that the original idea was to rehabilitate all the
rescued children at shelters run by Prayas and Pratham.
However, Pratham could not set up its shelter home and
consequently the children had to be sent to the state run
juvenile homes. Rajan mentioned that there was intense
pressure on the Delhi government from NGOs and the media to
mount this operation and hence, it was quite possible that
all the details were not worked out carefully. Hinting at
more such actions in the future, Rajan said that the INDUS
would try and rope in other NGOs such as the M.V. Foundation
to set up bridge camps/centers in Delhi to rehabilitate
children rescued in future.

GOOD NEWS ON FEMALE FETICIDE
----------------------------

8. (U) On September 21, the Indian Express reported that the
Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) decided to
waive fees and provide scholarships to all girls from single-
child families until the post-graduation level. The
scholarship will be available for all families with a single
girl child, irrespective of income groups. If a family has
two girls, then the scholarship will only be available for
one child. The scholarship money ranges from 800 Rs ($18)
for high school studies to 2000 Rs ($45) for postgraduate
studies. The MHRD hopes to help correct the male-female sex
ratio by reducing the financial burden on families with
girls through these scholarships.

9. (U) On September 20, the Asian Age reported that the sex
ratio in the state of Haryana saw a slight but significant
improvement from 819 to 833 CSR (Child Sex Ratio as measured
by number of girls per 1000 boys ages 0-6). The Haryana
government is pleased with the news but states the
improvement could be attributed to a recent administrative
change whereby the registration of births and deaths is done
in health care centers and not police stations, resulting in
more births being registered. In one district, Sonepat, the
CSR jumped from in one year from 706 to 772 (girls per 1,000
boys). However, this is still 22% below the biological norm.

10. (U) In August, Parliament passed the Hindu Succession
(Amendment) Bill. The bill gives daughters and sons equal
rights to claims on inheritance of property. The Law and
Justice Minister is now directing the States to amend
current state laws on the subject to bring all laws related
to inheritance into conformity with this bill. In
September, Prime Minister Singh traveled to the Punjab and
called for a social campaign to end female feticide, and
drew attention to the alarmingly low CSR in the Punjab (876
girls per 1,000 boys).

CHILD MARRIAGE CASES
--------------------

11. (U) On August 26 the Indian Express reported that a 20-
year-old woman, Savita Chaudhary, is fighting her own
community related to her illegal marriage at the age of
three years old. Her supposed in-laws are demanding money
to annul the wedding and the panchayat (local government)
chief has gone on record as saying, "She's an immature girl.
Our culture accepts child marriage and she'll have to accept
whatever the community decides." In a separate case, on
October 8 the Delhi High Court ruled that the otherwise
illegal marriage of a 15-year-old girl was valid since it
was of her own free will. (The Child Marriage Restraint Act
sets 18 as the minimum age for a woman to marry and 21 for a
man.) National Commission for Women (NCW) chairwoman Dr.
Girija Vyas expressed significant disappointment with the
decision, saying, "There should definitely be a rethink on
this court order and the government should appeal against
the decision." The Indian Express reported in a related
story that the Governments of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh
(MP) are trying to raise the average age of marriage to
reduce infant and maternal mortality. According to the
paper, "more than half of the girls in MP and Rajasthan are
married off before they turn 15."
FOCUS ON JAINS
--------------

12. (U) On October 23 the Indian newsmagazine "The Week" did
a story on traffickers taking tribal girls from Madhya
Pradesh and selling them to Jain families under the false
pretense that they were also from Jain families.
Traffickers dress the women in traditional Jain clothes and
teach them Jain prayers and customs. The women are also
forced to sleep with some of their prospective husbands.
Families pay as much as 50,000 Rs ($1,150) to the
traffickers in exchange for the victims. The traffickers
claim innocence, stating, "There are many instances where
husbands know the real caste of their wives but other family
members do not. If the girls are happy, it's fine." The
article concludes that trafficking has been on the rise due
to the low CSR (870 girls per 1,000 boys) for Jain families.

13. (U) On October 11, the Hindustan Times reported on
"Jains on female feticide blacklist." The Health Minister,
Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, stated, "Banning pre-natal sex
determination through law is obviously not enough. It's a
social problem and we need to change the mindset of the
people through people who can influence their thinking, such
as religious leaders." Some state and local governments are
taking innovative actions. For example, the Hyderabad
government posts a nurse outside of clinics to count the
number of pregnant women who walk in and then tallies the
total against the clinic's medical records to ensure
compliance with the law.

FAST TRACKING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CASES
-------------------------------------

14. (U) On November 26, "The Hindu" reported that the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court, Y.K. Sabharwal, proposed that
domestic violence cases be fast tracked. The Chief Justice
acknowledged the backlog of cases, but stated that domestic
violence cases need to be redressed immediately, and that
the outcome of these cases should be publicized. At the
same Women's Legal Aid Summit, the Law Minister H.R.
Bhardwaj said that he was prepared to increase the Supreme
Court by five seats if more women judges could be included
(currently there is only one sitting female Supreme Court
judge).

15. (U) COMMENT. There has been a noticeable increase in
the number of news stories on trafficking and related issues
over the past year. Further, unlike before, the stories are
drawing links between various interrelated issues such as
feticide, child marriage, child labor, and trafficking.
This is an important new trend because it is not only
representative of evolving opinions in society, but the
increasing press coverage of gender issues (including
trafficking) could serve to help shape public opinion as
well. END COMMENT.

MULFORD

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