The Ukhrul Unheard

It is the place to which 20 of the 51 children rescued from two illegal childrens homes in Jaipur were brought back on May 20. A total of 23 children from Manipur were living in pastor Jacob Johns Grace Homes. Of the 19 from Ukhrul,15 were girls. A medical report has now confirmed 13 of them have ruptured hymens,indicating sexual abusethe youngest of them is seven,the eldest 15.

Two of the 51 rescued children have accused John of sexual abuse. A 17-year-old girl from Nagaland has alleged rape.

Ukhrul may be in shock,but officials in its police department say they are far from surprised. For this isnt the first time children from the district have been rescued in similar conditions nor,admit the officials,is it likely to be the last.

This isnt even the first time that children have returned from the Jaipur homes run by the pastor,who is now under arrest. As many as 30 children came back to Ukhrul several years ago after spending five years in his girls home,with similar tales of horror.

The 20 rescued in March are being kept in a centre in Ukhrul and will stay in the care of the government till they are completely rehabilitated. Columbus Leisan,member of the Child Welfare Committee,Ukhrul,and Director,CARE Ukhrul,says that medical examination has confirmed that most of the children were

sexually abused.

They are being given treatment for ricketsthis happens when you are not exposed to the sun for long periods, he says. The children are also undergoing bridge classes so that they can be properly rehabilitated and brought back into mainstream education. They have become wary… they dont like talking of their time at Grace Home.

Her husband died 20 years ago,leaving her at the age of 34 with six children,the eldest of them 14. So when an agent,Nganingmi Vashi,Jacob Johns relative from his first marriage,approached her in 2004 and told her there was a childrens home in Jaipur which provided free education to children of struggling families,she jumped at the opportunity. One of her daughters was 6 at the time.

I was really excited. At least I could send my youngest for an education. My eldest son was in Punjab working as a sales boy-cum-vegetable vendor,the second was with some relatives in Dehradun helping them out. They sent money once in a while. Vashi told me that there was a very good religious man in Rajasthan who helped children from families like ours. I just had to give him

Rs 1,500 for my daughters travel,everything else would be free. He also told me that after she graduated,they would find her a job, she says.

Four years later,her daughter would return from Grace Home,her legs deformed with rickets. Her family only realised the condition she was living in after her eldest brother visited her in Jaipur and saw how ill she was. She had not been taken to a doctor or given any medical care. My son was absolutely furious. He quarrelled with Jacob John and told him that his sister was not like this when she had gone to the home. Despite Johns attempts to stop him,my son brought her back to Ukhrul, she says.

Her daughter now studies in a private school in Ukhrul,with her brothers pooling in to provide the money. Because of her bow legs,she cant work in the fields and education is her only hope. After five years,the 15-year-old says she is glad to be back and claims to have forgotten much of her days in Jaipur,only talking about living in a big house with lots of girls.

Her mother believes the stay in Jaipur affected her memory. She never talks of her time there and has become shy and withdrawn,she says.

The convener of the Alliance for Childs Rights,Ukhrul district,and co-founder of the Participatory Action for Sustainable Development Organisation PASDO,Thotchuila Hongray,says that the non-existent education system is one of the main reasons behind the high level of trafficking in the district. Government schools here are non-functional,which is why so many people living in Ukhrul from different economic backgrounds send their children outside to study, he says.

The lack of education facilities means that when agents say they can provide free education to their children,parents jump at the chance. There are private schools but not everyone can afford them. Many a times even children from economically sound backgrounds are sent because parents want them to gain exposure, he adds.

However,it is the orphans and children without fathers who are easy targets.

A 19-year-old and a 14-year-old came back to Ukhrul in 2011. The 19-year-old returned after spending eight years at Grace Home,while the younger one had gone to the home in 2008. She suffers from severe rickets now and has trouble walking through the towns steep slopes.

She is initially reticent but later talks about her time at Grace Home. I hated it there, she says. I was allowed to talk to my parents but wasnt allowed to tell them to bring me back.

