Governance
The South Asian Experience

By Jal Singh

DEMOCRACY has taken firm roots in South Asia. Ninety-nine per cent of South Asian people live under democratic regimes. But there is little evidence on whether these democracies designate sovereignty to the people. There has also been a great deal of political instability created by hung parliaments and coalition governments. The result: on average, three elections have been held in the last five years alone. Voter turnout remains moderate, though it would be interesting to know whether these turnouts are increasing or decreasing. But for the time being, rising internal violence is sufficient to judge the declining faith of common people in the political system. South Asia has seen an increasing polarisation along sectarian, religious, ethnic and linguistic lines.

Weak institutions have reinforced political misgovernance in South Asia. Parliaments have often neglected their basic task... legislation for public welfare. In the last five years, an average of only 115 bills passed by a typical South Asian parliament. Only 20 per cent of these bills were related to the social sectors. While money and Mafia are a pervasive influence in the political process, education does not seem to play a role: only 40 per cent of the parliamentarians have a first degree. Another key feature of South Asia’s parliaments is the low representation of women. Women are grossly under-represented, with a mere seven per cent of the parliament seats held by women. Other institutions like judiciary and the civil service face similar weaknesses. The judicial system falls short of offering effective access to justice. The huge backlog of cases reduces the efficiency of judiciary and increases the cost of justice. As cases drag on courts, costs are multiplied. In South Asia, on average, one judge has to deal with more than 2,000 cases. Typically, every South Asian country has an average of 17 million cases pending in courts.

Economic Governance:

Many numbers on governance portray a diverse picture of the state of economic governance in South Asia. A few illustrations: the rate of inflation has nearly doubled in Bangladesh since 1995, though it has decreased in most South Asian countries. Similarly, unemployment is a more severe problem in Sri Lanka than other South Asian countries. Balance of payments problems are more severe in Pakistan and Nepal. Pakistan has also the most precarious external reserves position. South Asia’s trade-orientation has become more liberal, as indicated by reductions in tariff rates. But Bangladesh remains relatively less open with its highest mean tariff.

While the region has consistently run high budget deficits, some countries have been able to get this deficit considerably down. Sri Lanka, for one, has more than halved its ratio of budget deficit to GDP since 1980. South Asian governments are not outrageously high spenders, particularly compared to several Nordic countries.But, within South Asia, the governments of Bhutan and Maldives spend more than the rest. Government is more oversized in Sri Lanka than any other South Asian country. The direction of expenditures differs a great deal. Social services generally receive the lowest public expenditures. But here again, some countries do better than the rest and some do worse than the others. Maldives registers the highest per capita expenditure on health and education. In contrast, Pakistan has the lowest social sector expenditure (as a % of GDP) and the lowest expenditures on social security. While the priorities in educational spending are skewed for the region, Sri Lanka offers a successful example, when whereby 82 per cent of the educational budget is devoted to primary education. Similarly, Bangladesh is a better spender on technical and scientific education.

A large part of expenditures is misdirected to non-human development concerns. But Sri Lanka and Pakistan present a more worrying situation than the rest of South Asia. Per capita expenditures on defence and debt servicing in both countries are more than double the per capita expenditures on health and education. As a result, the ratio of military expenditures (as a per cent of combined health and education expenditures) is also the highest in both countries. Pakistan and Sri Lanka also present a more dismal profile of public debt. While the size of total public debt remains moderate in India, it has the highest level of domestic debt (51 per cent of GDP Among South Asian countries, Pakistan devotes the largest share of its national income to debt servicing. Sri Lanka is a big spender on subsidies, whereas development expenditures (as a per cent of total public expenditures) remain the highest in Bhutan.

South Asia collects a meagre sum by way of taxes. Sri Lanka and Maldives are notable exceptions here: the tax to GDP ratio in both countries is comparable to the average for developing countries. Tax collection is not only insufficient; it has also recorded a decline in many South Asian countries. The tax to GDP ratio in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, for instance, has declined in the last three years alone. South Asia depends a great deal on indirect taxes for revenue generation. Sri Lanka tops the list here, since its reliance on indirect taxes for revenue collect on the heaviest in South Asia.

It is better to hear from foreigners that Nepal. Is bad governed through the ‘not good leaders’. In the statement, Nishimizu, the Vice President of World Bank for South Asia has said, "to harness the strength, what the people need is the leadership of their government of leadership that gives vision, inspiration and hope; leadership that acts from conviction of that common purpose; and leadership whose consistency of words and actions earns the trust of the people overtime."

Some opined that Nishimizu might be well aware that Nepal has been practicing a liberal democratic system since 1990. Under the new constitution, Nepal has conducted three general elections and two local elections. The constitution has ensured checks on the power of executive, an independent judiciary to uphold the rule of law, protection of individual rights and liberties of expression, association belief and participation; effective guarantees against arbitrary arrest and police brutality; no censorship ; and minimal government control over the media.

