By Manjulika Chellappan | Communications Associate
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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