Raid on The Raj Mahal Circus

I have a confession and apology to make. In my posts of last week I wrote that I would be going to a circus rescue operation near Calcutta. This was a deliberate piece of misinformation, just in the (albeit unlikely) eventuality that someone with links to the Indian circus industry might be numbered amongst my readers. Instead the plan was to go to The Raj Mahal Circus which was playing at Akola, near Nagpur in central southern India. We wanted to be sure of total suprise so we didn't inform the child performers' families beforehand (often in the past someone from the families has tipped off the circus) and I decided to mislead through this Blog if I possibly could. Sorry about that...

We had a score to settle with this particular circus as a previous rescue attempt last year had failed (see my posts of 19th/20th August) due to indifference - and most likely the corruption - of the local authorities in the region in which it had been playing at the time. Moreover the Raj Mahal Circus is one of the four circuses owned by Fateh Khan who is the most exploitative of all the circus owners. His son, Raza, is currently facing rape charges for offences at one of his other circuses. Fateh Khan is a very dangerous man and recently he has further empowered himself by taking a leading role in North Indian politics.

I left on Thursday lunchtime, accompanied by journalist Pranaya Rana and photographer Min Ratna Bajracharya of the Nepali Times. We flew to Nagpur via Delhi, and in the end also via Hyderabad as monsoon weather in Nagpur prevented us from landing there initially. Eventually we got to Nagpur and drove through the night to join the rest of the team in Akola at 5.30 a.m. on Friday morning. Meeting Kelvin Symon of ChildLine India Foundation I was told that we would be going to the police at 6.30, one hour later; the police would raid the circus at 7.00 a.m. He was quietly confident of success, following the clear cooperation that the advance party had received from the authorities over the previous few days. Kelvin was already beaming with pleasure as he had been part of the team that had been rebuffed last August and revenge would be sweet.

The raid went like a dream with 20 performers being released without any resistance. Of these 17 were female. One of the males was 43 years old; he had gone to the circus to find work and they wouldn't let him leave again so we readily agreed that he could walk out through the gates with us as well. Of the 20 releasees, 13 were minors (under 18). Six releasees were from Nepal itself and the remainder were (mainly ethnic Nepali) Indian nationals from West Bengal.

Raids always throw up surprises in what one finds and this time a big surprise came in the form of the presence of two foreign female performers, one American the other Italian, who were on short contracts. When I chatted to them it was clear that they had no idea of what was going on around them. They were kept largely separate from the rest of the troupe and allowed to leave the circus to go into town. They didn't know of the rape and violence of the Kahn circuses and never heard of Fateh Khan. Nor did they realise that the other girls weren't being paid. One of them asked me what the attraction of Nepalese girls was and when I said it was their fair skin I could see the penny drop with her. A white girl in a leotard is a great crowd puller for all the wrong reasons.

A key element to the success of the operation was the presence of a barrister, Nandita Rao, on the team. She ensured that everything was done by the book and in accordance with Indian law which is crystal clear on the definition and management of child labour and bonded labour. All of the releasees were modern day slaves and now that the paperwork to that effect has been completed meticulously under Nandita's supervision I am quite confident that the circus owner, Fateh Khan, will go to prison for his crimes.

The circus had been taken entirely by surprise which is perhaps why the raid was so unopposed. But later on in the day one of Khan's brothers turned up on a motor bike outside the police station and threatened some of the team members. The feisty Nandita Rao chased him off telling him that he'd better leave quickly or she would report him to the police for attempting to interrupt a police investigation. For the remainder of the day circus people watched us from jeeps and motor bikes in a continued attempt to intimidate us. In their number was one guy whom my colleague Shailaja (who was on the August 2007 rescue) remembered as having threatened to kill her if she returned to the circus. In spite of all this posturing we knew that we were safe as the police were on our side. Instead we were rather amused that the circus had been so unsettled by our success and no doubt also by the prospect of criminal convictions.

This week all of the releasees will be returned home with a police escort the whole way to their final destination to prevent circus retaliation or abduction. Then we'll help them to rejoin the human race. One girl showed us the marks on her hands which followed cuts received from the trapeze act having been cauterised by the ringmaster using molten wax so that the show could go on. His sordid show is now doomed to close forever.

I feel very proud to have been part of this operation, especially seeing the dedication and commitment of my colleagues. Over those couple of days the team members ate little or no food and worked around the clock. I have an abiding memory of seeing Nandita sleeping in the open in the midst of all the girls in a police courtyard. She told me afterwards that she is immune to the mosquitoes that were devouring the rest of us. Below I publish some film that I shot of the girls leaving the circus for good. I will edit my film footage over the next few days and publish a fuller version towards the end of the week.

The dangers of working against child trafficking

I am currently engaged in an exchange of correspondence with a U.S. based Foundation as I try desperately to raise the funds needed to fund our growing operation against cross border trafficking. Yesterday I was advised by that Foundation's Director that it was likely our dangerous rescue activities would not be eligible for their funding support as their Board would not be prepared to accept the associated liability.

