Saving Women & Girls from Slavery in India

Focus on: Sunita Krishnan

"For two years we nurtured Amina, with all the care.. with all the compassion we possessed."

Despite, or perhaps because of, her history of being gang-raped as a teenager and beaten up many times for her work, Sunita never ceases to act as a spark to awaken the world.

One of the most passionate speakers in the world, Sunita Krishnan fights to save women & girls from Trafficking & Slavery in India. To listen to her talk about rescuing children or to read her blogs is a true inspiration.

Below is one of Sunita's recent blogposts:

When Protectors turn Predators

Amina is a 12yr old special child. She came to me as a 10yr old... gang raped and mute. The police just dumped her with us for safe care,as no case could be booked. The child was hardly in a position to point out who had barbarically torn her!

For two years we nurtured Amina,with all the care..with all the compassion we possessed. We even got two of my staff trained in National Institute of Mental Health(NIMH) to gain skills to take care of special children.

Two years later Amina could speak a lot of words...she would come running to me…hugging me tight not allowing other children to come near me until she had her full.

As Amina grew older we felt quite at a disadvantage as we were less equipped to handle Amina and 7 other kids in the home who were mentally retarded. After a lot of internal discussion all of us in the team felt it would be better for these children if they were admitted in a home for special children, where they would be educated/trained with other special children. I was told many organizations were even specialized in providing occupational therapy which will in the long run make them employable. And hence it was decided to shift Amina and other special children to specialized home …convinced that would give them a better opportunity for mainstream life.

Our search for a good home was filled with challenges and hurdles. The name ‘Prajwala’ became a curse as it meant not just an anti trafficking organization but also a group who took care of a large number of trafficked HIV positive persons. Most reputed homes point blank refused admission on the presumption that Amina could be HIV positive(incidently she is not). We even took the support of Commisioner, Disabled Welfare to pressurize organizations who had Grant in Aid from Government of India to take these children. We were rejected by all. Most homes were willing to get into the bad books of the authorities but not take these children!

A newspaper classified ad that appeared in a leading English daily was the first ray of hope for us. Child Development Mission,an organization willing to take special children had advertised. We rushed to meet the organization. The friendly reception of the staff and the over enthusiasm of the team to welcome us at that time was really heart warming (after all the cold reception this was a welcome respite). But for some unknown reason (maybe it was our paranoid outlook) we decided not to admit all our children in the same place. Only Amina was admitted. Our team members informed the organization that we would be visiting every week to monitor Amina’s welfare which the organization strongly discouraged. We concluded as we had an organizational policy maybe they too had regarding visitors for residents.

In spite of the discouragement our team members went once a month to visit Amina. The first two meetings was uneventful. On the third visit we realized the organization had shifted its home. Panic set in when no neighbors could tell us where the organization had moved out and all phone numbers we had did not work. During this time I was traveling so Deepa my Director,Programs organized a team of senior members to hunt the organization. On a lead she even organized a decoy operation which finally lead us to the main functionary of Child Development Mission. The phone conversation with this gentleman was perhaps one of the most rude conversation we ever had. Only after our team threatened police action that this man mellowed down and gave us a cock and bull story of all children being sent away for Puja holidays and only Amina being housed in a care taker’s house.Such was our anxiety for Amina’s well being that we did not even question him why he had not informed us of the same…or why they had shifted…or what has happened to all phone numbers.In spite of all the persuasion he would not divulge the information where Amina was kept,just went on repeating that we could pick up Amina the next day. That night was the longest night for all my team members

The next day our people rushed to the designated spot, a small room in a slum. The sight that awaited us was shocking to say the least. A totally unrecognizable Amina…with swollen face, swollen legs, barely able to stand …she was sitting in the room with a old woman who looked like a beggar. We brought back Amina, more shocks awaited us we when thoroughly examined her body. There were marks of bruises, burns all over her body. The greatest helplessness-Amina could not tell us what exactly happened.

Amina is now undergoing treatment for the last one week. We are planning legal action against the organization.

And I as I sit and mull over all these events, filled with untold guilt for the trauma we have caused in Amina’s life, would it have been better if Amina was with me without any real options for mainstream life…(until I am skilled to handle this issue…I don’t know how many more skills I need to master before I can handle it all)…living in a safe place but without any clear future ahead.

But my larger feeling is of anger and outrage.

When people/organizations claiming to be protectors and saviors turn predators doesn’t the world lose faith in the word TRUST.

...There's so much desensitization that has happened, so much normalization of exploitation that has happened, so much internalization of trauma that has happened...

Re posted from A Safe World For Women

SOURCE

When protectors turn to abusers: - by Sunitha Krishnan

YOU Can Help Stop Human Trafficking

National Human Trafficking Awareness Day: 1.11.11

A TRAFFICK FREE World

How will you participate in bringing awareness about human trafficking?

