The COVID-19 crisis has brought unprecedented challenges for millions of people around the world. Despite being termed the ‘great equaliser,’ the pandemic has disproportionately impacted marginalised communities across the world. Among these communities, approximately 6,57,800 sex workers in India were left to fend for themselves, leaving them more vulnerable than before the pandemic.
Cramped in brothels, sex workers are usually migrants with insecure legal and residency status and face significant challenges in accessing health services or financial relief, which exacerbates their vulnerability.
As soon as the lockdown was announced last year, most sex work around the world ceased. As a result of physical distancing and lockdown measures to contain the spread of COVID-19, sex workers were rendered financially compromised and vulnerable. Despite the announcement of several financial packages, such as the Prime Minister’s Garib Kalyan Yojana, to reduce the impact of COVID-19, sex workers couldn’t avail of such packages as they did not have Jan Dhan accounts and hence, did not qualify for assistance.
Election rallies and Cyclone Yaas in West Bengal
The onset of the second COVID-19 wave in the country coincided with the announcement of assembly elections dates in various states, with West Bengal being one of them. While the entire country was still reeling from the shock of the second wave and social media was filled with SOS messages for oxygen, ventilator beds and medicines, the political parties in the state continued with their political extravaganzas. This led to election rallies becoming super-spreader events in the state, with daily cases seeing a nearly 6,000% increase from March 1 – April 22 in poll-bound Bengal.
Despite the election commission issuing multiple warnings, none of the political parties paid any heed. The commission ultimately placed restrictions on significant public events, limiting political meetings to 500 people as long as they could be held in accordance with COVID-19 safety rules.
In addition to that, the devastation Cyclone Yaas wreaked in the state posed another challenge. The cyclone not only disrupted the vaccination drive, but several vaccination centres had to be suspended. As disaster preparedness was not considered during the pandemic, the state found itself caught between a rock and a hard place since infections could spread in shelter homes, as they did in the neighbouring state of Odisha.
The co-occurrence of Cyclone Amphan during the first wave of COVID-19 in 2020 and Cyclone Yaas during the second wave in 2020 have been disastrous as the state has had to simultaneously deal with an ongoing pandemic and the aftermath of a natural disaster.
A man salvages his belongings from the rubble of a damaged shop after Cyclone Amphan made its landfall, in South 24 Parganas district in the eastern state of West Bengal, India, May 21, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Rupak De Chowdhuri
Context of human trafficking in West Bengal
As per the Crimes in India Statistics, 2019 issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, a total of 2,260 cases of human trafficking were registered in 2019 compared to 2,278 cases in 2018, showing a decrease of 0.8%. Whether or not there was an actual decrease in human trafficking crimes (as demonstrated by the data) is challenging to say as the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) used a different methodology in 2019 than in previous years.
Trafficking is prevalent in almost all parts of India but it is widespread in India’s Eastern region, especially in Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, and West Bengal. Unlike other places, these states are both the source and the destination for trafficking crimes. This region is also the transit route for the international trafficking of women from Bangladesh to other states in India.
Amongst these four states, the state of West Bengal makes an interesting case study as there are two sources of trafficking; one from within and one from across the border from Bangladesh.
West Bengal shares an approximately 2,220 km land border and a 259 km-long riverine border with Bangladesh. A large section of the Indo-Bangladesh border is unfenced and porous, making it vulnerable to the trafficking of persons, drugs and fake currency. In a joint study conducted by the Border Security Force and the NGO Justice and Care, it was found out that the most susceptible districts to the trafficking of persons include the North 24 Parganas, the South 24 Parganas, Murshidabad, North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur, Nadia, Malda, and Cooch Behar.
The border with Bangladesh from Jalangi to Farrakha in the Murshidabad district is the hub of trafficking. The road leading to the Farrakha barrage and along the ghats comprises huts that are hubs of sex work. This route is rife with smugglers who often supply women to border forces to facilitate smuggling.
