Sex trafficking has many root causes – such as lack of awareness, poverty, corruption and gender inequality. Grounded in the belief that creating knowledge, changing perceptions, and influencing attitudes at the community level is essential in removing all possible pathways and preventing traffickers from entering villages.
My Choices Foundation turned 10 this year, and we have come a long way since inception. We launched a ground-breaking anti-human trafficking intervention initiative to raise awareness about ways to prevent trafficking in their villages and communities. The Safe Village Program was launched in 2015 for the protection of women and girls from sex trafficking. We conducted 7,670 Safe Village Programs and impacted 32,44,884 people across India until now. Our grassroots stakeholders, Nodal Teachers, Rakshaks, Gram Mitras, and Community leaders braved bumpy roads, and they challenged conventional thinking.
Situated at a height of 2000 feet plateau from sea level, the village Badringa in the state of Chhattisgarh holds immense beauty with dense forests, magnificent valleys, stunning wildlife and a spectacular stretch of rivers. The pleasure and excitement it offers to the visitors are soul-enriching. A walk with a local leader in the woods turned a simple stroll into a mission on trails and reaffirmed our commitment to continue to reach the people residing in the remotest and the farthest villages with messages of the Safe Village Program. When a local stakeholder joins forces in the journey, the mission of My Choices Foundation becomes something much bigger and our tendency to take a leap of faith becomes stronger without a shred of doubt.
Drawing attention to the need and seriousness of bringing awareness of human trafficking to the people of Badringa, we talked with a community leader after a long journey on narrow, sandy roads. It was one of the most fulfilling conversations we ever had – which further emphasised our belief that each village has someone who wants to protect families and communities by making their village safe from traffickers.
Soon after the conversation, words turned into actions. The village leader dialled the numbers of almost everyone in the village and said “Hurry people”. We have some good and amazing visitors who care for us. They have come here to help us keep our village safe “Come fast”. His talk purely exhibited his passion to keep his village safe. He kindly asked us to wait for some time so everyone could arrive because this programme is highly important for each of them in the village.
After an hour, we had a huge gathering of people and the village sarpanch ensured that all women leaders were present for the community meeting. The best part of the Safe Village Program was that we had taken six teams – Implementing Partners and their field workers – from Odisha and Chattisgarh to Badringa village to show them how to do the Safe Village Program.
All Implementing Partners and field workers were greatly surprised by the proactiveness of the village leader (Community Leader) and other stakeholders (Gram Mitra, Rakshak and Nodal Teacher) for gathering the villagers and taking a commitment to keep the messages of the Safe Village Program alive within the community.
After the programme, the community leader shared “Thank you very much for travelling this far; messages were so simple and easy to understand and we will take all measures to keep our village safe. You have chosen us (he was referring to himself as a community leader and Rakshak, Gram Mitra and Nodal Teacher) and you can trust us. We will be active and you will hear if any suspicious activity occurs in the village. Thanks again. You have a safe journey back home.”
It was a learning experience for our Implementing Partners and their field workers and personally, for us, it has strengthened our belief that our Safe Village Program is moving in the right direction with committed and inspirational stakeholders. Each program is a step closer to achieving our mission.
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Take a pause in 2022 and let’s travel to 2020 – two years ago, we learnt about the loving friendship of young girls – Reshma (15 years) and Raveena (17 years). They loved each other, played their hearts out across the village, shared loads of laughter and supported each other during difficult times. Other girls in the village envied their friend but drew inspiration to find a loyal friend. Their happiness took a hit and their lives were unquestionably changed all because of the traffickers who posed themselves as well-educated young men and promised to offer better lives for Reshma and Raveena.
Reshma’s parents married her to an unknown young man with a good job in a faraway city. They were moved by his kind nature as he paid money to clear off their loans and promised a better life for Reshma. Little did they know that he was a trafficker. When Reshma reached Hyderabad from Hedia in West Bengal, she was looking for a home to start a life. Instead she was sold into a brothel for a lump sum amount and her husband never turned back. The days and nights that followed were traumatic for Reshma – she was raped by multiple men in a single day and her 15-year old fragile body couldn’t take it. When Reshma lost contact, her parents filed a complaint with the police and after many months, she was rescued and brought back to the village.
The story of Raveena wasn’t much different. She was lured by a trafficker who pretended to be in love with her. Though Raveena wanted to study, her parents’ financial struggles forced her to marry him and what awaited her was a brothel in Bihar. Neither Reshma nor Raveena are the same-old cheerful young girls who were bursting out into laughter and enjoying every moment of their lives. Love was never there and good life was nowhere to be found.
