History
1988 Prerana opened its first Night Care Center to provide shelter for children of female victims of human trafficking living in red lights areas. [4]
1989 Prerana created the Institutional Placement Program to suit the specific needs of children living in the red light areas. It aimed to de-link children from exploitative and abusive environments/situations, and to provide long-term residential care and development. [5]
1990 The Educational Support Program designed to suit the needs of children living in the red light areas was created. [6]
1998 Programmatic interventions by Prerana were mentioned in the first National Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Women and Children, Government of India, 1998. [7]
1999 Prerana started an Anti-Trafficking Centre, a specialized resource center on trafficking problems and anti-trafficking initiatives. It was an initiative encouraged by the Department of State, United States Government. [8]
2002-2005 Prerana was appointed to working groups of the Ministry of Health, Government of India to contribute to both the 10th and 11th Five Year Plans. It was also appointed as the Expert by the National Commission of Women and the Central and State Level Advisory Committee to combat human trafficking. [9]
2004 US Government nominated a Prerana Trustee as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Trafficking. [10]
2007 Prerana began offering training to police on trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. [11]
2010 Prerana launched a physical resource center and opened Naunihal Girls' Shelter. [12]
2011 In August 2011, Prerana was invited to be a member on the Supreme Court of India panel on the problems faced by women in sex work in India to work on prevention of trafficking and rehabilitation of sex workers. [13]
Programs
Night Care Center (NCC) Program
The NCC was conceptualized for the first time worldwide in 1986 at the Kamathipura red light area in Mumbai. It provides a safe place for women in prostitution to protect their children from the dangers of the red light district during the night. The NCC; functioning out of the Kamathipura, Falkland Road and Vashi provides a package of services on a 24-7 basis such as shelter, nutrition, healthcare, education, recreation, and so on. [15]
Educational Support Program
Prerana instituted the first comprehensive Educational Support Program (ESP) in India for children from red light areas. The ESP works with children and addresses their needs in education as well as personal and professional development. The ESP provides complementary and remedial education, extra-curricular activities, life skills education, and personal development inputs. The ESP also sponsors older children for vocational training programs. Prerana runs 3 ESPs in the Mumbai red light districts of Kamathipura and Falkland Road and Vashi Turbhe in Navi Mumbai. [16]
Institutional Placement Program (IPP)
When the mother of a child approaches Prerana with a request to de-link the child from the red light area, and place him or her into a healthy environment, Prerana supports the mother to consider the option of shifting the child to a place that can provide long term residential care and development. Prerana selects the institutions, pays follow-up visits to the institutions which involve the Child Welfare Committee, and provides initiatives for support like mother’s meetings, counseling and group homes. The system ensures that children are given access to residential institutional care until they can return to a safe environment or until they turn 18 years of age. Currently, the IPP has impacted over 1200 children. [17]
Anti-Trafficking Center (ATC)
External agencies including The Department of State for the US Government encouraged Prerana to start a specialized resource centre on trafficking problems and anti-trafficking. The ATC opened in 1999. A few of the services provided by ATC are training and sensitization, research and documentation, policy consultancy, advocacy, information dissemination, amongst others. [18]
Naunihal Girls' Shelter
The Naunihal Special Home for Girls opened on 27 October 2010. The Naunihal Home provides girls with educational programs, vocational and livelihood courses, medical check-ups, arranges meetings with the girls’ mothers or guardians and provides additional recreational activities. [19] Naunihal means "sapling" in Hindi. [20]
Post Rescue Operation (PRO)
Prerana steps in to support rescued girls who are traumatized and vulnerable to re-trafficking with victim assistance and witness protection services. Services include residential care, vocational training, job placement, psycho-social counselling and legal support. [21]
Aarambh
Aarambh is a joint initiative of Prerana and the ADM Capital Foundation. Its focus is to address issues related to child sexual exploitation from multiple perspectives including prevention, protection, legal intervention, and advocacy. The initiative aims to demonstrate and document best practices in child protection as well as implement the law on Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses in India. [22]
In 2016, Aarambh launched India's first online hotline for reporting child pornography. [23] When reports are made to this hotline by the police, general public, internet companies, or victims, experts from the UK-based Internet Watch Foundation assess the content. [23] If the content is found to involve children, IWF experts take it down, block the URL, remove it from cyberspace, and alert Interpol. [23]
The "Lakshmi" Initiative
The award-winning director Mr. Nagesh Kukunoor made the film Lakshmi in 2014 about the harsh realities of child sex trafficking in India. [24] After the film was released, the "Lakshmi" Initiative was created in partnership with Prerana to prevent and protect girls from threats of trafficking, sexual abuse, and commercial sexual exploitation. [24] The Initiative provides education and livelihood training opportunities to 'at-risk' girls. [24]
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
Sanlaap is an Indian feminist non-governmental organisation, established by Indrani Sinha in 1987 in Calcutta. Based in Calcutta, the group aims to protect the human rights of women and girls. Sanlaap is a developmental organisation that works towards correction of social imbalances which present themselves as gender injustice and violence against women and children. The primary work is focused against trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and forced prostitution. As part of its work, the group starts shops to train girls to make a living and foster their independence.