Tomorrow, January 11^th is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day as passed by the senate to raise awareness of, and opposition to, human trafficking. Chicago anti-trafficking organizations, such as Traffick Free, are partnering together to create some high impact events that you won’t want to miss:

Shop for a Cause: Join Illinois Rescue and Restore on Tuesday January 11th from 10am -3pm and “Shop for a Cause!”

DHS, 401 S. Clinton, Training Room #1

Local vendors will sell jewelry, purses, soaps, baked goods, and other items to raise funds to directly help aid victims of trafficking and exploitation in Illinois.

For more information about Shop for a cause please go to, www.dhs.state.il.us/rescueandrestore

With your help and Traffick Free’s commitment to creating awareness of human trafficking. When we all take active steps at any level, we can end the demand for trafficking and free those enslaved now and forever.

Welcome to a new world - one that is Traffick Free.

“I ask everyone to join me to create a society free of trafficking”

Anuradha Koirala: Dedicates Her Life to Save the Lives of Others

On November 24,2010 Anuradha Koirala, the founder and Executive Director of Maiti Nepal, won the CNN Hero of the Year Award for her commitment to save the lives of many women in need.

Ms. Koirala started Maiti Nepal, founded in 1993, in a small house in Kathmandu with her own savings. Maiti Nepal serves as a shelter for the protection and rehabilitation of trafficking victims forced into prostitution that have been rescued and returned to orphans and girls. The shelter home provides awareness training, informal education, vocational training, as well as voluntary testing and counseling and medical advice to survivors of trafficking. An average of 100 survivors live in this house of rehabilitation from time to time. This social organization also actively works to find justice for the victims against their abusers through legal means.

With Ms. Koirala and her workers, who are mostly rescued women, dedication to combating sexual exploitation of women and children, more than 12,000 Nepalese girls and women have been rescued from human trafficking and sexual exploitation, according to CNN.

"First you have to learn to take them as your own child. Then you will feel the sorrow and then the strength comes out from you to protect them.” – Anuradha Koirala

Although, Ms. Koirala’s work is often dangerous and requires great personal sacrifice, her dedication to her beliefs continues to stay strong. The criminal elements to victims are a ruthless enemy and have connections at the highest political level in India and Nepal. Maiti Nepal's main office in Kathmandu has been destroyed twice and Maiti workers must travel with a bodyguard when overseeing rescue missions in India.

“I ask everyone to join me to create a society free of trafficking. We need to do this for all our daughters," Koirala said at the CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute which aired Thanksgiving night.

Ms. Koirala and her group received an additional $100,000 award along with the $25,000 Hero award, which will be used in their work in Nepal and its borders. In doing so, their courageous efforts will continue to help victims live healthy, sustainable lives.

A Woman. A Prostitute. A Slave.

By Nicholas Kristof

Americans tend to associate “modern slavery” with illiterate girls in India or Cambodia. Yet there I was the other day, interviewing a college graduate who says she spent three years terrorized by pimps in a brothel in Midtown Manhattan.

Those who think that commercial sex in this country is invariably voluntary — and especially men who pay for sex — should listen to her story. The men buying her services all mistakenly assumed that she was working of her own volition, she says.

Yumi Li (a nickname) grew up in a Korean area of northeastern China. After university, she became an accountant, but, restless and ambitious, she yearned to go abroad.

So she accepted an offer from a female jobs agent to be smuggled to New York and take up a job using her accounting skills and paying $5,000 a month. Yumi’s relatives had to sign documents pledging their homes as collateral if she did not pay back the $50,000 smugglers’ fee from her earnings.

Yumi set off for America with a fake South Korean passport. On arrival in New York, however, Yumi was ordered to work in a brothel.

“When they first mentioned prostitution, I thought I would go crazy,” Yumi told me. “I was thinking, ‘how can this happen to someone like me who is college-educated?’ ” Her voice trailed off, and she added: “I wanted to die.”

She says that the four men who ran the smuggling operation — all Chinese or South Koreans — took her into their office on 36th Street in Midtown Manhattan. They beat her with their fists (but did not hit her in the face, for that might damage her commercial value), gang-raped her and videotaped her naked in humiliating poses. For extra intimidation, they held a gun to her head.

If she continued to resist working as a prostitute, she says they told her, the video would be sent to her relatives and acquaintances back home. Relatives would be told that Yumi was a prostitute, and several of them would lose their homes as well.

Yumi caved. For the next three years, she says, she was one of about 20 Asian prostitutes working out of the office on 36th Street. Some of them worked voluntarily, she says, but others were forced and received no share in the money.

Yumi played her role robotically. On one occasion, Yumi was arrested for prostitution, and she says the police asked her if she had been trafficked.

“I said no,” she recalled. “I was really afraid that if I hinted that I was a victim, the gang would send the video to my family.”

Then one day Yumi’s closest friend in the brothel was handcuffed by a customer, abused and strangled almost to death. Yumi rescued her and took her to the hospital. She said that in her rage, she then confronted the pimps and threatened to go public.