That was when Heida was shown on our vulnerability mapping tool as one of the highest traffic-prone villages. My Choices Foundation joined forces with Bansra Birangana Seva Samity (BBSS) and hit the road to conduct the Safe Village Program at Hedia. Without your generous support we wouldn’t have been able to reach 6,891 villages through our Safe Village Programme, created awareness amongst 30,26,133 people and responded to 64,553 calls.
Let’s get back to the present, 2022, there is still bride trafficking. Our stakeholders – Gram Mita, Rakshak and Nodal Teacher – and Implementing Partner stressed the importance of stepping up our efforts and having another Safe Village Program in the Heida village. “After attending the Safe Village Program, many of the villagers became cautious about new people who visit our villagers and provide lucrative job offers.” said Nodal Teacher from the village, Hedia in South West Bengal.
What we would like to leave with you during our visit to Hedia is: Traffickers are finding new ways to enter the village and they could strike at any time. And, these innocent people placed their trust in us that we will step up our efforts to fight these traffickers. Let's ‘Step Up’ and save those young girls from the clutches of traffickers.
If you spot any signs of trafficking please give us a missed call on 1800 419 8588 and our team will respond to assist you.
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2021 has been a year of a fearless perseverant journey for My Choices Foundation. We continued to adapt and marched on to empower women and girls to make choices to live a life free of violence, abuse and exploitation - by conducting sex trafficking awareness programmes at high-risk villages in the remote corners of India to ensure the safety of children from being trafficked. As of December 2021, we have reached more than 6,000 villages in India educating and empowering more than 2,800,000 women, girls, men and boys about sex trafficking and ways to prevent it.
We made inroads into new territories - the first Safe Village Programs were conducted in Chhattisgarh and Odisha - making us active in 10 states of India as we prepare for our 10-year anniversary celebrations in 2022.
My Choices Foundation makes inroads into Chhattisgarh with our Safe Village Program
During the sunny mid-afternoon on Saturday, 4 December 2021, villagers happily welcomed the team of My Choices Foundation. Our team found shade to begin a meaningful exchange. When our Program Director, Vivian Issac, explained the purpose of the visit and what the Safe Village Program is all about, villagers paid careful attention to anti-trafficking messages. It instilled their curiosity and they had questions. This also helped our team to rediscover the passion and the intent of the work we do – as it happens in each of the Safe Village Programs – to create a safe living and thriving environment for every girl in the nation of India.
As a part of the Safe Village Program, comic books were distributed and our engaging flip charts were a huge success too. The messages of Good Fathers, Informed Mothers, Guardian Girls and Smart Boys resonated with the villagers. It was an active and participatory discussion. As people made sense of the messages, two families came forward and said that two boys and one girl had gone missing two years ago. We gathered as much information possible to file a police complaint and with the help of our stakeholders are making efforts to get the children back home.
Our first Safe Village Program in Odisha
It was a long journey to Hanumal village, Odisha where we conducted our first Safe Village Program in the state. The hospitable villagers treated us with a warm cup of tea and their lovely smiles. In partnership with our Implementing Partner, we made efforts to gather people from the surrounding villages. It wasn’t an easy walking journey on the hilly terrain, but 60 people – fathers, mothers, boys, girls and even grandfathers and grandmothers showed up.
With the help of the translator from our Implementing Partner organisation, we introduced the My Choices Foundation and our vision to be there in the village. They listened attentively and asked questions. It showed the curiosity and interest of people who want to protect their children from any harm. Comic books were distributed and story narration took place with engaging flip charts in the local language.
Here’s a moment that welled up our eyes(in each Safe Village Program): 17-year Malati who trekked eight kilometres along the muddy roads and bumpy hills to attend our Safe Village Program said, “I will be forever grateful for you to visit this place. You have made an effort, acknowledge our existence and talk about safety, which is kind of rare these days. I am going to talk about all your messages to my Mother and Father as soon as I reach home. I will also share it with my neighbours. It is highly needed to keep ourselves and our children safe from traffickers. Thank you very much. Please visit us again.”
If you spot any signs of trafficking or child marriage please give us a missed call on 1800 419 8588 and our team will respond to assist you.
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Trafficking in persons affects generations and not only individuals. The poor and vulnerable are the most susceptible and COVID-19 only reaffirmed this severe tragedy.
Every year, 30 July is observed as World Day against Trafficking in Persons. My Choices Foundation held its 3rd Asian Anti-Trafficking Forum on 28 July 2021 in anticipation of World Day against Trafficking in Persons. We focused on equipping, strengthening and encouraging our grassroots’ stakeholders who work in the villages to keep the villages safe, encourage children and raise awareness on trafficking in persons. The event was attended by 150 Implementing Partners, Field Trainers and State Coordinators and over 300 viewed it live on Youtube.