The Supreme Court of India had constituted a panel in 2011 which submitted its report in 2019. The panel asked the apex court to direct the NCRB to compile data on missing children and women to identify the areas prone to trafficking. As per the study, West Bengal had the second-largest number of missing children and women from 2016-18. The highest number of missing women reported during 2018 was 2,584. The Nadia district, in particular, climbed the ladder from being fourth in 2017 (1,708 missing women) to second in 2018 (2,468 missing women) among West Bengal’s districts.
As per the Trafficking in Persons Report, 2020, West Bengal state authorities allegedly ordered police to register trafficking cases as kidnapping or missing persons to reduce trafficking cases in official statistics. Government data demonstrated that court delays and lack of prioritisation of trafficking had left 93% of trafficking cases pending trial in West Bengal. The state essentially convicted fewer than 1% of suspects charged with human trafficking between 2008 and 2018. The central government added inter-state and transnational trafficking cases to the National Investigation Agency’s mandate, its premier investigating body, resulting in the disruption of several inter-state and cross-border trafficking rings in West Bengal and Bangladesh.
The West Bengal Victim Compensation Scheme, 2012, only awarded compensation to three trafficking survivors, including one case in September, 2019, despite having the highest compensation applications. Some states controlled how victims could use this compensation, such as requiring them to put it into annuity schemes. The Calcutta High Court ruled against West Bengal’s policy limiting victims to small, monthly withdrawals over 10 years.
Impact of COVID-19 on anti-trafficking initiatives
In a series of roundtable discussions by Prerana’s Anti-trafficking Online Resource Centre and The Movement on the impact of COVID-19 on anti-trafficking initiatives, many NGOs shared that there has been a change in the trends and needs of the anti-trafficking sector. With the closing of brothels, many women from red-light areas moved back to their hometowns. With no avenues to earn in rural areas, women who moved back to their hometowns would travel from places like the South 24 Parganas to Sealdah (SDAH) Railway Station, facing physical and sexual abuse along the way.
The women who continued to stay in the brothels were either starving themselves or taking loans and advances from brothel owners to survive, thus deepening their risk of exploitation for repayment in the future and adding to their existing debt. While many organisations transferred cash to the victims and their families, those families living in remote villages found it challenging to reach ATMs to withdraw the money.
While speaking to Sudha Upadhyayula, Head of Operations from My Choices Foundation, an organisation working on stopping domestic violence and the preventing sex trafficking, she states, “When COVID-19 stalled in-person soliciting, the traffickers took advantage of that situation and started taking orders for soliciting online. This led to an increase in the demand for child pornography, thus increasing the possibility of child sexual abuse.”
The opening of liquor shops had a negative impact on the communities as savings were used to buy alcohol instead of necessary provisions in some cases. The increase in liquor expenditure saw a concomitant increase in the instances of alcohol-induced violence within families. Apart from sex trafficking, there was also a rise in the trafficking of women and children from marginalised communities, such as Dalits and De-notified Tribes (DNTs), for labour exploitation, especially in brick kilns.
Impact on children and women
For many anti-trafficking initiatives that focus on preventing second-generation sex work by providing services like psycho-social support to the children of sex workers or sending them to residential schools, the lockdown caused a break in the delivery of services.
We spoke to Tinku Khanna, the Director of Apne Aap Women Worldwide (AAWW), who said, “We have witnessed that there has been an increase in the number of child marriages ever since the pandemic started as parents looked for ways to lessen their financial burden(s) by marrying their daughters off or bringing in a daughter-in-law to help support them in generating an income.”
AAWW has been working on both the ‘supply’ and the ‘demand’ side of sex trafficking for the last three decades. The organisation works towards preventing second-generation sex work by sending children of sex workers to residential schools to break the cycle of violence and abuse.
Khanna also said, “With [the] shutting down of schools and hostels, we have seen a terrible disruption in the education of these children, so we at AAWW are also trying to allocate resources in such a way that there is a focus on their education. While we were at it, we also realised that children could only study as long as they have food in their stomachs and feel protected at home, so we are trying to navigate our way from a brothel ecosystem point of view.”
