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RUEHCI/AMCONSUL KOLKATA 2088

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KOLKATA 000297 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON PHUM KWMN SENV IN NP BG ELAB
SUBJECT: TEA, TIGERS AND TRAFFICKING GO HAND IN HAND IN BENGAL'S 
CHICKEN'S NECK 
 
REF: KATHMANDU 1719 
 
KOLKATA 00000297  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  (U)  Summary:  Located in a narrow strip of land between 
Nepal and Bangladesh, the N. Bengal city of Siliguri is a 
regional economic crossroad.  People and goods intersect there, 
and as India's GDP growth nears ten percent, smaller cities like 
Siliguri are experiencing rapid expansion.  This economic boom, 
while positive in a broad sense, gives rise to myriad social 
problems, including trafficking in persons.  Combined with the 
breakdown of traditional structures such as the tea gardens in 
the area, unemployment, migration and social unrest quickly 
follow.  Tackling these problems in the region requires an 
international, coordinated approach if it is to be successful. 
End Summary. 
 
A Cross-Border Economy 
 
¶2.   (U)  Because of its location, Siliguri is a transit point 
for all manner of goods.  The Nepal border is only 15 kilometers 
from Siliguri and Bangladesh is approximately six kilometers to 
the southeast.  Bhutan and China are within a half-day's drive, 
and Siliguri is the transit point into India's northeastern 
hinterland, where goods arrive from Burma.  In one town west of 
Siliguri, a small, two-lane bridge connects India to Nepal, and 
Poloff observed a continuous stream of bicycles, rickshaws, 
pedestrians, and a few cars passing in between the two 
countries.  Inspection at the border crossing appeared to be 
random at best.  Many items that are legal in Nepal and illegal 
in India due to import restrictions are easily found in 
Siliguri.  The Hong Kong Market, a narrow maze of alleyways off 
one of Siliguri's main thoroughfares, offers shoppers an array 
of cheap goods purportedly made in China and shipped in to 
Siliguri via Nepal and the Northeast.  We observed many of the 
products such as electronics, DVD players, and kitchen 
appliances, packaged with labels written in Chinese. 
 
Environment 
 
¶3.  (U)  Animesh Bose, an environmental activist, described a 
flourishing trade in wildlife from India's Northeast states to 
Bhutan, Nepal, and Tibet via Siliguri.  Bose claimed that the 
towns of Joygaon and Phuntsholing, which straddle the W. 
Bengal-Bhutan border, are a conduit for wildlife trafficking 
into Bhutan and Lhasa.  According to Bose, Bhutan's royal family 
are well-known purchasers of rhino and tiger body parts.  The 
2006 arrest of Ratiram Sharma, one of the largest poachers in 
the area, in Joygaon had an initial impact in reducing the 
illegal trade, but the demand is now being filled by other 
wildlife traffickers.  Not all of the wildlife is trafficked out 
of India.  Bose estimated that approximately 10,000 parakeets 
and hill mynas are captured in the nearby Dooars foothills for 
sale in Bihar and other states. 
 
¶4.  (U)  The recent economic growth in N. Bengal also has 
impacted the elephant population that ranges from N. Bengal to 
upper Assam.  Deforestation, the expansion of the railway 
system, and a growth in human settlements all have had a direct 
effect on the migratory patterns of the Indian elephants in this 
region.   Since the beginning of the year, 15 elephants have 
been killed, either electrocuted by fences put around villages 
and crops or by trains speeding along the 160km-long track 
stretching from Siliguri to the Bhutan border cutting through 
four wild life sanctuaries.  Another issue of concern is 
pollution of rivers and groundwater sources due to dolomite 
mining in the neighboring hills of Bhutan.  Run-off from the 
dolomite mining areas is affecting the quality of the water in 
the rivers and dolomite deposits are raising river beds, 
reducing the rivers' water carrying capacity.   Dolomite 
sediment also causes a change in soil quality, which has an 
adverse impact on the tea plantations in the Dooars region. 
 
Tea Gardens in Decline 
 
¶5.  (U)  Historically based on the "tongya" system - a practice 
implemented by the British of bringing in outsiders to cut down 
forests, plant tea plants, and settle in the region - N. 
Bengal's tea gardens are in decline and beset by labor problems, 
political unrest, and poor management.  Ninety percent of the 
people originally brought in by the British were tribals from 
Bihar, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.  Each family was put into a 
specific labor line, or tea processing task, and successive 
generations learned only the specific practice that had been 
assigned to their family.  The first three to four generations 
 
KOLKATA 00000297  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
did not leave the tea garden, thus creating a natural language 
barrier to integration with Bengalis living outside the tea 
estates and limiting their future employment prospects. 
 
¶6.  (U)  In the gardens some forms of gender discrimination 
continue as well.  Women were traditionally only given jobs as 
pluckers (picking tea leaves) or sorters (sifting through dried 
tea to remove debris) and had few skills that could be used in 
different jobs, thereby reducing their prospects for 
advancement.  One tea garden owner told us that there was also a 
subtle gender inequality in wages, particularly as in overtime 
pay. 
 
¶7.  (U)  Poor management is perhaps the most significant 
obstacle to the future success and re-emergence of the region's 
tea plantations.  Some of the gardens have been purchased by 
wealthy Indians who prefer to manage from afar, leaving hired 
managers with little incentive to run the gardens efficiently 
over the long-term.  The result of this decline has been for 
estate owners to decrease the size of their operations and grow 
more specialized types of teas.  Boutique teas, branded with the 
"organic" label are  likely to become more common, as are tea 
cultivation methods that label themselves as "environmentally 
friendly and sustainable." 
 
