1. Addressing cross border trafficking in children and adolescents along the border lying districts in West Bengal and Bangladesh
2. Protection and rehabilitation of children living and working in railway stations of West Bengal
3. Protection and rehabilitation of children living and working on the streets of Khulna, Barisal, Rajshahi and Kolkata
4. Addressing poverty in children: child protection initiatives for girls in rural Bangladesh and West Bengal who are vulnerable to economic migration and/or trafficking
5. Promoting Child Protection and arresting criminalisation in adolescents
6. Addressing substance abuse in children and adolescents living and working in streets and railway stations
7. Gender and sexuality programme
8. Empowering caregivers
9. Life skills education

1. Addressing cross border trafficking in children and adolescents along the border lying districts in West Bengal and Bangladesh

(A Groupe Developppement and European Union supported initiative )

The project addresses the long felt need of inclusion of community based organisations and initiatives along the West Bengal- Bangladesh border in stopping cross border trafficking in children and adolescents. The initiative identified 28 organisations in West Bengal across 10 border lying districts of the State: Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Darjeeling (which shares a border with Nepal), South and North Dinajpur, Maldah, Murshidabad, Nadia, North and South 24 Parganas. Parallelly, it has mobilised and 21 local NGOs across 6 southwestern districts of Bangladesh – Satkhira, Jessore, Jhenaidaha, Chuadanga, Meherpur and Kushtia, and 3 north western districts of Naogaon, Chapai Nawabgunge and Rajshahi.

The nodal organisations for this initiative in the 2 countries are Association for Community Development and Dhaka Ahsania Mission in Bangladesh, and Sanlaap in West Bengal.

The issue of cross border trafficking is only a part of the larger issue of human smuggling, border control, community cooperation and collaboration. It involves issues of community policing and dialogue between people living on either sides of the border. Bhomra (Satkhira , Bangladesh) & Swarupnagar (South 24 parganas, West Bengal, India) Border Debhata (Satkhira, Bangladesh) & Taki (South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India) Border

Groupe Developpement works on this mandate and support community initiatives to address smuggling in children and women across the border. The community organisations conduct awareness generation programmes with the communities, with and lobby with State agencies of governance, law enforcement and bureaucracy to address issues of women and children being smuggled across the border for purposes of exploitation and illegal trade.

Working with the Bangladesh Rifles (Border Police)

Specific issues that community organizations address are:

1. Men from northern India marry young girls in the community without dowry, and the women and girls end up being trafficked.
2. Dowry is one of the problems that escalate girls’ vulnerability to trafficking, and it is still a deep seated issue that plagues communities, and results in misogyny in the region.
3. Child marriage is still going strong in the region. Apart from the inherent violence against children in the practice, it also facilitates trafficking.
4. There is need for functional and pragmatic vocational training programmes for adolescents in poverty stricken families with no land holdings
5. There is no State or community policing mechanism of apprehending traffickers at the source areas. The investigation and prosecution process is also not in place.
6. Crime in the border adjacent areas is a serious problem that affects the security of children, adolescents and women in the areas
7. Brothel based prostitution is on the rise, and trafficked women and children are exploited by the mafia that trades in them.
8. Children of women in prostitution living in red light areas need psychosocial programmes for protection, the stigma of prostitution needs to be addressed, and women’s issues need to be addressed in conjunction

2. Protection and rehabilitation of children living and working in railway stations of West Bengal

Children who escape neglect, abuse and violence in their families and communities seek ways and means to subsist, both economically and socially. They seek refuge in commercial points such as transport terminals (bus termini, railway stations) and in commercial avenues of the city. Children fall into extreme vulnerability to abuse, violence and exploitation at these avenues. The Indian Railways is the largest railway network in the world, and the commerce in railways and railway stations is an attracting point for children who have to economically subsist on their own. They are referred to as ‘children living in the railway platforms and working in the railways’. Unofficial estimates claim that there are about 300,00 children living off the railways in India. There are no official estimates, because these children are not enumerated in the census, nor in any other way. This project aims to address protection and empowerment of these children in the 16 of the largest railway junctions of West Bengal, India. In view of the fact that children have a right to home based care, as well as the right to reject institutionalisation, we support programmes to create a balance, and ensure that children have a right to protection and services to protect their rights to survival, development and protection under both circumstances. Our partners for this initiative are Don Bosco Ashalayam and Praajak.