In 1990, when the country was passing through an evolutionary process to democratize the existing political system, the international donor community demanded the introduction of a participatory system. Now the country has a transparent and democratic system, but the World Bank seems to be wanting strong leadership.

Trafficking Of Children

By Shikhar Shrestha

THE first step in any attempt to attack the sexual exploitation of children is to admit that our societies create and shelter child abusers. Only by such an admission can we begin to relieve the suffering of millions of sexually abused children and simultaneously confront and heal the causes of this criminal behaviour.

There is scarcely a country or a culture that does not have strict laws or religious teachings forbidding sexual relations between an adult and a child. It is one of the most repulsive acts to imagine, let alone commit, and civilised adversion to the deed is so powerful that it is close to unmentionable. The fact the taboos are so strong and the universal pattern suggests that the urge to have sex with a child is a deep human impulse that every culture has found necessary to control if it was to attain to any level of development.

Sexual abuse of child-indeed, any form of child abuse—thus must be seen as the most perverse form of cynical and egotistical attitude toward civilisation. It negates the social and spiritual foundations upon which any community is built. There are many other examples of human behaviour, which arise from the same negative attitude that plunges children into what are called "especially difficult circumstances." But the sexual abuse of children has a unique characteristic: the social taboos against it are so strong that even to speak about it is difficult. Even when it is proved, its existence is denied or ignored, and so, trying to treat such a pernicious symptom of depravity is close to impossible.

Since 1945, 13 international documents outlawing sexual exploitation have been duly signed. The legalistic activity has been paralleled by an equal and opposite growth in child slavery, child prostitution, and child pronography. Trafficking in children continued in 69 different countries even in 1974 according to one INTERPOL listing.

Sexual offences against children are heinous crimes, and global developments are compounding the problems and making their eradication all the more urgent. Millions of children live on the streets of the world’s cities, more than ever vulnerable to the "economic solution" offered by prostitution. The AIDS pandemic is growing to frightful proportions. The worsening international economic situation is forcing people to do just about anything to survive.

Yet the sexual abuse of children in its most overt, organised and lucrative form is a practice tolerated internationally. Tourism in general is an important source of foreign exchange of many developing countries whose economies must rely on steady sale of exotic amusement and tropical comfort. It is a sacrosant and vital counter of global financial figuring. Money and stability are more important than children!

While there are thousands of children involved in the vast network of sexual trafficking around the world there are literally millions of others who are abused within a separate, hidden shadow world far more pervasive than anyone cares to admit. Despite the evidence, sexual abuse of children is still considered a sensationally rate event.

Reading a very amusing yet concerning book based on five years of field research pierces the veil of comforting illusion and presents a disturbing portrait of the sexual exploitation of children in the United States of America. In the Sexual Trafficking in Children (Auburn House, 1987), authors Daniel Campagna and Donald Poffenberger describe the traffic which involves thousands, perhaps millions, of children who are ensnared in sex rings, pronographic newsletters and flourishing inter-state trade.

Pimps, pornographers, paedophiles and their victims are quoted at length. Their words make a real nightmarish world.

"How do I know these kids are worth money? Cause I’ve been living off them for years," says one Finnish pronographic filmmaker. All kinds of people will buy them; throw away a couple of hundred dollars to (be with) some 13-year-old.

Says another pornographer, "It goes anywhere form nickels and dimes to big money-US$ 1000, 10,000, 20,000 a spread, 500 to 1,000 photographs, girls between nine and 13 are the very saleable objects."

A former teenage prostitute says, "I finally reached a point where I was so empty and dead inside. Feeling pain let me know I was alive. The whole time I was working all I wanted was to be loved."

What is as equally disturbing as the description of this abusive sexual underworld is the author’s analysis of why it has come to be such a pervasive problem. They suggest that the sexual abuse of children has deep, complex and invisible cultural sport. The stereotype of the abusers as being a pervert in a grimy raincoat is inaccurate and leads to a false understanding of the problem. There is a whole category of sexual abuse that is perpetrated by someone the child-victim knows well.

We never hear about these relationship, and when the damage that is done finally becomes apparent, it seems that the problem lies elsewhere than in sexual abuse. Many exploited children grow up to be social-drug addicts and alcoholics, prostitutes, criminals. It is easier to ask the state to take care of these social failures than to face the facts of how and why they turned out that way and what could have been done to prevent such an outcome.

But we also have to scrutinize with utmost gravity whether modern societal values legitimise the sexual exploitation of children. On television, in the movies, in advertising, youth and sex are portrayed as the keys to power and happiness.

