Sunday, October 12, 2014

STATE CONNIVANCE OR APATHY?

This has been one of the most traumatic week of my life time. A mob attack from within!!!
 A few weeks back, 7 girls rescued by Gopalapuram police,Secunderabad were admitted in our shelter through court order. In just 3 days we were uncomfortable with these women, there was something sinister about them. This was further reinforced when 30 other girls who were cheery and full of life, willing to learn new trades started showing signs of hostility. In a few hours we realized that these were 7 traffickers posing as victims…in essence infiltrators and the 30 girls belonged to their gang.
I immediately informed the concerned court, and the magistrate was clueless on what has to be done as the police had shown these women as victims in their FIR.
Although we were alert and for weeks together there was no sign of any trouble…what we did not realize is that a huge conspiracy was being hatched.
Last week on Durgashtami day, these 37 instigated another 100 and mobbed the shelter from within…unimaginable violence, 5-6lakh worth property was damaged(truck, tata sumo all vehicles including)  and 16 people were injured including 4 staff. As the girls slashed others with broken pieces of glasses and stoned the shelter…over 300 others were shivering with fright and praying for their lives.
They had planned to do this on a day when I am not in town and they had presumed that I was traveling to Delhi. Unfortunately for them my plans had changed and I was very much in the city. I was able to mobilize police support and start from Hyderabad immediately(shelter is 65 kms from Hyderabad). With the timely support of the local police who mobilized force from nearby stations we were able to control the mob within the campus. I shudder to think, even if one girl had come out of the campus…what a field day media would have had and what all I will have to answer! Much later I came to know that media was already informed and they were desperately waiting for some news outside…a district addition did go ahead  and print something about fishy happenings inside our shelter…
It has taken 6 days and 6 nights for me to bring back some sense of hope and confidence in 450 women and children living in our therapeutic community. I had to speak to each one of them…and 90% of them were traumatized by what they saw…and kept repeating they always thought our shelter was much more safer than their own homes…but today they are scared and feel at a dead end…if not this place…where can they go?
Between all this deep within me there unbearable pain and anguish. I wonder every moment now on the truths I unraveled during this time:
-The fact that the Gopalpuram police knew these were traffickers and yet send them to our shelter especially when all these girls were supposed to give their statement in the court next week and the police is aware of it. When I confronted the police their logic was if we send them to jail they will get bail and they will become even more hardened, atleast in Prajwala we are sure they will get reformed. Was it compliment or connivance I wonder?
-The fact that Prajwala is the only licensed home for such specialized care for sex trafficked victims both in Telangana & Andhra Pradesh. And police from all over India just keep dumping girls on our head through court orders. There is not a single Government run shelter home for this cause. Where is the state accountability to deal with this problem?
-The fact that Centrally sponsored Ujjwala scheme is a disaster to say the least. The scheme does not even acknowledge both in word and action that sex trafficking is an organized crime and homes getting this scheme should get adequate/proportionate security. The implementation and disbursement is even more pathetic…consequently 80% of fraudulent NGO’s are only accessing the scheme.
-The fact that in this country there is no victim witness protection scheme which can ensure that all victim witnesses in these cases are provided adequate protection post their stay in safe house….so what is their fate when they leave our shelters? And therefore why should they testify at all? State does not protect them…I can give only for a limited period of time….and the perpetrators thanks to our brilliant criminal justice system will get a bail and will be waiting for the victim outside my shelter as soon as she is out!
Today I am feeling so choked and frustrated…there is only so much I can do as an individual and an organization. The State neither acknowledges this problem nor is willing to place resources to fight this crime…
We at one end struggle with resource crunch…at another fight the sex mafia but the biggest fight is against the society and State for its apathy and rejection. 

After rescuing 12,000 girls from prostitution and attempting to rehabilitate and reintegrate them I am still wondering…will I ever make an impact?

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

CROWD FUNDING FOR DISTRIBUTION



Mortaged my house,staked everything I owned so that a never before told true story of sex trafficking is made into a feature film “Naa bangaaru Talli”(www.naabangaarutalli.com). I had to tell this to the world before I go to my grave!!!

It won seven international awards and three national awards, and everybody who has seen the film says I thought this will be a award film, but this is super family thriller”

And yet I struggle to find a distributer…I need Rupees 15 lakhs to have a modest release across Andhra Pradesh & Telangana. And I seek your support to make it happen as I hope to release “Naa bangaaru Talli” by end October 2014.  This money I have to raise by 4th October 2014 so that I can order for the publicity material/TV ads/newspaper Ads/hoardings/posters etc…etc and also get the theaters.  Contribute whatever you can to ensure this story is heard by all. All contributions should reach the following on or before 4th October.
A/c Name:  SUNTOUCH PRODUCTIONS
A/c No.:     911020050297659
Bank:        AXIS BANK LTD
Branch:      MEDHIPATNAM
Location:    HYDERABAD
IFSC Code: UTIB0000426

Friday, May 16, 2014

AN OPEN LETTER TO CHIEF OF BOKO HARAM


                                                                                       14th May 2014

Dear Abubukar Shekau,

NAMASTE!