This is an interesting point to reflect upon. There are charitable activities that carry no risk to life or limb at all - for example education or healthcare projects or work with orphaned or street children. That's fair enough and many organisations do wonderful worthy work in these fields. However, the difference with child trafficking projects as compared with the rest is that if you are to undertake work that is of any significance you will automatically be getting in the way of the livelihoods of criminal elements. That inevitably carries risk which in this part of the world where life is so cheap can have fatal consequences. The alternative (and one that some organisations follow) is to just pick up the pieces, say for example helping HIV infected girls who have been sent home as they have outlived their usefulness in the international sex trade or providing counselling to trafficking survivors. Useful as that is, it takes one into the realms of a kind of peaceful coexistence with the trade in human lives. If you are to genuinely "battle" (the word by the way used on this particular U.S. Foundation's website) human trafficking - and by implication win a victory - then you've got to be prepared to take the risks that go with battle.

My mind goes back to an Esther Benjamins Trust Board (Trustee) meeting in early 2003 that immediately followed the research that we had conducted on the abuse of trafficked Nepalese children inside Indian circuses. The question was "what now?". The Board was split down the middle, with one half thinking intervention was too risky and preferring us to confine ourselves to continuing to assist the dependent children of prisoners, disabled children and street children. The other half felt that we had to do something and take risks to rescue these desperate and abused children. The argument was won largely by the outspoken views of one Trustee (of Indian ethnicity) who pointed out that positive changes in the world had been effected by risk takers who stuck their necks out and risked their lives - like Gandhi and Mandela. She supported my view that we should get on with it and the decision was taken to proceed with raiding circuses in association with the Indian authorities. Afterwards I gave that Trustee a big hug for her support. I hadn't wanted the charity that bore my defiant late wife's name, she who had always been a fighter, to confine itself to addressing the symptoms of a problem.

That decision has led to over 300 children and teenagers being rescued from circuses; many had experienced rape and sexual abuse. We are pressing on to the next stage of the battle, firming up our relationship with ChildLine India, towards a final victory. All I need now is the money which doesn't seem too much to ask from those who are remote from the danger, money that will support those of our staff members who believe passionately in what they are doing and are prepared to risk their all.

A good day in Allahabad

Yesterday my colleague in Nepal, Shailaja CM, and I joined Kelvin Symon of ChildLine India and a former circus girl in lodging a petition to the Supreme Court of Uttar Pradesh, north India. We did so at the Allahabad offices of human rights lawyer, Mr K K Roy, who is a member of the Human Rights Law Network (http://www.hrln.org/). The petition was supported by affidavits from 50 circus victims that we had contacted in Nepal and it requested that the Court investigate the excesses, abuse and exploitation of circuses registered in or visiting that State. We hope that such an investigation could lead to circuses having their licenses revoked and shut down if they are found to be acting illegally and trampling over human rights. Uttar Pradesh is notoriously lawless and this may not lead to anything but if by good fortune it does it could result in many more releases of trafficked girls. It's certainly worth a try. We submitted two other petitions to the criminal court, one asking for action to be taken against a named circus owner for rape and another requesting that five girls who were sent to circuses and have gone missing be traced.

During the meeting the young girl who was with us, now 22, told how she had suffered serious stomach pains at the circus. The owners had ignored this, accusing her of faking it in an attempt to escape their clutches. Eventually though they relented. When she returned to Nepal she was diagnosed as having stomach cancer (this was supported by her medical notes). It seemed that the worst experience for her was the punishment that was meted out for "bad behaviour". The circus owner, who was paraplegic, would have the girl perform a full body massage on him. She was so ashamed of this that she we learned of this indirectly through her companion at the interview.

Leafing through the paperwork supporting our requests I stumbled upon a picture of one of the missing girls that had been sent to the parents by the circus. This is part of the trickery to show the girls happy and successful. Pathetically it showed the girl holding a phone to one ear while in the other hand she had a cut out picture of a Bollywood star holding a phone, the implication being that the young girl had herself achieved some star status or was mixing in the right circles. It was an image that haunted me all day.

In the afternoon, and to clear the head, Shailaja, Kelvin and I took a stroll at my invitation to visit Allahabad cathedral. I had spotted this piece of late Victorian architecture the previous day looking very incongruous in the heat of the Allahabad skyline. My intrigue was rewarded with a chance to study some brass memorials that were so evocative of the last few decades of the Raj. There was mention of long-forgotten regiments like the "3rd Brahmans", and army officers dying from blood poisoning (two doctors within two months of one another) and even from a polo accident. There were some great stained glass windows, sadly now in need of restoration, but best of all an altar piece of the crucifixion with a gold leaf mosaic background. I was really getting into that when I was spotted running my fingers over it (one of the delights of mosaic is its tactility) and was politely but firmly shooed off by a cathedral attendant. Apparently I had been standing on some kind of hallowed ground.

