Gross violation of rights of sex workers in Goa. Call for action

[Guest guest]

MURDER OF DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

At 7 am in the morning of the 14th of June 2004 bulldozers tore through and

brutally and indiscriminately obliterated the homes and livelihoods of the

sex workers and the women, men and children living in Baina; the red-light

area of Goa. It was as if the Government of Goa was punishing the women for

unanimously rejecting institutionalisation in a transit camp, surrounded by

barbed wire and security in Ribandar.

The government of Goa, with the help of the police and the Goa State Women’s

Commission have been misusing a court order passed by the High Court in July

2003 to systematically intimidate and victimise the women living in Baina.

Despite repeated requests by the NGOs, and the Forum for Justice in Baina

the government systematically neglected the part of the order that stated

the recommendations by the Justice Kamat committee be implemented prior to

any eviction or “deportation” to their home states. These recommendations

clearly state that a proper socio economic survey of the whole area should

be done and the needs of the women ascertained. If they want rehabilitation

in Goa or in their home states that must be provided; however if they want

to continue in sex work they must be provided with an alternative site,

which should be designated as a red-light area prior to any demolition in

Baina

The authorities also failed to heed the warnings by the NGOs, experts and

the National Commission for Women that experience from elsewhere in India

and the world shows that simply demolishing the red light area will not only

fail to eliminate prostitution from Goa, but will lead to the spread of sex

work over a diffuse and ill defined area, where the women will be invisible,

inaccessible and consequently vulnerable to abuse, violence, and infections

including HIV. This would clearly render useless the decade-long effective

HIV prevention interventions being implemented through peer educators

including information, condom promotion and STI treatment in the area.

The NGOs working in the area had documented and repeatedly reported how the

increase in human rights violations and cordoning off the red light area by

the police since January 2004 had already lead to an increasing number of

girls making short trips to lodgings elsewhere in Goa as well as in other

red light areas in order to survive. The women reported rapes, forced sex

without the protection of condoms, forced sex with multiple partners and

increased risk of violence and police raids. An increase in presentation of

symptomatic STIs to the health services combined with a drop in the condoms

distributed through the NGO programs supported the suspicion that the women

were being becoming more vulnerable to HIV.

A study looking at the health implications of the eviction order was already

underway with the full participation of the community. Unfortunately the

authorities not only failed to heed these well documented concerns, but even

the State Aids Control Society did not seem able to convey the gravity of

these concerns to the authorities; in fact the government cynically used the

issue of HIV to justify their plans, deliberately misleading the public that

the eviction of Baina would remove the threat of HIV from Goa.

Failing to heed any warnings about the adverse effect on HIV prevention

activities and refusing to involve the NGOs or the community in any

rehabilitation plans or plans for the future, the government aided and

abetted by the Goa State Women’s Commission proceeded to plan the eviction

with a complete lack of transparency. Having started to undermine the women

through police intimidation and cutting off their source of income through

cordoning off the area, they moved on to deceiving the women into

registering and making photo identification cards in the guise of rice

distribution. They finally commissioned an agency to do a socio-economic

survey, that was not only unprofessional in its approach, but whose research

team themselves intimidated and threatened the women to accept whatever the

State offers them. The only rehabilitation plan that came out of this

non-transparent and non-participatory process was to offer the women either

institutionalisation in a transit camp in Ribander or to take a train back

to their state of origin (even though many of the women have been born and

brought up in Goa).

Clearly neither of these can be considered rehabilitation. The government

received a resounding vote of no confidence in their plans to

institutionalise the women on the 13th June 2004, when not one single woman

got in the buses for Ribandar – this in spite of a full day of pleading and

intimidation by the full state machinery and the Goa State Women’s

Commission.

Despite the government being served notice by the High Court regarding a

petition to challenge the High Court order on the day of the demolition and

despite the Chairperson of the National Commission for Women emailing the

Chief Minister and Governor and calling the Chief Secretary requesting them

to delay the demolition until the end of July when the National Commission

for Women was due to submit their recommendations for rehabilitation to the

state of Goa, the Government showed its complete disregard for all norms and

humanity by proceeding with the eviction on 14th June 2004.

The Chief

Minister stated quite clearly – in the face of all this national and local

opposition on the grounds of human rights violations, the inhumanity of

demolitions and evictions in the monsoon, a lack of rehabilitation, as well

as the real risk of forcing the women into street walking – the State went

ahead with its demolition plans in the middle of the monsoon rains, in too

much of a hurry to hear the opinions of the High Court, the National

Commission for Women or the women themselves.

The indiscriminate way in which the demolition process has obliterated the

houses and property of families, NGO offices, gharwalis, NGO peer educators,

sex workers, shopkeepers, bar owners (none of whom had been served

demolition notices under the due process of law), and the hurry and

arrogance with which they proceeded to demolish in the middle of the rains,

make it obvious that the Goa Government never had the intention to implement

the High Court order of demolishing just 250 cubicles used for sex work, nor

did they ever genuinely want to rehabilitate the women. Rather it used sex

work and HIV as an excuse to evict the people of Baina – whether this was

driven by ideology or a desire to lay their hands on valuable land, only

time will tell.

Suffice to say that in the name of stopping sex work the

people of Baina, some of the most vulnerable people in Goa (both those

engaged and not engaged in sex work) have been intimidated, abused, forcibly

evicted from their homes in the middle of the rains, they have lost their

homes and their property, and they have been beaten and arrested for just

being there.

Pregnant women were forcibly evicted and their homes

demolished, and at least one woman developed labour pains from the stress of

seeing her life being demolished before her eyes. Women and children were

scurrying all around unable to collect their valuables and belongings before

their homes were demolished. Others are frightened, confused and without

food or shelter, all this in the middle of heavy downpours.

Some are just

trying to escape, with no idea where they will be tomorrow. Without food,

shelter or a home of their own these destitute women are going to be more

vulnerable to pimps and brokers than they ever have been before. In the name

of “cleansing” the state of sex work the government has abdicated any

responsibility for providing shelter or housing for the thousands of people

it has made homeless in one day – in fact, it appears that they are trying

to cleanse the state of the poor. In the name of removing the scourge of HIV

the state is not only guilty of gross human right violations but also

rendering the women, the population of Goa and the population of India more

vulnerable to the spread of HIV than they have ever been before.

Write protest letters to:

Chief Minister of Goa,

Secretariat, Panjim,

Goa – 403001

Email: cmgoa@... <mailto:cmgoa@...>

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