cool things i've been doing

one of the things cool i've been doing at apne aap was get involved in the “cool men don’t buy sex” campaign -- a call for india to get help stop sex trafficking by signing a petition. the petition will go to the president of india, smt. pratibha devisingh patil, asking her to amend the immoral traffic prevention act and criminalize the purchase of sex similar to what sweden and norway have done. the idea is that if you eliminate the demand, then you will eliminate trafficking. we went out to a student fest at delhi technological university to collect signatures.

a high percentage of the students are men, and it was interesting to see the various responses to our petition. as soon as some heard what we were about, they turned and went the other way. but many of the students signed enthusiastically. here’s a few of the encouraging comments that they included with their signature:

i am very grateful to you that you have raised voice against this issue. and i am totally agreed. thank you.

we have to take strong action against this and it’s very necessary to buildup some rules and regulations.

i appeal to the concerned authorities to protect the women against male violence & to give them freedom so that women can enjoy a fearless life.

women signifies power. we must stand and support women and give them their basic rights. we must respect them and give them their proper place in society because without them our life would be incomplete and the life cycle will not run! save girls!

i think and believe that prostitution must end and respect for women must increase. they are mothers and sisters.

and if you would like to sign the petition, here’s the link:

sign the petition

i also designed a poster for the campaign. it will likely not see the light of day other than here, but i rather liked it. and yes, that’s my rear end!

one day i brought my guitar to the field office and learning center on the outskirts of delhi, where apne aap works with girls and women of the perna caste. in this community of the perna, a high percentage of the families engage in intergenerational prostitution. the females are married off when they’re only fourteen, and soon their husbands or fathers pimp them out to support the family.

girls come to the center to learn sewing and computer and other life skills. here’s one of the posters on the wall:

i had the chance to play my guitar and sing the abc song with two little girls, who did a nice job strumming the strings while i played the notes.

then we were off to another perna community to present an apne aap legal training on domestic violence. it was meant to be a training for the women, but no women showed up, so they rounded up all the little girls instead.

after the training i brought out my guitar again and we sang twinkle twinkle little star. then i tried to teach them the hindi version of “sweet home chicago.” i’ve been working on that song for over a year -- but it turns out some of my hindi lyrics didn’t make any sense! so that song was a big fail. but it was someone’s birthday, so we sang happy birthday instead. yay!

the girls were entranced by the guitar -- wanted to strum it, wanted to know how it works. it's a dream of mine to learn to play the ukulele, and -- when i come back to india full-time with an organization -- start an all survivor-girl ukulele band! :-D

we're gonna need a bigger boat

we’re gonna need a bigger boat. that’s the famous line from the movie jaws -- when roy scheider’s character sees the size of the killer shark circling in the waters. and that’s how i feel the more i learn about the scope of sex trafficking in india.

the last six weeks i’ve been volunteering with apne aap women worldwide (apneaap.org). apne aap means “self help” in hindi. i first learned about the organization in nicholas d. kristoff and sheryl wu dunn’s book, half the sky: turning oppression into opportunity worldwide.

ruchira gupta founded apne aap with the twenty-two women who were the subject of her emmy award winning documentary, the selling of innocents, which exposed the trafficking of women and girls from nepal to india. the twenty-two women were prostitutes in mumbai’s red light district, all victims of trafficking, and during production of the film they found strength in the circle of relationships they built with ruchira and with each other.

after filming completed, the women continued to meet and then began to advocate for themselves with “a vision of a world where no woman can be bought or sold.” this was the beginning of apne aap. this vision has expanded across a number of communities in india, with apne aap self-empowerment groups and community centers that provide safe spaces for the women to gather, learn their rights, get vocational training, and find a way out of prostitution.

my first day at apne aap i got to go to gandhi smriti (the location where mahatma gandhi spent the last 144 days of his life and where he was assassinated, now a museum) and sit in with fifteen leaders from american ngos that are part of novo foundation’s initiative, “move to end violence.” we gathered on the lawn and listened to some of india’s foremost female activists speak about their time with gandhi and what he taught them.

gandhi’s granddaughter, tara gandhi bhattacharjee, added a bit of glam to the afternoon with her style, grace, and humor.

and at the end of the day i was asked to write the press release for the event!

two days later i was off to the pink city of jaipur to attend apne aap’s regional survivors conference.

much of the event was in hindi, but here’s the translation of what one of the survivors said:

“in the community many girls are brought in and many are sold out. how do you address this? no one understands that they are playing with the dreams of girls. the clients don’t realize the dreams they are spoiling. the clients don’t realize that this would be a mother, a sister or someone else –- they are just ruining dreams. we want to stop them.”

during the conference, i sat with number of women who are still working in brothels. we exchanged smiles, hellos, and soon got out our cell phones and started taking photos of each other and together. we joked and laughed and had a really nice time.

but back to the bigger boat.

sex trafficking in india happens in so many ways.

my last posts high-lighted the devadasi system, but there are also a number of castes that have a long standing tradition of prostitution. in many families of these castes the women are all prostitutes and their husbands and fathers are their pimps. it’s called intergenerational prostitution, and girls are brought up knowing that they will follow in their grandmother's and mother's footsteps -- and be a prostitute.

then there’s what i call the prince-not-so-charming method of trafficking. it works like this: a young girl is charmed over the course of a few weeks or months by a dashing young man who promises her marriage and a beautiful life together. she runs off with him to begin said beautiful life only to find herself in a strange city, locked up in a brothel, and told she was sold and must work off her sale price with her body. this happens every day in india.

these are just a few of the forms of sex trafficking going on in india, and the problem seems overwhelming, like a really really really big shark. but we stay in the boat until we get a bigger boat. we join other boats. we create awareness, we advocate for change, and we reach out a hand to those who have been pulled under.