Climate change is not only occurring, it is accelerating. Deforestation
\naccounts for almost 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. One idea is to reduce
\nthis figure by giving forests a monetary value based on their capacity to
\nstore carbon and thus reduce greenhouse gases. This may eventually lead to
\ndeveloped countries paying developing ones to reduce emissions caused by
\ndeforestation and forest degradation.<\/p>\n
The snake charming ban has stripped 800,000 members of Bengal’s Bedia
\ncommunity, who have worked as snake-charmers for generations, of their only
\nsource of income, while an estimated 20,000 are serving jail terms for
\ndefying the ban.<\/p>\n
The world must do more to confront the largely unstudied and neglected
\nphenomenon of people-trafficking. So little is known about the problem,
\nthat no estimate can be given of the number affected. There is lack of a
\ncommon understanding of what human trafficking is, and whom it affects.<\/p>\n
For generations, the ethnic Muslim Rohingya have endured persecution by the
\nruling junta of Myanmar, a predominantly Buddhist country. The plight of
\nthe Rohingya, descendants of Arab traders from the 7th century, gained
\ninternational attention after five boatloads of haggard migrants were found
\nin the waters around Indonesia and the Andaman Islands.<\/p>\n
The Tanzania Teachers’ Union is taking legal action after 19 primary school
\nteachers were given the cane. The teachers were caned by a police officer
\nin front of their pupils after an investigation into poor exam results at
\nthree schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless a mechanism is put into place that makes forests worth more alive
\nthan dead, deforestation will continue until the world\u2019s tropical forests
\nare completely destroyed. In the absence of large-scale incentives for
\nconservation, an enormous number of the world\u2019s species of plants and
\nanimals and the resource base of millions of indigenous peoples and forest
\ncommunities will ultimately go up in smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bedia community is nomadic and regards snake-charming as its
\nbirthright. The ban has severely affected 100,000 families in West Bengal’s
\nCooch Behar, Murshidabad and Malda districts.<\/p>\n
The most commonly used term for the problem – “people-trafficking” – itself
\nemphasises the transaction aspects of the crime, rather than the day-to-day
\nexperience of modern enslavement. And it suggests the trafficking
\nphenomenon is little understood in all its forms from child soldiering to
\nsweatshop labour, domestic servitude, and even entire villages in bondage.<\/p>\n
But unlike the Kurds or the Palestinians, no one has championed the cause
\nof the Rohingya. Most countries, from Saudi Arabia to Malaysia, see them as
\nlittle more than a source of cheap labor for the dirtiest and most
\ndangerous jobs. “The Rohingya are probably the most friendless people in
\nthe world. They just have no one advocating for them at all. Hardly any of
\nthem have legal status anywhere in the world.”<\/p>\n
The report blamed teachers for being late or not showing up for work and
\nnot teaching the official syllabus. One of the caned teachers, Ativus
\nLeonard, 33, said he was now too ashamed to meet his pupils.<\/p>\n
Political and financial support could be provided to indigenous peoples if
\ngovernments decide that local forestry practices contribute to storing
\ncarbon. \u201cIf instituted in a manner consistent with indigenous interests,
\nreduced deforestation could help to protect the biodiversity of plants and
\nanimals, help to secure indigenous lands and livelihoods, and provide for
\nthe ongoing culture and community of indigenous and forest-dwelling
\npeoples.”<\/p>\n
Now they have set up a union and campaign group to lobby for an exemption
\nfrom the ban and state support for retraining. They say that if the state
\ncontinues to deny them their traditional source of income it should fund
\nthem to set up snake farms so they can earn a living.<\/p>\n
Statistics suggest that sexual exploitation is the most common form of
\nhuman trafficking (at 79%, followed by forced labour at 18%). This itself
\nmay be an “optical illusion”, because “sexual exploitation is highly
\nvisible in cities or along highways while forced labour is hidden. We only
\nsee the monster’s tail.”<\/p>\n
There are an estimated 750,000 Rohingya living in Myanmar’s mountainous
\nnorthern state of Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh. Thousands flee every
\nyear, trying to escape a life of abuse that was codified in 1982 with a law
\nthat virtually bars them from becoming citizens. Myanmar’s military
\ngovernment has repeatedly denied abusing the Rohingya, though Amnesty
\nInternational said the junta has described them as less than human. Rights
\ngroups have documented widespread abuses, including forced labor, land
\nseizures and rape.<\/p>\n
But indigenous peoples and other observers have also expressed concern
\nabout possible negative impacts. If forests are given monetary value, many
