Saturday, June 26, 2010

Campaign against trafficking of children,girls and women launched in Udalguri in India

The alarming increasing rate of trafficking of children, adolescent girls and women has now been considered to be the most important social problem of not only Udalguri but BTAD districts as well.the small children are being trafficked for engagement in different shops or factories in the hazardous condition despite of the existence of child labor prohibitory acts in the country. By the way of engagement of child labor ,the children are most often harassed, abused and even more dragged into street begging by some notorious professionals.The adolescent girls of the poor families are also quite often convinced by the middle man or woman for working as domestic servants in towns and cities at higher rate of payment and are being trafficked.The parents or guardian cannot refrain from temptation.But they can never see or know anything at what situation their children and girls are facing at their work place.
The adolescent girls are also sexually abused at their work place leading them pregnant and nursing mothers.Even more such girls are being murdered after sexual abuse.The women are also allured by the brokers (Dalals) and trafficked to places like Delhi,Gujrat,Mumbai,Agra,Jummu,Kolkata and Siliguri etc. Interception of large numbers of such girls an women at Rangia and New Bongaigaon etc by social organizations like ABSU has proved the seriousness of the problem. The Dalals are said to be paid Rs.25000 in average for each of the girl or woman.Large numbers of bogus placement agencies operating from Delhi,Agra,Mumbai and Kolkata etc. enroll hundreds of agents in Assam to lure girls and women.
Recently an Assam Police team had raided the premises of several such placement agencies in New Delhi and rescued several victims. According to Sekhar Biswas,Officer In-charge,Kalaigaon Police Station (who personally supervised the raid in New Delhi) told this correspondent that brokers of such placement agencies used to shuttle once in month between Assam and New Delhi etc.Moreover all those placement agencies had no valid permission from the government.A few such placement agencies operating from New Delhi are - SS Maid Service;Raj Enterprise;Tania Maid Service;Assami Maid Service;Dipti Enterprise;National Placement service ;Sweta Placement service;Sanjana Maid Service etc. have been continuing their antisocial activities in New Delhi unabated .
Udalguri district administration,headed by Deputy Commissioner S.S Meenakshi Sundaram,IAS,recently convened an emergency meeting at Udalguri on June 23 to discuss the matter.The meeting which was held at the DCs conference Hallwas attended by high level civil and police officials beside ABSU and Bodo Women activists.The Deputy Commissioner who had presided over the meeting directed all civil and police officials of the district to implement the guidelines issued by the BTC Authority to stop illegal trafficking activities in the district.A district level Women Cell was formed with DC,Udalguri as the Chairman; P.K.Mahanta,ADC as the Member Secretary;all ADCs, SP, Addl SP, SDO (Civil)Bhergaon,Joint Director of Health,Superintendent of Excise as the members beside three civilian members namely - Nerkhang Khakhlary(district secretary ABSU); Dipti Daimari,(Bodo women activist) and Jayanta Das (social worker).The meeting decided to form Sub-Divisional,and ICDS project level committees for creating awareness among common people.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Unabated killing of wild elephants poses threat to ecology in Assam

The tragic death of two wild elephant calves near Indo-Bhutan border in Udalguri district has again exposed cruelty of human beings. According to information received,two wild elephant calves (one of three years and the other just only one year old ) were found dead in the Nepaligaon village near Koramore under Harisinga Revenue Circle,in the morning of June 13.According to the version of the local people a herd of wild elephant was seen moving in the nearby villages the previous day.A few villagers said that the wild elephants were looking for food. They further said that the elephant could have eaten the poisonous mixture of urea and pesticides kept open to be used in the mini private tea gardens located in the Amraiguri areas 3 km away from Nepaligaon.It is suspected that the elephants had mistaken the poisonous mixture of urea and pesticides to be common salt.

It needs mention that hundreds of private mini tea gardens had been etablished in the northern areas of Udalguri district,previously belonged to thick forests where wild elephants could roam free. Encroachment of all the forest lands under direct patronage of Circle Officers,Mandals etc. during the last decade had been the root cause of so called man elephant conflict in the district. A total of ten wild elephants had been killed in 2009 and three in 2010 (including the present two )posing serious threat to ecology.

A government team headed by DN Hazarika,Circle Officer,Harisinga Revenue Circle along with forest veterinary and police officials visited the spot on June 13 before postmortem was done. Last fortnight witnessed the death of a ten years old wild elephant ( electrocuted or poisoned?) at Bhutiachang TE.in Udalguri district. Nature loving people have expressed serious concern at the unnatural deaths of three wild elephants in a month in a single district and condemned government apathy towards solving the problem