Fighting the scourge of trafficking……….Akshai Jain
Inspector general of police Sattaru Umapathi of Andhra Pradesh is working to end the evil practice, alter mindsets
Inspector general of police Sattaru Umapathi of Andhra Pradesh is working to end the evil practice, alter mindsets
Human trafficking is not something police officers have a lot of time for; theyve got too many other things to do. So its not surprising that IPS officer Sattaru Umapathi of the Andhra Pradesh police department hadnt paid much attention to it.
Until one day in 2005 when he came across an 11-year-old girl at Prajwala, a Hyderabad-based non-governmental organization (NGO). The girl had been rescued recently from a brothel, where shed entertained as many as 35 customers a day.
Umapathi was shocked. On probing a little further, he found that there were districts of Andhra Pradesh such as Kadapa, Chittoor and Anantapur, from which nearly every third girl had been trafficked into sexual slavery in the brothels of Delhi, Mumbai and Pune.
Thats when I realized, says Umapathi forcefully, that things needed to change.
Today, just five years down the line, Umapathi, inspector general of police, is at the forefront of the movement against human trafficking in India.
On 14 June, the US department of state in its Trafficking in Persons Report 2010 selected him as one of nine anti-trafficking heroes worldwide, commending his work in rescuing victims and arresting traffickers and in changing the mindset of his states law enforcement community by teaching officials to stop treating trafficking victims as criminals.
The results of his efforts have already started showing. While the report places India on the tier II watchlist for the seventh consecutive year, blaming the government of India for not complying with the minimum standards for elimination of trafficking, it picks Andhra Pradesh as a state that has made significant progress against sex trafficking and in protecting its victims.
Over the last year and a half, 85 sex traffickers arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police department have been sentenced to jail terms ranging from 4 years to 14 years. The state now has three anti-trafficking units based in Hyderabad, Eluru and Anantapur, which conduct rescue operations across the country.
Umapathi puts the successes down to the complete change that has taken place in the mindset of police officials in the state.
It started with a letter, in March 2005, from the National Human Rights Commission, instructing state police departments to organize anti-trafficking training programmes for their personnel.
Umapathi, who at the time was posted at the Andhra Pradesh Police Academy, was perfectly placed to act on it. The letter prompted his visit to Prajwala.
The training programmes started soon after in July 2005. Some 5,000 police officers, 290 prosecutors, high court judges and NGOs came together to brainstorm.
There was little knowledge and few systems in place to tackle trafficking. Modalities for everything, from coordinating raids with local police (in Andhra Pradesh and in other states), to training police officers and prosecutors on which sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) to apply, and involving NGOs in the counselling and rehabilitation of the victims, would have to be worked out. Trafficking, they realized, could only be tackled meaningfully if everyone worked in concert.
The learning curve was going to be very steep. In the 34 years of service before that, admits Umapathi, Id never applied most of the sections of the IPC that were discussed in the training programmes.
Over the next few months, trafficking became the focus of Umapathis work. He started documenting the best practices for tackling human trafficking from around the globe, and adapting them to Indian circumstances and laws.
The concept of a nodal NGO in every state, NGOs that the Andhra Pradesh police could rely on for information, take on their raids and work with closely for the rehabilitation of the victims, took shape.
Sunitha Krishnan of Prajwala, who inspired Umapathis anti-trafficking work, believes that Andhra Pradeshs success in tackling trafficking demonstrates the possibility of a perfect and systematic partnership between the police, government agencies and civil society.
Umapathi, according to her, has been the potent and dynamic frontman of the movement, but a lot of the credit goes to the police officers, from havaldars and constables to sub-inspectors, who stand behind him.
In April 2006, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in collaboration with the ministry of home affairs, started a project to train police officers and build capacity in states worst affected by trafficking: Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar and Goa.
The project, which was supported by a $2.5 million (around Rs11.68 crore today) grant from the US government, provided the Andhra Pradesh police enough funds to set up the anti-trafficking units; and give each of the victims they rescued an interim relief amount of Rs10,000.
The police would plan raids in conjunction with nodal NGOs. Once the victims were rescued, theyd be placed in one of the homes of the women development and child welfare department.
In cases where they received information about women and children from Andhra Pradesh being trafficked to other states, Umapathis group of officers would liaison with police officials and the nodal NGO from that state, and conduct joint raids with them.
In their pursuit of traffickers, Umapathis officers have travelled across the country, from Chandrapur in Maharashtra to Delhi, Kolkata and Coimbatore.
Before this, wed only cross state boundaries when we were chasing Naxals and ISI agents, says Umapathi half-jokingly. But we knew that to tackle this problem, wed have to venture out.
Prosecutors who were trained to handle trafficking cases would be engaged to fight the cases.
While the cases were being heard, NGOs would provide the victims, most of whom according to Umapathi are addicted to either alcohol or drugs, with counselling and de-addiction support.
At the end of the process the police would, using its own funds, send the victims back home. The work was strenuous and expensive. It required large teams of Andhra Pradesh police officers to travel for long periods. Back in Hyderabad, Umapathi would collate information, plan raids and coordinate operations with police departments of other states. There was never a free moment.
Hed often get phone calls in the middle of the night from women belonging to various NGOs. Luckily, he laughs, my wife was very understanding. Hed discuss operations and strategies with her every night. Shes been involved in my work from the beginning; and being an advocate, she often gives me very good advice.
The fight against traffickers was more complicated.
Their networks were deeply entrenched. Brothel keepers from Andhra Pradesh had established themselves in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and many smaller cities across the country. Their local contacts would lure impoverished girls from villages with the promise of jobs, and then transport them in groups to these cities. Once theyd been inducted into the trade, the girls would be circulated (in batches of 10 and 15) between brothels in different cities. This would prevent them from forming any local contacts.
To break these networks, the police would have to work backwards from brothel owners to track their local contacts. This was where the real battle lay. Every conviction here translated into saving 100 girls from being trafficked, says Umapathi.
Once the system was institutionalized, success came quickly.
One of the biggest was in Delhi in 2009, when the Andhra Pradesh police officers rescued 54 girls from the notorious brothels of GB Road.
The most recent was in Pune in May. The Andhra Pradesh team, along with police from Maharashtra and West Bengal, rescued 62 minor girls, of which 20 were from Andhra Pradesh and nine from West Bengal.
While sex trafficking remains the focus of his work, Umapathi has also rescued bonded labour including, in a very startling case, children from Nagaland who were trafficked to Nalgonda district in Andhra Pradesh.
NGOs such as Delhi-based STOP, which work on the trafficking of women and children, are all praise for Umapathi. Managing trustee Roma Debabrata says its his (Umapathis) work that has made Andhra Pradesh an excellent model for anti-trafficking efforts.
But Umapathi acknowledges that a lot remains to be done. Studies he has done show that nearly 25% of the girls in the brothels of areas such as GB Road in Delhi still come from Andhra Pradesh.
The next step, according to him, is to venture into prevention (as opposed to their current focus on prohibition). Umapathi has been toying with a few ideas on how to do this.
His latest, of working with and training members of panchayati raj (village council) institutions in the vulnerable districts of Andhra Pradesh, came up over a cup of coffee with the director general of the National Institute of Rural Development in Hyderabad.
In a little over two years from now Umapathi will retire from the government, but that, he says emphatically, will not be the end of his work.
Because thats when he plans to put the LLB degree he acquired a few years ago to use. Theres a shortage of lawyers willing to fight cases on behalf of trafficking victims, he says.