According to the 19-year-old,the children were told to only speak in Hindi to each other,not in Tangkhul their native tongue. Twice I was punished when they caught me speaking in Tangkhul. They force fed me chillies as punishment, she says. Two other times she was whipped with steel wires when she told the staff that she didnt like it there and wanted to go back. No one was allowed to complain about the home. We were beaten up if we did, she says.

The Naga girl who alleged that she had been raped by John was her roommate. But the 19-year-old doesnt want to talk about it.

The younger of the two,then 11,recalls that she was happy about going to Jaipur. There were nine of us who were taken by Jacob Johns sister-in-law. We were all excited. None of us had ever been outside Ukhrul. We were thrilled with the bus to Imphal,then the train to Rajasthan.

After the first few years,things took a turn for the worse. One day John gave me a drug and tried grabbing me from behind. I told him to back off. I was his favourite before the incident. After that,he showered attention on the other girls. I know he was sleeping with some of them. For a long time I wanted to come back. Finally,one year,I got permission to come home for Christmas, she says.

The 19-year-old says around 50 girls shared rooms in a building,and that when they fell ill,there were no doctors. One girl got TB and we were told to keep away from her. We were only let out of the house twice a week,when they would take us to the neighbourhood park in the evening. The classes would take place inside and we were all taught together irrespective of our ages. We would cook and clean the house along with the two staffers who were also from Ukhrul, she says.

She too ended up with mild rickets and had trouble walking when she first came back.

She also talks about a friend of hers who was taken away by her family after she fell severely ill. She died on the way back home,in Imphal.

Hongray says that while none of the girls initially admitted it,counselling had revealed that most of the girls kept at Grace Home had been sexually abused or raped.

The children also suffer from rickets because of vitamin D deficiency. These girls were never let out of the house and were kept like prisoners. Apart from the sexual abuse,the children were taken,we believe,because Jacob John would get funding to run the home,very little of which would be spent on the home, he alleges.

The 27 girls and 24 boys,mostly tribals from the Northeast,were rescued from the Grace Homes for boys and girls after raids by child rights and welfare bodies and the Jaipur Police. They were found to be staying in cramped rooms and apparently living on rotting vegetables and grocery.

Kabib K,Superintendent of Police,Ukhrul,admits that the root cause of the problems in Ukhrul district is underdevelopment,lack of educational institutions and the domination of underground groups,primarily the NSCN I-M. There are schools in Ukhrul,says Kabib,where there is only one teacher handling 600-odd children.

Therefore,the incentive to send children out from this area is very high. There is a high level of child migration and trafficking in Ukhrul and we have made cases involving minors a priority. We have found that there are essentially two kinds of child traffickers. First are those who do it purely for profit,where the child is used for labour or other purposes. The other is when the individual may start with good intentions but over the years gets corrupted, says Kabib,adding that apart from child trafficking to other states,the Ukhrul police has to contend with a high number of cases of abduction by underground groups to train children as soldiers.

Apart from these 19 children from Ukhrul one belongs to neighbouring Chandel district but is living in Ukhrul,three have been brought back from Uttar Pradesh,three from Delhi and as many as 26 from Kerala in less than a year. We suspect that a far higher number of children are being illegally taken out from the state than we actually come to know about, the SP says.

With at least 50 per cent of the police posts vacant and the government staff lacking even quarters to live in,administration is almost non-existent,Hongray says.

The police have arrested two Ukhrul agents of Grace Homes and another may be held soon. We will file our own cases, Kabib says,adding that a Supreme Court ruling decrees that no child under the age of 14 years can be taken out of Assam and Manipur.

Officials in the police department said that in at least some cases,child traffickers had deliberately induced deformity. They gave the children drugs or underfed them so that the children would become diseased and then it would be easier for the trafficker or the home to get funding,sometimes even foreign funding. We believe that the Jacob John case is one such case, said an official.