So you thought, Baina was "cleaned" up coz it was a red light area…?

PREETU NAIR

BAINA: *"Last monsoon we were without a house and had to sleep on the road. This monsoon, again our roof is the sky and our bed the earth," said 40-year-old Chandra. Chandra and her husband were living in Baina since last 25 years. But they lost all their savings when their house was demolished. Now they don't have enough money to stay in rented house.

* Maya worked as brothel keeper. But she gave it up 10 years back to lead a more respectable life and became a volunteer with Positive People. But now without any financial assistance or enough money to pay the house rent, she is uncertain about her future. "Don't I have a right to live a life of dignity? Will I always be called a dhandewali? (prostitute) What can we expect from ordinary people when protectors of law treat us like dirt?" she asked.

* Sixty-year-old Muskanbhi is forced to work as domestic help. "It is really difficult times for me. Earlier, I had a house and my children used to stay with me and take care of me. But now after demolition they have gone their own way and I have to fend for myself".

Chandra, Maya and Muskanbhi now live under difficult circumstances because ex-CM Manohar Parrikar didn't follow laws but actually violated them. Removing encroachment is a matter of right for the government, but if the rules were properly followed in letter and spirit then many like Chandra, Maya and Muskanbhi wouldn't have been in such a dismal state.

When Parrikar ordered the bull-dozers to raze the cubicles and shacks in the state's only recognized, albeit unofficially, red light area Baina, he must have thought that he was leaving behind an image of a man who had cleaned up the mess in the otherwise beautiful land. But he fails on three important counts:

FIRST: Parrikar has time and again took refuge in the High Court of Bombay at Goa judgment to justify the crackdown at Baina on June 14, 2004. The High Court judgment said that 250 cubicles being used for carrying on sex trade should be closed down and if the 250 cubicles are illegal and on the government or land belonging to local authorities then steps should be taken to evict the illegal occupants and then demolish them by following the due process of law.

BUT: The Supreme Court in a judgment in 1997 in Gaurav Jain v/s Union of India and others, observed, "Women found in the flesh trade, should be viewed more as victims of adverse socio-economic circumstances rather than as offenders in our society. Prostitution in five star hotels is a license given to persons from higher echelons. The commercial exploitation of sex may be regarded as crime but those trapped in custom oriented prostitution should be viewed as victims of gender oriented vulnerability. Court was concerned in this case more with rehabilitation. Therefore it is emphasized on the review of the relevant law in this behalf, effective implementation of the scheme to provide self-employment, training in weaving, knitting, painting and other meaningful programmes to provide the fallen women the regular source of income by self-employment or after vocational education, the appropriate employment generating schemes in government, semi-government or private organizations." The Supreme Court also laid emphasis on economic rehabilitation for women found in the flesh trade.

SECOND: Bulldozers razed nearly 800 to 1,200 tiled or tin-roofed cubicles and shacks. But 80 percent of these house belonged to people who had no connection with the sex trade, but were migrants chiefly from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who had settled at Baina decades ago, eking out a living as labourers, hawkers and domestic helps. Once again, Parrikar using the High Court order that said that since Commercial Sex Workers (CSW) are not from Goa, the Government is not bound to rehabilitate them except to the extent provided by specific directions in the judgments of the Apex Court and they should be deported to the State from where they come, demanded that all the "non-Goans" staying at Baina should be deported to the State from where they come.

This was in basic violation of the Preamble, an integral part of the Constitution, that pledges to secure 'socio-economic justice' to all its citizens with stated liberties, 'equality of status and of opportunity', assuring 'fraternity' and 'dignity' of the individual in a united and integrated Bharat. Even Article 15 of the Constitution prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religious race, caste, sex or place of birth, or of any of them. Further, Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides that everyone which includes fallen women and their children, is entitled to all the rights and freedom set forth in the Declaration without any without any distinction of any kind such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

THIRD: The High Court in its order had given a rehabilitation plan to the state according to which CSW had to be kept in "transit camp" at Old Bal Niketan, Ribandar, but the residents of Ribandar opposed the plan of the Government and they were also supported by the local Councilor. But both Parrikar government and Goa State Commission for Women, failed to give neither shelter nor employment to the CSW's, as well as other ordinary women who's house were demolished. In January 2005, the government brought about a notification saying that they are introducing the "rehabilitation scheme for Commercially Exploited Women and other residential and commercial establishments demolished at Baina". Many have applied but they are yet to get a reply.

Baina demolition has turned out to be a pyrrhic victory for Parrikar. Having lost their meager belongings and with no meaningful rehabilitation programme in sight, many women and young girls from the area are more likely to join what the government would like to drive out of Goa - the "sex industry".

Eom


(Names have been changed to protect identity)