I am not sure whether you have heard the word Namaste. This is an Indian word to greet others which means “I bow before the goodness in you”. And that is what I want I want to do right now, before I express the reason for writing to you an open letter.

My name is Sunitha Krishnan, I am an anti-trafficking activist, based in Hyderabad a city located in South of India.  In the last two decades I have rescued and rehabilitated over 10,100 girls from sexual slavery.  I am a Hindu by faith, but a humanitarian by religion.

Last night I was watching all the videos that you have sent. And what stuck me the most is that we are both very much alike. Both of us are passionate and madly obsessed with our convictions. We have worked very hard to convince others of our beliefs and have been successful in getting a lot of people believe in our convictions. Both of us similarly think that there are oppressive forces that is destroying this world and there is an immediate need for radical intervention from every human being to change the situation.    

But the method you have chosen to actualize your convictions is something that I cannot endorse. I am sure the reason for which you are doing all this has a strong background and your objective is based on deep-rooted pain that you have experienced.  But nothing can justify mindless violence and force. What is the logic of kidnapping 272 girls and keeping them in captivity and threatening to sell them as sex slaves.

Do you think any of these people actually care when million out there are already getting sold every 10 minutes for sexual slavery. Come see any of the prostitution places across the world….millions of girls from all over the world are sold every minute to satisfy the libido of men across the world….children….girls…adults all of them traded so that there bodies can pecked by vultures….the world is SILENT…it does not matter to them that across the world predators are moving in different garbs…offering jobs, marriages…love anything to exploit vulnerability and then trade them…thousands of girls from Nigeria are also languishing in different parts of the World like Italy, German, Austria, ...
Who cares a damn? Does not the world community know about it…believe me everybody knows. But very few want to fight the organized criminal syndicates who are doing this. These are criminals who have no other agenda other than making “money”….using these innocent bodies…
Nobody is questioning ‘men all over the world’  who pay money to have sex with little children, girls….women…Why should they care? They think it will never happen to their near and dear ones. Let me tell you something, these men are not coming from another planet….they are sons, brothers, husbands, fathers of all of us here…. Does Anybody Care…Afraid NOT!  

Why do you want to be clubbed with these criminals? From what I heard you speak…to me it appeared you had a strong reason for your action. By letting your action become same as what any other criminals do…you are forcing the world to call you a ‘terrorist’. No matter how right your thoughts are but if your actions are wrong.....then you also will become ‘wrong’.
Please do not demean your thoughts further by resorting to actions that any human being will definitely condemn.
Children or any human being are not playthings…that you do anything that catches your fancy…Using violent methods, kidnap, forcing human beings to follow another religion under duress cannot bring any change in the world. On the contrary you are creating a situation where you will be more and more excluded. 

I was aghast when you laughingly proclaimed on your video that you will sell those innocent girls as “sex slaves”…Do you even understand what you are talking about? Do you have any idea what it is to a woman to be violated…again and again. Believe me…Allah will never forgive you even for a having a thought of that nature…He the merciful is compassionate and will never laugh at the pain and suffering of others…He will never EVER endorse forcible abduction and rape for the gratification of individual needs.
You have no right to kidnap those girls….and definitely no rights whatsoever to blackmail anybody so that they are forced to release your colleagues.
Do you realize that your action can motivate other evil & criminal forces to do similar things and that if your act is not stopped right away…children across the world are at risk to a similar plight but albeit to satisfy other agendas which may not be as “noble” as yours…Do you see the damage that you are party to…This mindless act of yours has shaken all the efforts of humanitarians across the world. STOP IT…BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE…YOU CANNOT BE THE REASON FOR HUMANS BECOMING SATANS.

I am fighting an organized crime….you are also claiming to fight oppressive forces…and I want to tell you ‘cultures’ are not oppressive…but “actions” can be oppressive…And the act that you have committed right now is downright unacceptable for anybody following any faith from any part of the world.
Anybody including ‘you’ if you act in a way that is destroying others…you are as oppressive as anybody else. You then lose the moral right to preach anything.
Please open your ears…and listen to the cries of the mothers wailing for their daughters who are now in your captivity…Please open your eyes and see the millions like me anguished by your act…

I demand to evoke the ‘goodness in you’…to let go the girls to their families. I say this as a passionate fighter like you who wants to bring change in the world…a new world order which is free of all forms of sexual slavery….Please do not become part of the Oppressive forces which brings in slavery….You are different….and I trust the goodness in you….the merciful Allah in you will guide you to do this rightly.

Believing that collective goodness will destroy evil anywhere in the world…and having faith in your ‘goodness & godliness’ to take the right decision.

With love & prayers,
Sunitha Krishnan
India