At that point, the gang hurriedly moved offices and changed phone numbers. The pimps never mailed the video or claimed the homes in China; those may have been bluffs all along. As for Yumi and her friend, they found help with Restore NYC, a nonprofit that helps human trafficking victims in the city.

I can’t be sure of elements of Yumi’s story, but it mostly rings true to me and to the social workers who have worked with her. There’s no doubt that while some women come to the United States voluntarily to seek their fortunes in the sex trade, many others are coerced — and still others start out forced but eventually continue voluntarily. And it’s not just foreign women. The worst cases of forced prostitution, especially of children, often involve home-grown teenage runaways.

No one has a clear idea of the scale of the problem, and estimates vary hugely. Some think the problem is getting worse; others believe that Internet services reduce the role of pimps and lead to commercial sex that is more consensual. What is clear is that forced prostitution should be a national scandal. Just this month, authorities indicted 29 people, mostly people of Somali origin from the Minneapolis area, on charges of running a human trafficking ring that allegedly sold many girls into prostitution — one at the age of 12.

There are no silver bullets, but the critical step is for the police and prosecutors to focus more on customers (to reduce demand) and, above all, on pimps. Prostitutes tend to be arrested because they are easy to catch, while pimping is a far harder crime to prosecute. That’s one reason thugs become pimps: It’s hugely profitable and carries less risk than selling drugs or stealing cars. But that can change as state and federal authorities target traffickers rather than their victims.

Nearly 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, it’s time to wipe out the remnants of slavery in this country.

I invite you to visit my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.

Just Say No to Human Trafficking

The Blue Blindfold Campaign

Human Trafficking happens all around the world, yet many are unaware of this type of modern day slavery. January is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Month and Canada has launched an anti-trafficking ad campaign to encourage its citizens to take off their blind folds and open their eyes.

"Most are women and children and their cases often go unnoticed and unreported due to threats from offenders, language barriers or mistrust of authorities.” –Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

Crime Partners has collaborated with both Public Safety Canada and the Royal Canadian Mountain Police’s Human Trafficking National Coordination Centre, for their Blue Blindfold campaign in the form of print ads, televised commercials and informational brochures, exposing the reality of this horrific crime to the light of day.

In the Blue Blindfold campaign, which has also been used in the UK, ordinary people are featured engaged in everyday activities while blinded to the human trafficking victims around them.
So many of us live our lives overlooking this issue. If we educate ourselves to the signs of human trafficking, we can bring awareness, save lives, and prevent this egregious crime. We encourage you all to remove your blindfolds, take a look around you and scream NO to human trafficking.



Visit http://www.blueblindfold.co.uk/ to find out more about the campaign and follow us on Twitter @womenwotw1 to see all of our latest updates about human trafficking.

Violence Against Women: A Pervasive Pandemic

Trekking the city streets of Chicago, one can easily get lost in the world of fast-paced business. Day in day out, the illusion of safety prevails. It is easy to forget that not every woman is so lucky as to be living and working in a life free from violence. In fact, 1 in 5 women are touched by some sort of domestic violence.

Violence against women affects millions each year and oftentimes is inflicted by a family member, friend, or close acquaintance. While there are instances of violent acts being reported, publicized, tried, or stopped, far too many women are paralyzed by fear and shame to speak up. Only half the acts of domestic violence are reported to the police.

In a 10-country study on women's health and domestic violence conducted by the World Health Organization,
o Between 15% and 71% of women reported physical or sexual violence by a husband or partner.
o Many women said that their first sexual experience was not consensual. (24% in rural Peru, 28% in Tanzania, 30% in rural Bangladesh, and 40% in South Africa).
o Between 4% and 12% of women reported being physically abused during pregnancy.

Other statistics include the following alarming facts:
• Every year, family members in the name of honor murder about 5,000 women each year worldwide.
• Trafficking of women and girls for forced labor and sex is widespread and often affects the most vulnerable. The United Nations estimates that 4 million women and girls are trafficked annually.
• Forced marriages and child marriages violate the human rights of women and girls, yet they are widely practiced in many countries in Asia, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Up to one in five women and one in 10 men report experiencing sexual abuse as children. Children subjected to sexual abuse are much more likely to encounter other forms of abuse later in life.

While much of the study conducted by the World Health Organization highlights the abuses endured by women in poor countries or countries in war, it is crucial to remember that this problem exists worldwide. Even in first world countries such as the United States, gender violence is epidemic. According to the Family Violence Interventions for the Justice System, boys who witness their fathers' violence are 10 times more likely to engage in spousal abuse in later adulthood than boys from non-violent homes.

If you are interested in learning more about this global pandemic, consider attending Women of the World’s next event “Violence Against Women- Shout it Out & Stop it Now.” Our esteemed panelists will present an overview on violence as a cultural legacy, the short and long term health ramifications, the legal rights of violated women and the educational awareness programs. Support the prevention and awareness of violence against women and register today: http://womenwotw.org/events.php