Our wide network of grassroots stakeholders - Rakshaks, Nodal Teacher and Gram Mitras have helped us ensure that villages are safe and the awareness is sustained after the completion of the Safe Village Program. Listening to the victims’ voices through our grassroots stakeholders allows us to focus on the crucial role they play in establishing effective measures to prevent trafficking, as well as measures to raise awareness more effectively through our Safe Village Program.
We have more than 2,200 Rakshaks (Field Volunteers) who are pro-active volunteers who report instances of trafficking and child marriages in villages and assist our implementing partners in sustaining the impact created by SVP.
We have also enlisted more than 1,600 Nodal Teachers who ensure children do not drop out of school and continue their education.
And finally, we have more than 1,500 passionate Gram Mitras (Friends of the village) who aid in ensuring the safety of the children and women in the village.
With the support from our grassroots’ stakeholders, we have conducted more than 5,400 Safe Village Programs across eight states in India, impacting 26,90,000 people. During these programmes, we also equip people with our toll-free helpline to report instances of trafficking and child marriage through which we have received more than 53,000 calls. Our team takes the received complaint forward with assistance from local authorities to help the families.
Testimonial from the field:
One of the attendees at the Safe Village Program said that "Through the Safe Village Program, we learned that we need to be vigilant to protect children from the third wave of COVID-19, sex trafficking, child labour and child marriage. We must take precautions so that children are safe in our village.”
Safe Village Program adopts a holistic approach and focuses on sensitising at-risk community members about child trafficking, its causes, risk factors, creating awareness about ways to prevent child trafficking, sustaining the awareness and conducting vulnerability-reduction workshops. We believe that we can end sex trafficking together with collective knowledge and action.
If you spot any signs of trafficking or child marriage please give us a missed call on 1800 419 8588 and our team will respond to assist you.
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The COVID-19 pandemic impacted young girls in multiple ways. While the family vulnerability increased, they also are becoming more susceptible to traffickers who are using innovative ways to exploit. We remain steadfast in our aim to create Safe Villages by increasing awareness about sex trafficking and child marriage through our Safe Village Program and are working towards making villages in India safe.
To date, we have reached more than 5,000 villages across 8 states in India- Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh. We have empowered more than 2,590,000 people to spot signs of trafficking and report any instances of trafficking or child marriage. Our program uses a customized comic book to create awareness about sex trafficking. We distributed more than 1,310,000 comic books which also has our Anti-Trafficking Helpline number that people can call to report cases of trafficking or child marriage.
Testimonial from the field:
One of the mothers after attending the SVP said that, “We thought of getting my daughter married. Many of our neighbours knew about it. But now we are informed that early marriage is a punishable act, and I assure you that, till my daughter is 18 years of age, we will not talk about it. I want my daughter to attend the school like other children”.
Through our Safe Village Program, we have also been empowering people to use our Helpline to report instances of trafficking and child marriage. We have received more than 51,000 calls through our anti-trafficking helpline to report trafficking and child marriage. Our team then takes the complaint forward with assistance from local authorities to help the families.
To ensure the sustainability of our Safe Village Program, we enlist volunteers as custodians of the Safe Village. We have more than 2,000 Rakshaks (Field Volunteers) across 8 states who are the eyes and ears of the village. They are vigilant and spot signs of trafficking and child marriage, report them and assist the survivor with the help of local authorities.
We have also enlisted more than 200 Nodal Teachers who have taken on the role of keeping the children of the village safe and ensuring they are given a holistic education.
And finally, we have more than 1,100 passionate Gram Mitras (Friend of the village) who help in conducting home visits and support in the rehabilitation of survivors of trafficking. They also assist in identifying and preventing domestic violence in the communities.
Testimonial from our Gram Mitra:
One of our Gram Mitra’s is also a Ma Sitola Temple (local temple) board member, a woman who cares for her village and wishes to keep it safe -
"I am attending this programme for the first time and I liked it. I am thankful to the Red Alert team for thinking about our society during this pandemic. Today our village people received very important awareness through this programme. I heartily wish that you continue this programme and I am promising you to help in any way possible. Thank you."
Our wide network of Rakshaks, Nodal Teacher and Gram Mitras have helped us ensure that villages are safe and the awareness is sustained after the completion of the Safe Village Program.
If you spot any signs of trafficking or child marriage please give us a missed call on 1800 419 8588 and our team will respond to assist you.
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