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The National Commission for Women is sending a team to probe the “awful and unbelievable” reports that indebted farmers in Uttar Pradesh’s drought-hit Bundelkhand region are selling off their women to survive
The National Commission for Women (NCW) has decided to take quick action and send a team to make out a report within 24 hours, after media reports that protracted drought in Bundelkhand has not only been forcing farmers to commit suicide but coercing many to ‘mortgage’ their wives and daughters to moneylenders in a bid to survive “It is awful and unbelievable that it still happens in the country,” NCW chairperson Girija Vyas said on September 7, 2009. Vyas added that the Commission had asked NGOs to visit Bundelkhand to assess the situation and come out with a report within 24 hours, whilst also shooting off a letter to the Uttar Pradesh chief secretary demanding a full report on the situation within 48 hours. The NCW has also demanded action against police officials who tried to stop farmers from interacting with journalists, as shown on television. So far, the Uttar Pradesh government has avoided answering questions from the media despite several cases of indebted farmers ‘mortgaging’ or ‘pawning’ their wives and, in some cases, their children too. Left without money due to failed crops, farmers have reportedly been selling their women to moneylenders for Rs 4,000-12,000. The deals are allegedly being settled on stamp paper, under the heading ‘Vivaha Anubandh’ (Marriage Contract). Once the new “husband” is tired of the woman, she is allegedly sold to another man. In most cases, the women are illiterate and cannot read what is written in the “contract”. One victim said: “My husband sold me to another man for Rs 8,000 only. My buyer took me to court to make our wedding look legal. During the trip I got a chance to escape.” A farmer who helped expose the situation to the media said he is now being harassed. “I was summoned to the police station and questioned,” the man, known only as Kalicharan, said. “I told them I had spoken to the media because no one was listening to us. But they threatened me and said I was lying. My wife was also called to the police station.” As farming in Bundelkhand depends almost entirely on the monsoon, people have to wait a year for it to rain; or they migrate. However, migration does not solve their problems either. The cycle of exploitation that starts with debt at the village level, continues at the bus stand, where high fares are charged, and culminates in desperate living conditions and poor wages in urban locations. The Centre has been talking of creating a separate authority for Bundelkhand, but some sections now want independent statehood. Local activists fear that as the Centre-state political tussle continues, drought-hit Chhattarpur district is on its way to becoming the epicenter of an exodus. Farmers may have been migrating from this region for several years, but this year thousands of people are moving every day in a bid to eke out a living in Delhi, Haryana or Punjab. “Every day, 8,000-10,000 people leave,” says Rakesh Naik, a private operator at the Chhattarpur bus stand. “People have been migrating for the last three years, but never like this. Go to the villages if you really want to see palaayan (migration),” he says. Meanwhile, the government remains in ‘assessment mode’. The reasons for the mass migration: crop failure, massive debt, chronic unemployment, and practical problems with the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). In Chhattarpur alone, over 150,000 farmers have migrated within the last month. Even though it has been declared a drought-hit region, farmers complain that no relief has reached them yet. Source: IANS, September 7, 2009
Hindustan Times, September 7, 2009
The Hindu, September 6-7, 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk, September 2009
http://ibnlive.in.com/, September 2009
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