Anti-trafficking

Save The Children India (STCI) , a PACS Programme partner, has implemented an anti-trafficking project in Maharashtra with grassroots organisations and advocacy at the state level. To read more about the project, click here.

The project was implemented in 213 villages of four districts through four district-level CSOs and 71 CBOs. To consolidate the grassroots process and advocacy initiatives, a three-day ‘National Convention on Combating Trafficking amongst Women and Children’ was held on June 29-July 1, 2006’, which was attended by Maharashtra’s chief minister and minister for women and child development.

A five-point action programme (kriti aarakhada) was drawn up to stop trafficking in women and children:

• Raising awareness on the issue, in the state, through government and non-government organisations.
• Prevention of trafficking, through various measures.
• Legislation to stop trafficking.
• Rehabilitation of victims of trafficking.
• Networking among government and non-government organisations.

On July 2, 2006, the government organised a sensitisation meeting in Mumbai for members of the legislative assembly (MLAs). The meeting was also attended by PACS Programme and STCI representatives, and Dr Neelam Gorhe, MLC and president of the Stree Aadhar Kendra, a women’s civil society organisation.

Based on the draft submitted by the STCI to the Maharashtra government, the ministry of women and child development issued a government resolution (GR) on trafficking, in August 2007, to set up district anti-trafficking committees under the chairmanship of the superintendent of police (SP).

Each committee has to have a minimum of three NGO representatives, officials from concerned government departments and elected representatives. These committees are already operational in the state.

 Child rights

A PACS Programme project to ensure children’s rights, particularly the right to education, has been implemented by Socio Economic Development Trust (SEDT) in 260 villages in Parbhani district and 60 villages in three other districts in Marathwada, namely Latur, Nanded and Aurangabad, through 10 partner organisations.

At the end of the project’s third year, not a single child in the age-group 6-14 was out of school in the project villages, in Parbhani district. The state and district education authorities were extremely cooperative in implementing the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in the project areas. As a result, there is no child labour in villages where the programme is operational.

A unique feature of the project is the establishment of bal panchayats in all villages where it operates. Strengthening village education committees (VECs) at the gram panchayat level and also, importantly, parents’ groups in the villages, helped ensure enrolment and retention of children in schools. District authorities in four districts covered by the project helped strengthen committees against child labour and spent SSA funds to improve schools and improve quality of education.

SEDT also engaged in a state-level child rights advocacy effort, with PACS Programme support. These efforts bore fruit when the state government announced, at an annual state-level convention on child rights organised in Mumbai by SEDT on October 4, 2007, and attended by several ministers, that it would set up a bal panchayat in every village of the state, along the lines of SEDT’s bal panchayats.

The government also responded to SEDT’s advocacy efforts by announcing the setting up of a child rights commission at the state level. A resolution to this effect is to be moved in the winter session of the state assembly, in December 2007.

Drought

The Dushkal Hatavu Manus Jagavu (DHMJ) or Maharashtra Drought Forum has emerged as an active platform for advocating the right to water in 960 villages in 11 districts of the state, since March 2004. The forum’s advocacy work includes making decision-makers aware of the issue of drought that severely impacts the overall socio-economic situation of people. Other local issues are also debated at regular village and district meetings where all advocacy initiatives are planned.

Most of the forum’s advocacy initiatives are aimed at local government authorities; representatives from government departments are also present at the meetings. The forum has also initiated a dialogue with the media to highlight local issues. This publicity helps build pressure on government agencies.

The forum has organised meetings with several politicians. It recently met with Ramdas Kadam, opposition leader in the state assembly, who agreed to raise the forum’s concerns in the assembly; this was done in the budget session, in March 2007.

The Osmanabad DHMJ team organised a meeting with the state minister in charge of the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS), J Rana. The meeting’s objective was to coordinate efforts for better implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Around 40 DHMJ district partners, the collector of Osmanabad, the media, and local district officials attended. The minister applauded the efforts of the DHMJ and pledged his government’s support. He made a commitment to organise meetings every month, at the district or regional level, to take stock of NREGA implementation in the presence of officials from his ministry.

On November 25-30, 2007, the DHMJ will hold an event in Latur, at which a state advocacy impact programme will be launched to facilitate and create a collective force of dalits and other marginalised communities. It will submit the demands to ministers and other concerned authorities.

The advocacy programme will start by collecting information from several villages. Selected district partners will identify villages and submit a list of villages to district lead organisations. Gram sabhas will be held in all the identified villages, between October 15 and October 25, 2007; this will be followed by a submission of village resolutions, photographs and documents to district lead organisations, which, in turn, will submit the resolutions to Rural Development Centre (RDC) and Paryay that will finalise the village reports for presentation at the Latur event.