Finally, too, there is a legal system with laws that are vague and contradictory. Only the violent and serious acts are condemned. The sexual abuse of children is well hidden. Deeply held taboos promote a silence—internationally, within the community, inside the home. Yet the scope of the problem and the damage that it causes are impossible to ignore.

We must begin to create an international climate that permits forthright discussion, investigation and confrontation with the widespread sexual abuse of children.

Still, we must confront sexual crimes against children with fortitude and courage. Laws must be strengthened and vigorously enforced, not left uselessly enshrined in yet another international document of lofty purpose.

Indonesia’s Herbal Medicines For Better Health And Vitality

By Slobodan Lekic

IBU Sapti rises early to begin an ancient ritual that is reproduced daily all over Indonesia—using a mortar and pestle she pounds, grinds and mixes roots, herbs and spices to produce secret elixirs believed to cure illness, maintain youth and vigour, and enhance beauty.

She pours the mixtures into glass bottles and packs them in a large wicker basket strapped to her back with a sarong. Then she sets off to sell her wares along the narrow streets that criss-cross this ancient court city.

Sapti is one of a legion of vendors who distribute herbal cures, known as jamu, to millions of devoted clients. Many Indonesians will not start their day without a good-health drink.

"All concoctions are simple, practical, exotic and rarely expensive," wrote Susan-Jane Beers, author of "Jamu, the Ancient Indonesian. Art of Herbal Healing." the first comprehensive English-language guide.

"Herbal preparations and massage continue to thrive because Indonesians know they work," the perface explains.

Manufacturers claim the thick and bitter potions, often containing ingredients harvested from rain forests, can both prevent and cure a plethora of illnesses.

With many of Indonesia’s poor unable to afford Western medicine, the Jamu industry has developed into a miltibillion-dollar business. Factories produce millions of ready mixed sachets to meet steady demand from around the archipelago and now manufacturers are hoping to capitalise on the renewed interest and acceptance of herbal medicine world-wide to open global markets for jamu.

The treatments date back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Practitioners trace jamu’s origins to elements of Chinese, Indian and Arab classical medicine.

Most Indonesians believe that their herbal recipes can be traced to the ancient royal families of Solo and Yogyakarta in Central Java, where elaborate health and beauty treatments were a part of court life.

These medicines were not commercially available until the 1930s when the secret recipes began to leak out from the courts.

Mooryati Soedibyo, a descendent of the Yogyakarta court in central Java, started her own jamu company, Mustika Ratu, in 1970.

She learned the court’s philosophy of health and beauty when her grandfather, Sultan Pakubuwono XI, ruled I-the 1920s. The palace kitchen was her favourite playground.

"Our lives revolved around jamu," she said. "We would prepare, drink and talk about jamu from morning to night. It was an obsession."

Soedibyo remembers an army of servants grinding the ingredients into bitter brews. Court herbalists showed her complex recipes from some 400 different plants, sweetened with cinnamon, fennel, mint and palm sugar.

The elaborate treatments included massage as well as lotions and potions to keep women healthy and youthful, give them glowing skin and hair, and retain their slim figures.

Nowadays, homemade jamu is becoming less common, but the commercial herbal medicine and cosmetics industry has greatly expanded. This thriving business is one of the few in Indonesia’s recession-ridden economy that survived the 1997 Asian financial crisis unscathed.

Martha Tilaar, founder of Indonesia’s largest herbal products conglomerate, has set up a modern pharmacological research division to develop products for cosmetics and health supplements which she also hopes to market abroad

The Indonesian Depart-ment of Health insures that jamu is safe and says modern research has proven the ancient claims about its efficacy.

Typical ingredients for common recipes include varieties of ginger; spices such as nutmeg, cardamom, cumin and cloves; certain chillies; and fruits like papaya and banana.

The most popular treatments are for mundane complaints like fatigue, muscle and joint pain, infertility, high cholesterol, skin problems, and indigestion.

Unsurprisingly, some of the hottest sellers claim to improve sexual performance. One popular elixir for male virility claims to "stimulate sexual function, enhance zest, desire and energy and prolong youthful function."

The women’s equivalent promises to "increase desire and harmony between husband and wife."

There are also tonics for firming and slimming the body, powders and potions for improving the appearance and quality of the skin and reducing wrinkles, and treatments which promise to prevent greying or thinning of the hair.

A widely practised regime for women who have just given birth combines massage, body wraps and tonics to help them regain their figures and eliminate stretch marks.

Jamu is not as widely known as Chinese medicine, but Soedibyo says it shares the same ancient heritage and has the potential to become a commercial rival.

"Our country may be a mess, but we have a certain wisdom to teach and sell to the outside, world," she said.

(AP)