¶8.  (U)  For the tea workers, employment in many of the estates 
has now become seasonal, causing many employees to seek outside 
income.  This makes quick money opportunities like smuggling, 
trafficking, and prostitution more attractive. 
 
HIV/AIDS and Trafficking in Persons 
 
¶9.  (U)  On the outskirts of the village of Naxalbari, which 
sits only four kilometers from the Indo-Nepal border, we spoke 
with Tamali Dutta, head of the local unit of the Bhoruka Public 
Welfare Trust (BPWT).  BPWT provides assistance to persons with 
HIV.  Dutta spoke of the impact of economic growth on 
HIV-related issues.  She noted that drug usage had increased 
rapidly.  In addition, increasing numbers of women were 
migrating to Siliguri and on to Kolkata looking for work.  A 
common arrangement is for women to be hired to carry smuggled 
goods into Siliguri by truck.  The women have sex with the truck 
drivers in exchange for a reduced cost for the ride into the 
city. 
 
¶10.  (U)  Dutta said that because of the awareness campaigns 
conducted by BPWT and other NGOs at the panchayat (local 
village) level, they were seeing some improvement in the 
treatment by the community of persons testing HIV-positive. 
Where previously the default response had been social 
ostracization, Dutta found that villagers were more open to 
understanding the disease and its implications.  Access to HIV 
testing facilities remains poor.  There is only one testing 
center in Siliguri at North Bengal University.  Plans for a 
second testing center are being prepared. 
 
¶11.  (U)  Poloff asked about Siliguri's expansion and any impact 
that may be having on trafficking of women.  Dutta pointed out 
the increasing number of dhabas (small rest shelters) along the 
paved roads.  The dhabas are a recent phenomenon, coming up in 
the past year, she said.  Locals do not set up these dhabas; 
instead they are built by Siliguri traffickers who shuttle girls 
along the road from Siliguri to Nepal.  Women travel back and 
forth on the roads, providing sex to the drivers and customers 
at destinations in both India and in Nepal.  Dutta added that 
many traffickers avoid using major roads. 
 
¶12.  (U)  According to Dutta, police efforts to fight 
trafficking in Siliguri and in North Bengal are ineffective. 
Dutta commented that just last year the head of the Bagdogra 
(just outside of Siliguri) police stated there was "no 
trafficking problem" in the area.  She says that arrests are 
infrequent and haphazard, some traffickers are granted bail 
while others are beaten for a few hours and released, and that 
police are reluctant to charge defendants under ITPA.  In 
Dutta's opinion, the police only needed the NGOs when they had 
to find a place for a rescued girl to stay.  Corroborating this 
view of the police's ineffectiveness, another NGO called 
Kanchenjunga Uddhar Kendra led by Rangu Sourya, is now rescuing 
girls on its own because of police non-responsiveness to the 
problem. 
 
 
KOLKATA 00000297  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶13.  (U)  Dutta believes that there are two instances where the 
number of trafficking cases rises:  whenever the government has 
other problems to deal with, like the rise in unemployment at 
the tea gardens, and during the wedding season.  Prior to the 
wedding season, men from states such as Punjab and Haryana come 
to the village in search of brides.  Dutta says that despite the 
growing awareness that some of the women offered marriages will 
end up in brothels, custom, tradition, and the parents' desire 
to marry off their daughters override such concerns. 
 
¶14.  (U)  The problems besetting the tea gardens appear to 
correlate with the rise in the number of trafficked women in the 
region.  In many tea gardens the work season lasts from March to 
November.  Although the off-season is meant for pruning bushes, 
turning over soil, and re-planting, the rising costs of these 
activities along with the overall mismanagement of the tea 
gardens means that tea workers are effectively laid off from 
November to March.  One estimate put the number of unemployed 
tea workers at 40-50,000.  Journalists have observed increasing 
migration by former tea garden workers to other parts of West 
Bengal and India. 
 
¶15.  (U)  Another concern, identified by both the police and 
anti-TIP NGOs, is the lack of shelter and rehabilitation homes 
for rescued women.  The nearby district of Cooch Behar has the 
largest available shelter home with a limited capacity of 50 
beds.  One in Siliguri has 30 beds.  Contacts told us that plans 
are in the work for a public-private partnership to construct a 
new shelter home in Siliguri. 
 
¶16.  (U)  Comment:  When the economic growth is largely 
unplanned, as in Siliguri, it is not surprising that the 
community finds itself unready to tackle the social problems 
that accompany the increased economic activity.  In this 
respect, Siliguri typifies the difficult transition being 
experienced throughout India in what are described as its 
"second or third tier cities" as towns grow into new urban 
centers..  Having no access to any sort of social safety net 
should an employer shut his business, most workers in the 
economy of N. Bengal drift toward illicit and undesirable 
activities in larger urban centers out of economic necessity. 
Facilitating the problem is the ease by which goods and people 
can move between Nepal, India, and Bangladesh.  Police efforts 
therefore tend to focus on security issues -- arms and narcotics 
trafficking and the movement of insurgents in the region. 
Because of this, it is particularly important that global issues 
such as trafficking in persons and wildlife, as well as HIV/AIDS 
be addressed in a multinational context, not simply within a 
particular state.  Contacts we spoke to observed that despite 
the high numbers of Nepali and Bangladeshi women being 
trafficked to Siliguri, there is no Indo-Nepal or 
Indo-Bangladesh body that addresses this cross-border problem. 
(Note: One contact noted that there is an understanding between 
the government of Uttar Pradesh and Nepal on anti-TIP 
cooperation.  End note).  Nepal recently drafted new trafficking 
legislation (reftel), but its comprehensiveness in dealing with 
migrant trafficking from neighboring countries is unclear.  In 
places like Siliguri, these problems truly are international and 
require a coordinated international response. 
JARDINE