Ashalayam runs programmes to rehabilitate children living and working in railway stations and on the streets of Kolkata through institutional care in 25 shelter homes for more than 600 children. Education, vocational training, job placement and reintegration of the children is part of every child care plan. Complimentarily, Praajak addresses the vulnerability of about all children who refuse institutionalisation, through a community based care, protection and rehabilitation programme, Muktangan, which is owned and run in collaboration with the Railway Protection Force, a law enforcement agency that is responsible for security and protection of law in Indian Railways. Both the organisations are working towards ensuring the children’s right to citizenship and identity, education and awareness of their rights and entitlements, their ability to make informed choices, protection from violence, sexual abuse and exploitation, protection from STD and HIV AIDS, protection from early pregnancy in girls, their skills for occupations and their rehabilitation on the whole.

3. Protection and rehabilitation of children living and working on the streets of Khulna, Barisal, Rajshahi and Kolkata

(SANJOG, supported by: Groupe Developpement and European Commission )

The phenomemon of children living and working on the streets and street like situations plagues all urban hubs of South Asia. While the moral battle against child labour is on, social, economic and political factors pushing children to take to the streets and work remains unresolved.

Globalisation, deepened divides between classes, regional disparities in development, natural and man made disasters – all contribute to the problem. The demand for children in urban economies for exploitative labour and other forms of exploitation, including sexual exploitation looms, but remains under-addressed by law or policy.

In Khulna and Barisal, Aparajeyo Bangladesh runs a rehabilitation and protection programme for single migrant children, or children from migrant families who are working and living on the street, as well as children who are trafficked into these places. Khulna has one of the largest fishing industries, and Barisal is a satellite town of Dhaka where the migration between the 2 cities is high.

Aparajeyo Bangladesh also works to rescue children in conflict with law who languish in jails, due to lack of State run juvenile homes. They provide legal support to children in conflict with law, and rehabilitate them into their families, or communities.

In Rajshahi, Association for Community Development runs drop in centres and night shelters for boys living and working on the streets. Due to land erosion, Rajshahi receives a steady flow of children whose families have lost their land and all capital and eventually the families have disintegrated, and children have been forced into streets. Conflicts in the family, arising from divorce, remarriage and polygamy are the 3 most common reasons for children running away from their homes.

In Calcutta, Don Bosco Ashalayam works to address the vulnerabilities of children living and working on the streets and in street like situations. Historically, Calcutta has attracted single migrant children from not only within the state but from all across eastern India as well as Bangladesh. Don Bosco runs a children’s helpline, Childline, in partnership with Childline Foundation India.

4. Addressing poverty in children: child protection initiatives for girls in rural Bangladesh and West Bengal who are vulnerable to economic migration and/or trafficking

For a family living in poverty, the girl child is the most disposable person, since she is a liability for the family. Culture dictates that girls must be married to settle down and have a home and a family to earn security in life. And for marriage, her family must pay dowry. She won’t bring wealth in the family, she drains the family off it. She brings shame and dishonour to her family if she decides to break the rules of sexual purity, monogamy, marriage, procreation of a boy child and servitude to the family she is married into.

Within the same poverty affected class in rural south Asia, boys have economic options that girls do not, and those economic options result in a degree of difference in power, value and options. And rights.

Micro-finance and adolescent girls

With 500 girls across Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapai Nawabgunge, Association for Community Development has formed self-help groups, and operating a micro finance programme. Within the groups, the organisation is empowering girls with information, for them to make informed choices on issues of child marriage, early pregnancy, migration for work, migration through marriage, divorce, polygamy, women’s rights and children’s rights, the intersection between religious and civil laws on domestic violence, dowry, women and work and their education.

Upon insistence from the girls, who felt that balance in power between men and women necessitates that boys’ attitudes towards women needs to change, ACD formed self help groups with 200 boys.

Empowerment through micro-finance is a process. The success of a micro finance is about the process of collectivisation, bonding, venturing, risk taking and providing each other the support of collaterals. A few of the indicators of this process are:

1. A girl is eligible for micro-finance only if she can maintain her accounts book. If she is illiterate, she has the option of joining a literacy centre, which is a 6 month course, which educates her in 3 Rs –reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic. Literacy is made to be fun and functional.
2. The credit opportunity is valid only if the family does not get the girl married off before the age of 18. If so be the case, then the asset can be taken away from the family. This gives the social worker a leverage to negotiate on the issue of child marriage.
3. Even with goats and cows, this is the first time a daughter brings in wealth and asset to the family. Traditionally, she has had to work in unpaid labour like domestic work, or chores in cultivation in the family. Her labour in rolling bidis (local cigarettes) was never regarded as work, and neither was her earning truly hers. The programme aims to mature to a point where girls will earn the courage of investing in more unconventional ways to earn a living.

Child protection Units in West Bengal

28 organisations in West Bengal, across 10 districts, run vocational training programmes and educational programmes for children and adolescents at risk of trafficking, with a greater focus on girls than on boys.