\nfear that – where land tenure rights are unclear and decision-making
\nremains top-down – new conflicts could arise among indigenous and local
\ncommunities and between them and the state.<\/p>\n
The union, the Bedia Federation of India, says if the government cannot
\nlift the ban on snake-charming shows, then it should help them start up
\nsnake farms where they could use their expertise to develop anti-venenes.<\/p>\n
“How many hundreds of thousands of victims are slaving away in sweat shops,
\nfields, mines, factories, or trapped in domestic servitude? Their numbers
\nwill surely swell as the economic crisis deepens the pool of potential
\nvictims and increases demand for cheap goods and services.”<\/p>\n
“It was like living in hell,” said Mohamad Zagit, who left after soldiers
\nconfiscated his family’s rice farm and then threw him in jail for praying
\nat a local mosque. The 23-year-old spoke from his hospital bed in Thailand,
\nwhere he had been detained after fleeing Myanmar.<\/p>\n
“We have no rights,” said Muhamad Shafirullah, who was among 200 migrants
\nrescued by the Indonesian navy. He recalled how he was jailed in Myanmar,
\nhis family’s land stolen and a cousin dragged into the jungle and shot
\ndead. “They rape and kill our women. We can’t practice our religion. We
\naren’t allowed to travel from village to village … It’s almost
\nimpossible, even, to get married or go to school.”<\/p>\n
Mechanisms might exclude local populations from implementation and
\nbenefit-sharing processes, and possibly even expel them from their own
\nterritories: \u201cThe increased monetary value placed on standing forest
\nresources and new forest growth, opens the door for corruption in countries
\nwhere this is already rife in the forest sector. Centralized planning where
\nthe national government creates plans, receives payments and disburses the
\nnew funds only adds to the marginalisation of forest people.”<\/p>\n
“Having lived with the reptiles since childhood, the snake-charmers know
\nonly one vocation, that is handling snakes and holding public shows, but
\nstrong measures adopted by police and forest department for the last decade
\nor so have put them in a difficult situation.”<\/p>\n
Another little-understood aspect of human-trafficking is that female
\noffenders have a more prominent role in people-trafficking than in any
\nother crime, with women accounting for more than 60% of convictions in
\nEastern Europe and Central Asia.<\/p>\n
Twice since the 1970s, waves of attacks by the military and Buddhist
\nvillagers forced hundred of thousands of Rohingya to flee over the border
\nto Bangladesh, a Muslim country whose people speak a similar language. Many
\nhave since been repatriated, but 200,000 still work there as illegal
\nmigrants and another 28,000 live in squalid refugee camps.<\/p>\n
These concerns are reinforced by the difficulties experienced by indigenous
\npeoples in accessing international climate change debates. Indigenous
\npeoples were shocked to see that references to their rights were removed.<\/p>\n
He said hundreds of thousands of Bedia will protest in Calcutta at what
\nwill be the world’s largest-ever gathering of snake-charmers.<\/p>\n
Most countries’ conviction rates rarely exceed 1.5 per 100,000 people –
\n“below the level normally recorded for rare crimes… and proportionately
\nmuch lower than the estimated number of victims”.<\/p>\n
Violence against Rohingya women is common, and they face the threat of
\nprison because of their illegal status. Thousands of Rohingya have taken to
\nthe seas from Bangladesh in search of better jobs, but ended up drowning or
\nat the mercy of traffickers. For years, the Rohingya traveled to the Middle
\nEast for work, with nearly a half million ending up in Saudi Arabia.<\/p>\n
There is also growing concern that indigenous peoples and local communities
\nare \u201cunlikely to benefit if: they do not own their lands; there is no
\nculture of free, prior and informed consent; their identities are not
\nrecognised; or they have no space to participate in political processes.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is sick that we should even need to write a report about slavery in the
\n21st Century. “My 14 children rely on me. They have no safety, no food,
\nnothing,” said Mohamad Salim, a 35-year-old, bearded fisherman who also was
\ndetained and hospitalized in Thailand and begged to be allowed to continue
\nonto Malaysia. “What will they eat? How will they live if I don’t find
\nwork?” he said, his voice trembling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Climate change is not only occurring, it is accelerating. Deforestation accounts for almost 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. One idea is to reduce this figure by giving forests a monetary value based on their capacity to store carbon and thus reduce greenhouse gases. This may eventually lead to developed countries paying developing ones to reduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[50,53,12,14,16,17,33,38,46],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}