The West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBCPCR) recorded 141 child marriage cases since lockdown. These reported cases were mainly from the South 24 Parganas, North 24 Parganas, East Burdwan and West Burdwan. There was an increase in the number of child sexual abuse cases, a trend observed by many organisations working in the source areas.
Soma Bhowmick, chairperson of the Child Welfare Committee, Murshidabad, stated that, “In light of COVID-19, there was a restriction of all movement (in and out) of Child Care Institutions (CCIs) and the restoration initiatives. Hence, the victims who were supposed to reunite with [their] families continued to stay at CCIs. There were no visits from their parents/guardians allowed which adversely affected their mental health.”
Apart from the access to necessary provisions being impacted in shelter homes, the victims also experienced higher fear and anxiety than before because their future path for rehabilitation looked uncertain. The mental health of all victims was adversely affected and worsened for the ones with pre-existing mental health conditions. Many survivors who were on the path to rehabilitation lost their jobs, shut down their enterprises and were again at the risk of being exploited/trafficked.
With the rural economy having suffered due to the shutdown of all economic activities, there was an increase in the repatriated victims’ re-trafficking from the source areas. Many victims suffered domestic violence, raising concerns about their safety and protection within the home, something that the The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) reported as the Shadow Pandemic; that is, the increase in all types of violence against women and girls, particularly domestic violence.
Additionally, there was an indefinite halt in the repatriation process, resulting in the expiration of travel permits of many Bangladeshi girls and women.
The COVID-19 crisis and the needs of the anti-trafficking sector in India/West Bengal
Need for reskilling
South Kolkata Hamari Muskan (SKHM) is an anti-trafficking organisation working in Kolkata since 2009. It works in the red-light areas of Sonagachi and Bowbazar with children, adolescent and women survivors to protect them from different forms of violence and abuse and build their confidence and resilience to choose a dignified life.
Srabani Sarkar Neogi, the brain behind SKHM, said, “The fear of contagion that came with COVID-19 was similar to the HIV fear in the early 1990s. However, then there were many awareness drives on condom programming for prevention, which was not the case for Coronavirus. While anti-trafficking initiatives have focused on alternative livelihoods in the past, this pandemic showed that prostitution is not a long-term livelihood option. Thus, there is a need for both the state and civil society organisations to reimagine what employability skills victims might need so that they can cope with the changes in the economy once the crisis subsides.”
Some organisations have tried to provide online skill-development classes but found it challenging because some skills require physical training and demonstration (like beauty and wellness) and cannot be taught remotely.
Prioritisation of healthcare needs
With the lifting of the countrywide lockdown, women from the red-light area and victims of commercial sexual exploitation face a higher risk of contracting COVID-19 from customers, which is why their healthcare needs to be prioritised. There is very little clarity in guidelines concerning Child Care Institutes (CCIs) and shelter homes for victims of trafficking crimes. They are mandated to establish isolation centres but do not have the necessary infrastructure.
Documentation to access government welfare schemes
Many organisations shared that none of the women they work with receive government support as they do not possess the requisite documentation, such as a voter ID card, Aadhaar Card or the like. Even the ones who have the documents do not receive government support. Most women are also unaware of the government’s schemes.
Civil society organisations and the government need to undertake rehabilitation efforts for the victims. There is a need to advocate for converting bank accounts of Victims of Trafficking (VoTs) into the Government of India’s financial inclusion program, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, to receive financial support from the government.
Conclusion
The NGO sector working on anti-trafficking initiatives has swiftly responded to the changing needs of COVID-19. They have done so by helping with financial resources, advocacy with the governments to include sex workers in the pandemic response and through general relief work, such as distributing dry ration and safety kits.
Despite some government schemes being in place, sex workers often do not seek such social protection schemes due to the fear of police arrests, violence, disruption in aid by law enforcement and compulsory deportation. This leads to the exclusion of the most marginalised among them, including homeless, trans persons or migrants.
It is therefore critical for the governments and frontline workers to design effective and inclusive interventions.
Sumati Thusoo is the founder and director at NyayaSarathy Foundation working to increase access to justice for marginalised communities and is associated with Monk Prayogshala.