Land rights

Action For Agriculture Renewal in Maharashtra ( AFARM) and its three partner organisations, Paryay, Janvikas Samajik Sanstha and Rural Development Centre, have been working under the PACS Programme on a two-year project in the Marathwada region. The project organises dalits around the issue of land rights from a gender perspective, and promotes sustainable livelihoods on dalits’ gairan lands.

Under the programme ‘Addressing Gender and Livelihood Issues in Land Rights Movement’, dalits are organised at the village level in Dalit Rights and Livelihood Promotion Committees (DRLPCs). Around 240 committees, comprising 2,571 people (1,421 men and 1,150 women), are now operational and actively involved in addressing the issue of land rights and other dalit rights in 240 villages in 18 blocks of six districts in Marathwada.

As of March 2007, there were 232 self-help groups (SHGs) with a membership of 2,474 (2,376 women and 98 men).

The project helped people get the following entitlements:

• 6,798 families of gairan dharaks (occupiers of gairan land) have filed claims for legal title of 13,104 acres of land.
• 23 gairan dharak families have received clear land titles (7/12 extract) and now possess 58 acres of land.
• 384 families have occupied 766 acres of gairan land.
• 64 couples have land records in joint names.

As part of the advocacy effort, a state-level convention on land rights was organised by AFARM and its network partners in Aurangabad, on September 19, 2007.

The main objectives of the convention were to debate ways of improving the responsiveness of government authorities towards the issue of land; to bring the land rights movement to the attention of policymakers and the media; and to mobilise various organisations, networks and likeminded institutions on the issue of land rights.

Members of village-level DRLPCs in project villages in the districts of Aurangabad, Beed, Osmanabad, Nanded, Parbhani and Latur participated in the convention, as did members of likeminded organisations working with the issue of land rights. Around 1,440 gairan dharaks also attended the convention, which saw active participation by women.

Chief guest N D Patil, well-known leader of the Peasants and Workers Party (Shetkari Kamgar Paksha), told the gathering that they must fight for land rights in two stages: first, occupy the land available, and second, fight to get the government to legalise it. The government was reneging on its own policy of land to the tillers, and people had to protest against this, he said.

Several resolutions were passed at the convention, urging the government to:

• Legalise possession of gairan land where there is legal proof.
• Execute the policy of land to the tillers.
• Legalise the houses of landless dalits constructed on government land.

Joint forest management

Workshops were organised by PACS Programme partner Vidarbha Nature Conservation Society (VNCS) and the forest department of the government of Maharashtra to review and suggest amendments to the GR on joint forest management.

The workshops, held in Nagpur on August 16-17, 2007, and in Pune on September 17-18, 2007, were attended by the forest minister, principal secretary of the forest department, representatives of non-government organisations, community-based organisations and joint forest management committees (JFMCs).

Participants at the workshops brought up the following issues:

• JFMCs are composed of 11 members, with two seats reserved for women. An official of the forest department oversees the election of members and, in many instances, women are not represented at all. This needs to be rectified and an equal representation policy mandated.
• At present there are no policy guidelines for JFMCs to access government funds and initiate development activities in their villages. This provides scope for corrupt practices and for the forest department to make ad hoc decisions on funding. Therefore, it is important to set up a transparent system to fund JFMCs.
• The existing registration norms for JFMCs are very complicated and need to be simplified so that registration can be completed at lower levels of the forest bureaucracy and not with the district commissioner of trusts/societies.
• Simplified registration norms would enable women to enrol in greater numbers and derive benefits from JFM activities.
• According to the existing government resolution, the forest department has to share 20% of the total amount from the sale of timber from regenerated trees through the conservation efforts of villagers. However, most JFMCs in Maharashtra have not received this amount from the forest department.
• According to the Biodiversity Act (2002) and Rules (2004) of the central government, each village panchayat is entitled to form biodiversity management committees (BMCs) in their respective areas, for conservation, sustainable use, documentation of biodiversity, and chronicling of knowledge relating to biodiversity. Each state has to frame a state law and set up a state biodiversity board to coordinate the work. The government of Maharashtra has framed the rules but not yet ratified them. A state biodiversity board has not been constituted.

Deliberations at the workshops led to the formation of sub-committees which further discussed, in depth, emerging issues such as:

• Present status, scope, probable need for changes in the JFM Act in view of the Biodiversity Act.
• Effectiveness of the Panchayati Raj Extension in Scheduled Areas Act (PESA).
• Scope for further development of non-timber forest produce (NTFP).

As an outcome of the workshops, draft amendments were prepared to the GR on JFM and related Acts.

On the recommendations of participants, the state forest minister announced that the government of Maharashtra would soon frame a state policy on NTFP and constitute a state federation to promote the marketing and value-addition of forest produce in order to safeguard the interests of forest-dwelling communities.

The plan of action includes a final draft of the GR, prepared by a sub-committee, which will be circulated to all participants. A two-day sensitisation workshop for MLAs has been organised, in November 2007.