Children Sent to the Middle East to Beg

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 Trafficked children and young women found by us are:

• Working as prostitutes/sexual slaves in the brothels of Calcutta hotels, in private houses and in several upcoming resorts in the so called tourist areas.
• Working as cheap labour in bangle, carpet, ornament and brass factories in parts of UP and in the metro cities of Calcutta, Mumbai and Delhi, staying as wives but forced to be sexual slaves.
• Working as house maids, utensil washers in tea shops in towns and metro cities.
• Working as beggars or runners in camel races, in the Middle East.
• Being sold to provide organs to those who can pay large amounts to buy them.

 76 children, mainly girls and some physically handicapped returned from Jedda. They were sent to beg during the Haj. Within a month of the return of this group, 47 boys were trafficked for begging. The local people in the villages of Ilahipur, Shahajadpur and Lokpur of Murshidabad District are well aware of such trafficking. It is known as "disco" business.

 No complaints were recorded with the local police. It was arranged for false certificates to be issued in order to get passports through local authorities. Mahajans, gold merchants, money lenders invest money in touts to smuggle gold using the children for smuggling. The children of course are not paid anything.

 Some of the informants reported that local politicians are well aware of the existence of child trafficking to West Asia since 1980. However, fear of threats and violence keeps their mouth shut. An informant estimated that approximately 50 children are flown to West Asia for such trade every year.

 Another informant said that touts have been operating this business in trafficking children to West Asia since 1979. The political parties are aware but no one brings up the issue. According to the informant passport authorities , policemen and businessmen are also involved.

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How to Earn big bucks: Rent a child to Chacha

The Asian Age (16 March 1997)

 New Delhi: A day after 46 children were deported by Saudi Arabian authorities to Mumbai on February 3, three researchers landed in Murshidabad, the district in West Bengal bordering Bangladesh with the dubious distinction of selling its children into rackets as various and international as camel racing, prostitution and begging.

 For the three men, J.Gathia, A.K.M. Anwar and Vinod Saini from the Delhi-based NGO Centre for Concern for Child Labour (CCCL), Murshidabad was a familiar place from earlier visits to study the racket of selling five- and six-year-old boys as camel jockeys in Gulf countries. But unlike their visit there six years ago, the people in the district headquarters town of Berhampur were in a different mood: tight-lipped, moving away hastily and fearfully each time the subject of the deported children was mentioned by the researchers....

 .... What was more alarming was the fact that the practice is increasing rapidly, with an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 children smuggled out every year to Saudi Arabia for begging during the Haj season. From Murshidabad alone, some 400 children accompanied by their chachas leave every year, and not all of them return home again...

 ... thousands of poor families are succumbing to the lure of ready cash and gold to barter their children. "With that money, I can pay off my Rs. 6,000 debts and buy some land, as well as get my daughter married," explained Sabur Ali of Udaichandpur...Girls...have become the magic key of money."

 Most men in Murshidabad share this attitude, that girls, who so far were nothing but a drain on scarce family income, are now a valuable source of income. On the other hand, the women seem to be more unhappy with this new course of activity. "They don't speak, especially not in front of their men, but it is evident that they are more uncomfortable with the situation than the men, who seem impervious to the plight of the young girls," says Gathia.

 On the 20 km-belt along which the researchers travelled, they encountered only one child, a 15 year-old boy who had returned from the Haj after completing his tenure as a beggar. His only regret appeared to be that he was too old to be employed in the racket now, forcing him to take an ill-paid job as an agricultural worker.

 But Gathia says that the absence of children who have returned from Mecca is not an indication that children continue to remain in Saudi Arabia. Instead, he feels, parents are reluctant to divulge details of the children who have returned either because the agents have warned them against it or because of the fear of this lucrative trade drying up under public scrutiny.....

 As one woman social worker ....told them," I don't think all the parents contract their children because of poverty...Otherwise, why should a father with 20 bighas of land send their daughter Munakka, for begging?"

 Munakka is a valuable asset to her middle-class family, not only because she is a girl (girls get an additional bonus of a gold chain or other ornament, besides the Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000 cash) but because she is handicapped. The latest trend in the market for child beggars is handicapped children, especially girls.

 According to the research findings, the mafia is not only well organised but appears to understand its supply market better than the most updated MNCs....By carrying the children to Mecca, the agents are not only assured of high profits but also cater to the religious sentiments of the parents, who as devout Muslims can wish nothing better for their children than a sponsored trip to Mecca.

 Many of the Hajis are women who are recruited by the agents...in order to escape the vigilant immigration authorities in Saudi Arabia....

 The CCCL study has calculated the economics of the begging racket, with an average expenditure of Rs. 1.71 lakhs per child on the entire trip, including tickets for herself as well as her escort, and "protection money" paid to local authorities. During peak season, a beggar child in Mecca earns up to 200 riyals a day (Rs. 2000), duly handed over to their chacha, leaving the operators with a whopping annual profit of Rs. five lakhs per child.

 A Rs. 20 crore per annum racket which nobody wants to touch. The police say they are helpless unless they receive a complaint from the parents. And the parents are anxious not to lose this avenue for easy money. Political parties are reluctant to touch the sensitive subject of Haj pilgrimage, and the local passport and custom authorities are apparently happy with the commission they get.

 One villager deported from Saudi Arabia told the researchers that a passport and visa could be procured within a week for a few thousand rupees....

 Apart from their policemen, Murshidabad's villagers, including the children regard Saudi Arabia as a veritable goldmine. The children released from the remand home referred to the chicken and rice meals, the clean roads and the Pepsi Cola. "Each time we wanted water, we got a Pepsi," recounted one of the deported children, an eight-year-old obviously unhappy at his aborted trip to Mecca.