Indian Church Fights Human Trafficking

The Catholic Church has vigorously fought against human trafficking in India. Caritas India, the Church's official social service agency, has prepared draft legislation to present to Parliament.

NEW DELHI, INDIA (UCAN) - The Catholic Church and some voluntary agencies in India have initiated a campaign for a law to prevent human trafficking, particularly of women.

Caritas India, the Church's official social service agency, has already prepared draft legislation to present to parliamentarians, its director, Father Varghese Mattamana, told UCA News.

Caritas has scheduled a meeting of all Christian parliamentarians on Dec. 19 in New Delhi to present them the draft legislation, after which the agency will officially present the draft to the federal labor and family and social welfare ministries.

The proposed legislation seeks mandatory registration of all domestic workers with an appropriate government agency. It also wants to fix these workers' minimum wages and other service conditions, such as a healthy work atmosphere, leave and pension.

To highlight human trafficking in India, Caritas and voluntary agencies observed Dec. 9 as Anti-Human Trafficking Day.

Voluntary agencies in Asia, led by the regional Caritas network and Asian Partnership For Human Development, typically observe Anti-Human Trafficking Day on Dec. 12. Organizers of the New Delhi program said they advanced it to a Sunday to attract more people.

The day focuses on those trafficked and vulnerable to trafficking by creating awareness and praying for them in churches, institutions and in meetings of communities all over Asia, a Caritas India press release said.

Around 150 people attended the program at downtown Jantar Mantar, an 18th-century observatory and a common venue for demonstrations in the Indian capital. The organizers staged street plays and other programs to highlight human trafficking in the country.

The press note said that in India, Caritas cooperates with partner organizations in dioceses and Religious congregations as well as voluntary organizations to address the issue. Prevention, protection, rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration are the various levels of checking human trafficking, it added.

For the past 10 years, Caritas India focused mainly on trafficking of women, particularly from tribal areas. Reports say hundreds of young tribal women are brought to cities with the promise of jobs.

Father Mattamana said the Church agency has adopted a two-pronged strategy. The first is plugging "the sources," or conducting counseling and awareness programs in dioceses to educate tribal villagers about the dangers involved in sending women to cities.

The second thrust is to organize migrant women workers, such as domestic maids in cities, into support systems. "We need to set up such a network across India," Father Mattamana said.

M. Shimray, who heads Caritas India's gender department, told UCA News poor tribal women from the states of Assam, Jharkhand and Orissa are brought to cities and sold to sex racketeers.

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The women are moved "from one place to another without telling them where they are taken," Shimray said. "Some don't even know their own home addresses. Some are locked up in houses and treated inhumanly."

Jyotsna Chatterji, who heads the Joint Women's Program of the Church of North India, told UCA News the Dec. 9 program created awareness about trafficked domestic workers' situation.

According to the press release, 10 years ago the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Human Development took up the issue in South Asia, where cross-border as well as in-country human trafficking are rampant. People are trafficked for domestic help, commercial sex, organ sale and drug trafficking.

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Republished by Catholic Online with permission of the Union of Catholic Asian News (UCA News), the world's largest Asian church news agency (www.ucanews.com).