Prajwala is a non-governmental organization based in Hyderabad, India, devoted exclusively to eradicating prostitution and sex trafficking. Founded in 1996 by Ms. Sunitha Krishnan and Brother Jose Vetticatil, the organization actively works in the areas of prevention, rescue, rehabilitation, re-integration, and advocacy to combat trafficking in every dimension and restore dignity to victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
Togo is a source, transit and, to a lesser extent, a destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficking within Togo is more prevalent than transnational trafficking and the majority of victims are children. Togolese girls are trafficked primarily within the country for domestic servitude, as market vendors, produce porters, and for commercial sexual exploitation. To a lesser extent, girls are also trafficked to other African countries, primarily Benin, Nigeria, Ghana, and Niger for the same purposes listed above. Togolese boys are most commonly trafficked transnationally to work in agricultural labor in other African countries, primarily Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Gabon, and Benin, though some boys are also trafficked within the country for market labor. Beninese and Ghanaian children have also been trafficked to Togo. There have been reports of Togolese women and girls trafficked to Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, likely for domestic servitude and sexual exploitation. Togolese women may be trafficked to Europe, primarily to France and Germany, for domestic servitude and sexual exploitation. In the last year, 19 Togolese girls and young women were trafficked to the United States for forced labor in a hair salon. The Government of Togo does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so, despite limited resources. Togo demonstrated solid law enforcement efforts by increasing the number of traffickers convicted. However, sentences imposed on convicted traffickers were inadequate and protection efforts were diminished over last year.
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. It is distinct from people smuggling, which is characterized by the consent of the person being smuggled.
Human trafficking in India, although illegal under Indian law, remains a significant problem. People are frequently illegally trafficked through India for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced/bonded labour. Although no reliable study of forced and bonded labour has been completed, NGOs estimate this problem affects 20 to 65 million Indians. Men, women and children are trafficked in India for diverse reasons. Women and girls are trafficked within the country for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriage, especially in those areas where the sex ratio is highly skewed in favour of men. Men and boys are trafficked for the purposes of labour, and may be sexually exploited by traffickers to serve as gigolos, massage experts, escorts, etc. A significant portion of children are subjected to forced labour as factory workers, domestic servants, beggars, and agriculture workers, and have been used as armed combatants by some terrorist and insurgent groups.
In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women; victims can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.
Shared Hope International (SHI) is a non-profit, non-governmental, Christian organization that exists to prevent sex trafficking and restore and bring justice to women and children who have been victimized through sex trafficking. SHI is part of a worldwide effort to prevent and eradicate sex trafficking and slavery. Shared Hope operates programs in the United States, India, Nepal, and Jamaica. Shared Hope leads awareness and training, prevention strategies, restorative care, research, and policy initiatives to mobilize a national network of protection for victims.
Rwanda is a source and, to a lesser extent, destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Rwandan girls are exploited in involuntary domestic servitude within the country; some of these children experience physical or sexual abuse within their employer's household. Older females offer vulnerable younger girls room and board, eventually pushing them into prostitution to pay for their keep. In limited cases, this trafficking is facilitated by women who supply females to clients or by loosely organized prostitution networks, some operating in secondary schools and universities. Rwandan children are also trafficked to Uganda, Tanzania, and other countries in the region for forced agricultural labor, commercial sexual exploitation, and domestic servitude, sometimes after being recruited by peers. In Rwanda there have been reports of isolated cases involving child trafficking victims from neighboring countries. Unlike in past years, there was no indication in 2009 that the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) duped or recruited Congolese men and boys from Rwanda-based refugee camps, as well as Rwandans from nearby towns, into forced labor and soldiering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Peru is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Several thousand persons are estimated to be subjected to conditions of forced labor within Peru, mainly in mining, logging, agriculture, brick making, and domestic servitude. Many trafficking victims are women and girls from impoverished rural regions of the Amazon, recruited and coerced into prostitution in urban nightclubs, bars, and brothels, often through false employment offers or promises of education. Indigenous persons are particularly vulnerable to debt bondage. Forced child labor remains a problem, particularly in informal gold mines, cocaine production, and transportation. There were reports the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, recruited children as soldiers and drug mules. To a lesser extent, Peruvians are subjected to forced prostitution in Ecuador, Spain, Italy, Japan, and the United States, and forced labor in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. Peru also is a destination country for some Ecuadorian and Bolivian females in forced prostitution, and some Bolivian citizens in conditions of forced labor. Child sex tourism is present in Iquitos, Madre de Dios, and Cuzco. Traffickers reportedly operate with impunity in certain regions where there is little or no government presence.
