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Red Light Despatch Volume VII, Issue 12 December 2014

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Red Light Despatch Volume VII, Issue 12 December 2014 Apne Aap Women Worldwide—Organizing Communities to End Sex Trafficking Red Light Despatch Volume VII, Issue 12 December 2014 Delhi, Kolkata, and Forbesganj (Bihar) My Dreams The Last Girl March in the Heart of the City “ To become a doctor” — Sahana Khatoon —Sarla/ as translated by Sanjay Verma Bihar: My name is Sahana Kha- Delhi: My Name is Sarla and I am 15 A rally was organised by Apne Aap toon. I am 15-year-old and study- -year-old. I have studied till 3rd stan- on the 15th of December with women ing at Kasturba Gandhi Balika dard and could not study any further and girls of Sapera and Prerna com- Vidyalaya (KGBV), Simraha. I due to financial constraints and the munity in the memory of Jyoti Singh was born and brought up in Uttri Rampur redlight area, Forbesganj. social setup of the place where I Pandey, who was brutally raped on lived. I belong to the Sapera commu- the same date 2 years ago. At the I was going through an extremely nity in Dharampura, Najafgarh. rally a play based on women and girl difficult phase of my life and my Our main source of income is through safety was performed. stay at home was not free from snake charming. A typical perform- The rally marched from CP to Mu- hard labour. I was forced to drop ance includes hypnotizing a snake by nirka where Jyoti had boarded the bus out of school, but I wanted to con- tinue my education and become a playing an instrument called the where she was gangraped. We paid doctor someday. This way I „Pungi‟, it also includes dangerous tribute to Jyoti by organizing and par- wanted to help the girls, who do stunts like handling the snakes or per- ticipating in a candle light march. not have access to education espe- forming other seemingly dangerous The event named as “Last Girl cially my relatives. It will also help acts, as well as other street perform- March” .It stands for those who them to exit prostitution. ance staples, like juggling and sleight are invisible, neglected and ig- of hand. When I heard about the KGBV, I nored. I have been associated with Apne forced my parents to meet Apne (Continued on page 6) Aap staff and enroll me in the Aap Women World for the last 4 Girl‟s hostel-cum-school for stud- years. ies. They admitted me to the school and here I got trained in Missing of three children of Munshiganj sports, karate, craft and computers. The teachers encourage us to lead —Laxmi Devi/ as dictated to Aruna Singh independent and dignified lives. We all live together in the hostel where the environment is devoid of Kolkata: Three children named place but failed. We then informed any segregation on the basis of Dhiraj Kumar Mahato (14 years), the Apne Aap office about our religion and caste. We are all loved Niraj Kumar Gupta (15 years) and missing children on that very day. by our teachers. We enjoy our hos- Prem Kishore Shah (14 years) from tel life so much that we forget There Fazul da from Apne Aap Munshiganj Red Light Area has about our homes at times. I want to women Worldwide helped us draft prove that a girl from the red-light been missing since December, three missing complaint and guided area too has also potential to lead 2014. My son and two of his the relatives and parents to register society. I wish our society, and the friends told me that they were go- missing diary at Watgunge police Government accepts us like anyone ing to school to write their exami- station and guided them to inform else and give us more opportunity nation, but when they did not re- it to the missing squad of CID so that we can prove ourselves. I turn even at nightfall I got worried. also want all parents to send their West Bengal for speedy action. girls to schools to study so that I came to know that one of the chil- Subsequently, the missing diary more and more girls can prove dren called his parents and told was treated as FIR as per the direc- their capabilities, lead independent them that they were at Burdwan tion of Supreme Court. lives and also be able to support Railway station and asked for their their families in future. blessing so that they could succeed at the task they had left to accom- (Continued on page 7) I am thankful to Apne Aap for pro- plish. We tried a lot to locate viding me the platform. those children at every possible 2 Red Light Despatch ♦ Vol VII, Issue 10 Op/Ed: —Ruchira Gupta’s interview in Women Lead Nepal Interview by Megan Foo, President of Women in a police station or testify in court. At the same time we LEAD’s Hong Kong Chapter. started linking with livelihood promotion organizations and helping women open bank accounts to save some money Ruchira Gupta is the Founder of Indian anti-sex trafficking safely. organization, Apne Aap, which has helped more than 20,000 at-risk and prostituted girls, women and their family More than 21,000 girls, women and their family members members in red-light areas and slums across India to save became members of this network and reduced their risk or themselves. In 2009 she won the Clinton Global Citizen dependency on prostitution. The first generation of daugh- Award for her work to end sex trafficking, 15 years after ters of these women are in college now. Over another 1200 she won an Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism are in schools for the first time in their families. They have for exposing sex trafficking in the documentary, The Selling put 66 traffickers in jail. of Innocents. Ruchira helped create the first UN Protocol to Women LEAD: Why does women’s empowerment mat- End Sex Trafficking as well as the Trafficking Fund for ter to you? Survivors at the United Nations by addressing theUN Gen- eral Assembly on behalf of survivors and taking a panel of Ruchira Gupta: I have always longed for equality and jus- survivors to speak at the UN General Assembly in New tice. I have joined any campaign or movement for social and York alongside Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and High political justice. I slowly began to see that sex was a kind of Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. class or caste; that of any group, females were the largest group that were universally unequal. So I began to cam- Women LEAD: You are the Founder of Apne Aap paign for women‟s empowerment to create a world which Women Worldwide, an organization dedicated to ending respected the full social, political and economic equality of sex trafficking by increasing choices for at-risk women women. and girls. What inspired you to found Apne Aap, and what has its impact been so far? Women LEAD: Can you talk about one woman who has impacted your life? Ruchira Gupta: When I went back to the brothels to show the selling of innocents, after the Emmy, the 22 women in Ruchira Gupta: I am deeply and fundamentally impacted prostitution who had told their stories in the documentary by Gloria Steinem. With her I have experienced how move- said they wanted my help to change their lives. They had ments grow and how immense our movement is. Walking four dreams: 1. A school for their daughters to save them through the red-light areas of Sonagachi or lobbying in Al- from the same fate as themselves 2. A job in a office, where bany with New York state Assemblymen, our lives have they could work fixed hours, nobody would beat them, interwoven into shared writing sessions, rallies, meetings, where there was old age pension and 3. A room of their dinners, books, conversations, late night phone calls across own: where nobody could walk in when they wanted, where continents, brainstorming and sometimes movies. they could sleep as long as they liked and where their chil- She has taught me that there are always more than two dren could play safely and 4. Justice -severe punishment of choices, and that there is a third way of proceeding that is those who had brokered away their dreams by selling and familiar to human experience; that small acts have a big buying them and those who failed to protect them from be- impact and when you do something you should not worry ing trafficked or when they tried to escape. about how big its outcome will be; that only time will show, Our aim was to create a world in which no woman is bought you have to do it as if it matters. Her feminism is rooted in or sold. We decided to hire a teacher and in a small room in the deep truth of our own experiences and if we do not chal- the red-light area, we started preparing the children for lenge inequality at home, we will normalize and accept ine- school. When they were ready, the women went as a group quality everywhere. If we accept that one sex can be un- of mothers to the local school principal and cried and equal, then why not one class or one race? She has influ- begged till he became his prejudice and admitted them. That enced me to measure my actions in its value to the least was the first victory for the women and the Apne Aap powerful.
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