Part 5: Pathways to Prevention, Healing and Freedom
Tuesday 20th July, 2010
Maiti Nepal operates across multi levels, including rescue, border patrol, education, after care in shelters, awareness raising programs, political activism and very importantly, seeding ideas for other non profits to get started in ways that can assist.
First you have to take them into your heart as your own child. Then the strength comes out of you to protect them.
Anuradha Koirala, founder of Maiti Nepal.
Preventative activities and initiatives carried out by transit homes are an important apect of the tireless work done by Maiti Nepal. Interception, rescue, counseling, dealing with cases of missing girls, rape and domestic violence are a part of everyday life for workers in these homes. They also provide information on safe migration to individuals.
Maiti Nepal networks extensively with other groups who work actively in the field, often acting as a resource and also helping form important connections with each other. They initiate programs that help with education and prevention, establish and run shelters for survivors and offer programs for healing and rehabilitation. These programs include therapies aimed at mental, spiritual and physical relaxation such as yoga, bead work and other crafts.
It has helped me to relax my mind and soul which was wandering in my past sufferings and misery. I am able to concentrate more and have become strongly determined now.
( survivor in MN shelter ).
The need to tackle the problems at the source has resulted in the initiation of prevention programs at the grassroots level. Ignorance is one of the biggest problems and so strategies have been developed to combat the issue by disseminating information, involving the communities at risk and educating them. It is vital that the girls, their families, teachers and leaders of community groups learn about trafficking. This way, girls at risk will not be tricked by strangers who come to their villages to lure them away.
Working directly with the public in 10 districts, Maiti Nepal involves young people as educators through plays, talk programs, discussions, songs and real life stories. This gives trafficking a human face and helps reduce stigma and discrimination by providing a forum for community members to discuss the issue and build shared accountability for preventative action. To date 4 safety net programs have been established along the Nepal India border. In this program girls at high risk of being trafficked, and concerned agencies, have become safety net members with the aim of establishing surveillance systems and other preventative measures to protect potential victims.
Alongside their grassroots work, Maiti Nepal runs many different awareness raising programs, forming women's pressure groups and running workshops. Community outreach programs are established that provide public information campaigns, consultative workshops, development of awareness materials which also ensure increased media coverage of issues and community sensitisation, legislative reform, strengthening of border securities, sharing information, and exposing the perpetrators publicly.
Since 2004, Maiti Nepal has been exploring new livelihood opportunities for the survivors of trafficking and children and women at high risk, according to their aptitude, market demands and availability of employment opportunities. They also provide seed money for individuals to start their own enterprises. Maiti Nepal are an organisation that leaves no stone unturned in their efforts to eradicate human sex trafficking and to offer healing and a future to survivors. They have also established hospices to provide holistic care for the women and children who are terminally ill or suffering from HIV/AIDS, Multi Drug Resistance, Tuberculosis, Hepatitis and other chronic diseases, emphasising palliative rather than curative treatment.
The Emancipation Network.
After volunteering for a year with Maiti Nepal, musician Sarah Symons founded The Emancipation Network. TEN then initiated the project Made by Survivors. Motivated by the movie The Day My God Died, which highlights survivors of trafficking grasping their power, Sarah was moved to take action. She saw survivors taking rescue agencies and police back into the brothels to rescue other kids, or stopping every car at border stations between Nepal and India, and with the help of border police, stopping trafficking situations in progress. These survivors were also particpating in public awarenss progams. Seeing people standing up against slavery and putting their lives on the line to fight it - with limited resources, with emotional and physical scars from years of abuse, Sarah felt that if they could do it she could find a way to help.
While in India as a volunteer for Maiti Nepal she asked founder Anuradha Koirala what kind of help she needed the most. Anuradha suggested working on self sufficiency for the older survivors.
Formal education is not a real option for many survivors because many are over 16 and have never been to school. 44.3% of women enter prostitution as children.
Sarah had seen survivors making beautiful crafts as a part of the informal education and rehabilitation programs run by Maiti Nepal and a vision began to form. She and husband John developed Made By Survivors - selling the products made by the survivors at home parties and other events, which also created the opportunity to raise awareness about human trafficking. Today they partner with 18 anti trafficking shelters in 9 countries including Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Ukraine, Uganda, the Philippines, Tanzania, and the United States, as well as other abolition groups. TEN visits and communicates with their communities regularly ensuring that ethical standards are met and as the program has developed and grown many people have come on board to help and home awareness parties and community events have continued to grow.
The mission of TEN developed: to improve the lives of survivors through empowerment and education, to assist rescue shelters by offering job programs and funding for rescue and after care, school sponsorship and work training, to improve rehabilitation and reintegration giving survivors tools to rebuild their own safe, slavery free lives, and to prevent trafficking in high risk communities such as red light districts and refugee camps. TEN also works to raise awareness about slavery and engage people to action and their programs are not only supported by donations but also by the efforts of the survivors themselves who design and create their own unique fair trade jewelry, bags and gifts. 100% of profits are donated to survivors and shelters.
TEN supports long term interventions. Many survivors need intensive care in a residential setting for 2 or more years. The youngest children may need shelter care until they reach adulthood.
Survivors in all the TEN programs receive medical care, counseling, education, clothing, recreation, clean and comfortable room and board, vocational training, loving care, respect for privacy and dignity.
TEN focuses their work in the most at risk communities including children born into red light districts. They sponsor children living in red light districts to go to boarding school to keep them safe, as they face grinding poverty, terrible stigma and are at extreme risk of being trafficked into slavery alongside their mothers,
Education is the best means of recovery and reintegration for survivors and TEN endeavors to ensure that it is provided for all children in their programs, including children of their adult survivors, and, where possible, the adults as well. Currently they are sending over 100 children to school through sponsorship programs in India and Nepal and their Freedom School in north India. The Freedom School is for children rescued from slavery in quarries and agricultural work in Firojpur. They have been born into families that have been enslaved - many for decades, to pay off debts often less than $100. Violence and their belief that they are legally required to fulfil their debts through forced labour keeps these families enslaved.
Although many of these children experience a myriad of problems in their first few months, after a time of loving care where they are nurtured and nourished, they begin to blossom.
One of the biggest problems that shelters face is that the survivors have no where to go. They are often not welcome back in their communities, especially if they were sold into prostitution.Typically they were trafficked at a young age and have never lived independently. Some were so young when they were sold or stolen that they can’t remember where they came from. As a result shelters are faced with the issue of not having good options for survivors which leads to the problem of not having space available for newly rescued survivors.
As a result of the success of the sales of the Made By Survivors project TEN has established The Destiny Centre in Calcutta, with plans to open another centre in Mumbia. The Centre provides equipment, resources and teachers to train the young women in skills such as sewing, block printing, silver and gold smithing. The Centre is a haven where the women experience a safe and dignified working environment. The ability to provide for themselves means these women are able to take a step further in the realisation of the dream of freedom and independence.