Human trafficking in Nepal is a growing criminal industry affecting multiple other countries beyond Nepal, primarily across Asia and the Middle East. Nepal is mainly a source country for men, women and children subjected to the forced labor and sex trafficking. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2" in 2017.
Malawi is primarily a source country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution within the country and abroad. Most Malawian trafficking victims are exploited internally, though Malawian victims of sex and labor trafficking have also been identified in South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and parts of Europe. To a lesser extent, Malawi is a transit point for foreign victims and a destination country for men, women, and children from Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe subjected to conditions of forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation. Within the country, some children are forced into domestic servitude, cattle herding, agricultural labor, and menial work in various small businesses. Exploited girls and women become "bar girls" at local bars and rest houses where they are coerced to have sex with customers in exchange for room and board. Forced labor in agriculture is often found on tobacco plantations. Labor traffickers are often villagers who have moved to urban areas and subsequently recruit children from their original villages through offers of good jobs. Brothel owners or other prostitution facilitators lure girls with promises of nice clothing and lodging. Upon arrival, they charge the girl high rental fees for these items and instruct her how to engage in prostitution to pay off the debt. South African and Tanzanian long-distance truck drivers and mini-bus operators move victims across porous borders by avoiding immigration checkpoints. Some local businesswomen who also travel regularly to neighboring countries to buy clothing for import have been identified as traffickers. Reports of European tourists paying for sex with teenage boys and girls continue.
Mauritius is not a major source for children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced prostitution within the country. Secondary school-age girls and, to a lesser extent, younger girls from all areas of the country, including from Rodrigues Island, are induced into prostitution, often by their peers, family members, or businessmen offering other forms of employment. Taxi drivers are known to provide transportation and introductions for both the girls and the clients. Girls and boys whose mothers engage in prostitution are reportedly forced into prostitution at a young age. Some drug-addicted women are forced into prostitution by their boyfriends, who serve as their pimps. In Great Britain, two Malagasy nationals were convicted in 2009 of holding a small number of Mauritian nationals, as well as citizens of other countries, in conditions of forced labor; this appears to be an isolated case of transnational human trafficking involving Mauritian citizens. Students from all over the world are forced into prostitution within the country.
Human trafficking in Brazil is an ongoing problem. Brazil is a source country for men, women, girls, and boys subjected to human trafficking, specifically forced prostitution within the country and abroad, as well as a source country for men and boys in forced labor within the country. The United States Department of Homeland Security, describes human trafficking as "the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act."
Egypt is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children who are subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution.
Priti Patkar is an esteemed social worker and human rights activist from India. She holds the position of co-founder and director at Prerana, an organization that has been a trailblazer in addressing issues within the red-light districts of Mumbai, India. Priti Patkar's efforts primarily focus on safeguarding children who are at risk of falling victim to commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking.
Pravin Patkar is an Indian academic and human rights activist. He co-founded Prerana, an NGO working for child protection & anti-human trafficking. In 1999, he founded Asia's first Anti-Human Trafficking Resource Centre supported by the US Government. He has served as an expert on several national and international agencies working in the anti-human trafficking sector. He has been in the teaching profession for over 40 years in both formal and non-formal education sectors. He has written books, published articles and created PSAs to prevent organized violence against women & children.
Aarambh India is a non-profit initiative working in Mumbai, India. It focuses on child protection and issues related to child sexual abuse and exploitation. The organization was established in 2012. It partners with other organizations and stakeholders and works across levels from implementing the law of Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO) on ground to training and workshops, providing care and support to the victims to child sexual abuse research, public education to advocacy.
Bride buying in India is the practice of forced arranged marriages through human trafficking. Brides are commonly referred to as "paro" or "molki" within this framework. The brides are sold by their parents to human traffickers who transport and sell them within relatively wealthier regions of Northern India. The desire for a male child and subsequent female infanticide has resulted in a significantly lowered sex ratio within India, creating an abundance of unmarried men in Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Western UP. These men resort to purchasing inter-region women from impoverished communities mainly to continue their family lineage. The key motivation for low-income families to sell their daughter is to receive financial compensation and avoid having to pay a dowry. Major sources are the impoverished parts of Northeast India (Assam), Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, and Andhra Pradesh.