Education for children is often a bridge course for them to get enrolled into formal schools, in many other cases, it is the only opportunity for children in that village. In some of the local primary schools, the ratio between students to teachers is almost 100:1 and positions vacated due to retirement or transfers of staff remain unfilled.

Vocational training programmes and job placement unit in West Bengal Child protection Units in West Bengal

28 community based organisations in West Bengal, across 10 districts, run vocational training programmes for children and adolescents at risk of trafficking, with a greater focus on girls than on boys. The programme benefits almost 1,200 children annually.

Job Placement centres

To meet the challenge of placements in jobs and internships of boys and girls who are skilled or semi skilled in vocations like carpentry, bakery, welding, mechanics in television, refrigerators and air conditioners, Don Bosco Ashalayam has started a job placement unit which creates linkages between the agencies recruiting people for such positions, and the young men and women of 18 and above who have completed their trainings and look out for jobs. Some of the older adolescents are placed in internships where they are trained on the job. Job placement is a huge challenge for NGOs because the traditional form of induction into labour, particularly in informal and semi-formal sectors, is through child labour.

For example, young boys from 8 years of age onwards, are placed into internships in garages for them to be a motor mechanic, or in carpentry units, or as labour in restaurants, shops and establishments, as cooks, as helpers of taxi drivers or truck drivers and so on. In the last 2 years, Don Bosco has placed boys in hotels and establishments, television and refrigeration and air conditioner repair units, bakeries, as salesman in establishments and as office assistants. Many corporates like the Park, a 5 star hotel of Calcutta have provided placements to young adults in housekeeping, kitchen and service departments.

5. Promoting Child Protection and arresting criminalisation in adolescents

As an initiative towards promotion of community policing and child protection, Kolkata police initiated action to ensure that all children in marginalized communities of Kolkata have access to education. This is also a gesture by the police to educate children that the police as an agency cares for and protects children.

Dropping out of formal education is one of the symptoms of children and adolescents being forced into vulnerabilities to criminalisation. Groupe Developpement supports the initiative by Vikramshila and CRY to (a) ensure children's rights to quality education (b) address violence against children in their families and communities (c) develop their life skills to desist from criminalisation

Groupe Developpement supports Vikramshila for 6 centes of Nabadisha in Kolkata – Beniapukur, Bowbazaar, Watgunge, Metiabruz, Howrah and Tiljala. The programme is being developed to address violence against children in their families and communities, children and adolescents’ skills at conflict resolution and empowering children through life skills education. A Childline campaign has been initiated to ensure that a child has access to an emergency helpline if he or she feels vulnerable or exploited.

6. Addressing substance abuse in children and adolescents living and working in streets and railway stations

The incidence of children using intoxicants to cope with street life is high, and a global phenomenon. The use of glue, cigarettes (or local variations of it like the bidi in South Asia), chewing tobacco subsequently graduates to harder substances like cough syrup, alcohol, brown sugar (a derivative of heroin), painkillers and even astonishing local addictive substances like burnt lizards' tails. NGOs face a double-edged challenge in such situations, since ethically it cannot allow the use of drugs in its shelters/ drop in centers or programme spaces. On the other hand, this is the reason why many children do not access night shelters, drop in centers or shelter homes, and would rather withstand abuse and exploitation of street life. Outreach or street based work to prevent such behaviors is an uphill task - since the uncontrollable variables are so powerful. Groupe Developpement provides technical support to partner organisations working with a population affected by the problem by way of training of staff to build their knowledge bases on the issue and their capacities in motivating these children to realize the harms of substance dependence and providing options of accessing detoxification programmes for children and adolescents.

7. Gender and sexuality programme

Mainstream gender constructs lie at the heart of violence, conflict, abuse, exploitation and disempowerment. On the one hand it represses women and girls and deprives them their social, economic and political entitlements, and on the other hand, it encourages boys and men to live upto social, economic and political roles of patriarchs. Groupe Developpement mandates working with girls and boys to fight the socialisation of patriarchy to the fullest, so that girls can explore their rights to life to the fullest, and boys can redefine their gender identities without having to conform to the restricted roles of protector, provider and predator.

The organisation offers training to caregivers, social workers, policy and programme designers to ensure that all programmes for children are free of sex or gender based discrimination. Specifically, we promote

(a) non traditional vocational and economic roles for girls and boys to promote equity in work, labour and resources
(b) working with boys to redefine their roles in families and communities to enhance men’s involvement in so called feminine work
(c) information to boys and girls on issues of sexuality and health, to mitigate tensions between the sexes that arise from lack of knowledge and repressed curiosity.

8. Empowering caregivers
9. Life skills education