South China Morning Post (again)

In my post of 3rd February I mentioned that day's South China Morning Post Sunday magazine's coverage of our work against child trafficking in Nepal. The magazine has kindly allowed us to reproduce the article and here is what was written:

http://www.ebtrust.org.uk/site/assets/pdf/morningpost2008.pdf

Girl trafficker's travels over

The female trafficking agent who was sent to us by ChildLine India at the start of this week has had charges registered against her in spite of her threats against all and sundry. She is not eligible for bail so can now expect to remain behind bars for up to a year until the case comes to court. So that should keep her out of further mischief. If she is convicted she'll face a sentence of up to 20 years and a fine of up to 200,000 rupees (£1600).

We are already looking after the children of imprisoned traffickers (as part of our programme for help to prisoners' children). It would be ironic if through our determined efforts to get this woman convicted we end up caring for her children, if she has any.

Hanuman Dokha Police Station

I have spent most of today "watching the paint dry" in this central Kathmandu police station, but it has been time well spent.

On Sunday we received a call from our Indian partner, ChildLine India, that a girl trafficking agent, two other adults and three girls had been picked up by them at the railway station in the northern Indian border town of Gorakhpur. The group, all Nepalis, were on their way to Mumbai, from where the girls would be sent on to the sex trade in Kuwait. We agreed to their call for help immediately and last evening Shailaja CM, Director of our Nepal partner organisation, Esther Benjamins Memorial Foundation, took a flight to the border crossing near Bhairahawa. There she linked up with the ChildLine co-workers and the trafficking party to begin a seven hour road journey home. They got back to Kathmandu at 2 a.m. The adults went straight to the jail at Hanuman Dokha Police Station while the girls went to our Godawari refuge.

It appears that the two adults in the group were a father of one of the girls and a husband of another. They were accessories to the work of the female agent, who is notorious for operating out of the southwestern Rupendehi District. She protects herself with threats of violence from the Maoists, with whom she claims to be associated. We felt that if we tried to register a case against her in her home district it would most likely fall between the floorboards as relatives - or possibly local Maoists - might intimidate the police into not pressing charges. The key would be to get the case registered in Kathmandu first (away from threats) and then transferred back to Rupendehi District for prosecution. The case would then be followed up from Kathmandu in due course. Today we seem to have been successful in our aim and the group will appear before a Kathmandu Judge tomorrow morning before being sent back to Bhairahawa.

It is actions like this that make the greatest impact against trafficking. I suspect that there are quite few major agents responsible for the trade in human lives and taking them out of circulation would turn off the flow almost overnight.

I look forward to the outcome of the hearing tomorrow. Chances are that the individuals who were due to send their beloved daughter and wife off into the sex trade will get off eventually but I can just about cope with the reality of that if the agent is put away for life.

Organ theft

This time last year along with ChildLine India we conducted a rescue operation at The New Raj Kamal Circus in Uttar Pradesh, north India. Twenty girls were freed from modern day slavery and sexual abuse (see the film on my post of 11th December). At the time another Indian NGO rather hijacked the legal action against the circus owner, Lakhan Chaudhary, who allegedly was himself raping the girls. It all went quiet and the NGO refused to reply to our enquiries about progress of the case. At the end of last year it emerged that nothing had been done and Chaudhary was still a free man.

Working with ChildLine we are now going to attempt to prosecute Chaudhary and 14 of the girls that we freed are willing to give evidence against him. These witnesses are much more relaxed and confident than they were a year ago and for the first time have just revealed a further tragedy to add to the catalogue of horrors from that circus. A seven year old Nepali girl performer allegedly had a kidney removed from her and she died shortly afterwards. Apparently her parents were summoned to the circus and paid off in return for their silence.

If proven, this will be the first case of organ theft that we have come across in relation to child trafficking to the circuses.

Trafficked girls rescued from India

Our partner organisation in India, ChildLine, intercepted some child traffickers in Gorakhpur, North India on Thursday. The picture isn't entirely clear just yet but it seems that their victims were rescued as they were ostensibly on their way to jobs in Delhi, complete with appropriate documentation to commence work. However, instead of boarding a train to Delhi they were going to be put on one going to Mumbai (Bombay), a switch that illiterate girls wouldn't have realised until it was too late. In Mumbai they would have been sold to brothels or sent on to the sex trade in a Gulf state. When ChildLine contacted us for help, we immediately agreed to accept them upon repatriation and take them into our care.

Seven girls are now back in Nepal, waiting at the border before being transferred to our Kathmandu facilities. Of the seven, three are minors. Within the other four, one or possibly two are the agents involved in the crime and the police need to question the group further to establish the truth. Once identified the agent(s) will be brought to justice and face long prison sentences.

This good news coincides with the launch of our online Christmas appeal (see the link on the right). In the first six months of next year, alongside ChildLine, we want to retrieve approximately 150 children and teenage girls from around six Indian circuses. This follows our successful rescue of 280 children in the last four years from other circuses. This time the team will be tackling the most exploitative of the circuses and some very dangerous men, bringing these child abusers to justice through a dedicated lawyer. We need to raise £15,846 to undertake this mission, this covering rescue operations, repatriation and legal action.

Please give as generously as you can.