Steering 500 Women Away from Prostitution, Mumbai

Outreach:

As the primary contact between AAWC and the women of the red light district, our outreach team provides women of Mumbai’s red light district with regular adult literacy classes, nutritional supplements, health camps, counseling, other emotional support, awareness meetings on topics of hygiene, effective parenting, sexual health etc., financial literacy and other general aid as and when required. Due to the rigorous outreach, our team has been able to enroll 47 new women under the Umeed program. This is demonstrative of the constant efforts put in by AAWC, clubbed with growing awareness amongst the women to strive for a better life through the resources provided by us.

We have been able to make 31564 home visits, this quarter, where we conduct individual and group sessions with the beneficiaries on the topics of awareness about various health issues, tuberculosis (TB) symptoms and treatment, immunization, awareness about pure drinking water and many more other related to this that play an important role in their lives.

Education:

We at AAWC recognize the importance of formal education, and the consequences of being unable to access it. Education is a system that is often affected by- and in return perpetuates, many forms of marginalization. Due to their socio-economic backgrounds and being trafficked into the flesh-trade at an early age, most of our Umeed beneficiaries have never had any exposure to formal or informal educational systems.

AAWC realizes that providing formal education to women involved in prostitution is not an easy process, and hence have designed a program that works along with the routine of our beneficiaries. Our outreach team conducts regular adult and financial literacy drives- an important parameter of the Human Development Index, and even provides our beneficiaries with notes and assessment sheets at their homes on a daily basis. 

a) Adult literacy 
In this quarter, due to our efforts, we have been able to enroll 28 new beneficiaries under the adult literacy program. We have continued teaching English and Math to our beneficiaries by reaching them regularly within their work area.

In this quarter, our field team has been successful in reaching, educating and monitoring a large number of beneficiaries for the adult literacy activities who have learned to write their names. Few beneficiaries learned to write A to Z alphabets (Capital and small letters) and 1 to 100 numbers. Considering that access to these women is not easy, and comes with a lot of rapport and trust building – such a large number of attendance in our adult literacy course is a monumental achievement.

b) Financial literacy
Along with the prescribed adult literacy programs, we also work on providing our Umeed beneficiaries with specialized financial literacy aid. While working within the community over 20 years, we have recognized the need to spread awareness and bring confidence to our Umeed beneficiaries with regard to the money they earn through the trade. Often, the women are duped by money lenders, community members, like the brothel owners, pimps, temporary partners, family members, etc.- thus trapping the women further in this cycle of prostitution.

Upon realizing that financial stability is key for the women to feel safe, and probably even exit the flesh trade- we have created our financial literacy programs to tackle issues of gambling, savings, creating bank accounts, etc. This quarter, 14 of our Umeed beneficiaries have been able to open their own bank accounts, after rigorous discussions and support from our outreach team.

We derive a sense of satisfaction here, as it leads to the women breaking away from the cycle of debt due to local moneylenders and increased interest rates.
 
Health and Nutrition:

Health, like education, is a basic necessity and a fundamental right of any Indian citizen- as has also been provided in article 21 of the Indian Constitution. AAWC understands the importance of access to quality health care, and has always been proactive about our beneficiaries accessing only the best and certified healthcare professionals. From providing our Umeed beneficiaries with monthly health-checkups to medical referrals to government hospitals for aiding the HIV+ beneficiaries/ STDs with specialized care, we realize the needs of our beneficiaries and support them accordingly. We conducted the health camp where 95 beneficiaries got themselves checked. 8 medical referrals have been done for TB patients and 166 medical referrals have been done for Antiretroviral therapy (ART) patients.

Apart from these, 24 HIV+ women and 4 Tuberculosis (TB) infected women have been identified through regular health checkups held by AAWC. We have also been able collect CD4 reports for 23 beneficiaries in order to track the improvement in their immunity.

Apart from medical assistance, we also provide our Umeed women with nutritional aid like multivitamin/protein supplements, health packs of soy milk, bananas, moringa seeds, multigrain breads, etc., additional hot meals and snacks as required. We also supply our beneficiaries with access to subsidized/free groceries, so as to enable their potential to cook healthy meals for themselves. 

In this quarter, we have had 6436 nutritional supplement visits where we also collaborated with “The Robin Hood Army” to conduct ration distribution drive in which 394 beneficiaries were provided with 5Kg rice, 2 kg Pulses, 1ltr oil etc. We have successfully enrolled 13 new beneficiaries under the nutrition drive.

Along with direct aid, we help our beneficiaries in procuring health-based documents like birth certificates, health-cards, required medical prescriptions etc. that ease their access to certified health-care professionals. This quarter, we have helped almost 4 of our women obtain their health card and 20 women to obtain their ration cards and other relevant documents.

Empowerment:

All of our Umeed women lead a rather precarious life; they work throughout the night and are able to rest only at early mornings. They are also often under heavy drug usage and do not have the will power or time or liberty to make it all the way to our centers for the vocational training sessions.

For that, we conducted 19 different types of “Area Activities”, where the Outreach Workers (ORWs) mobilize women and discuss about various topics such as awareness about pure drinking water, ill effects of superstition, Tuberculosis (TB) symptoms and treatment, health issues, information regarding ration cards, savings account and insurance, immunization and many more.

We also hold monthly meetings, where the beneficiaries gather and discussions are conducted on specific agendas. The topics of the meetings for this quarter has been “health and hygiene”, upcoming celebrations etc. The resource persons for the meetings discussed the importance of hygiene in one’s life and then told women about the importance of nutrients and what wonders can it do to your bodies.

We believe that equipping our women with simple yet financially beneficial skills which will further aid them in leading a life of dignity and sustainability, eventually getting out of the traps of prostitution. Keeping these realities in mind, we had designed our program in such a way that those who could leave their brothels would enjoy these skill-development sessions. We provided them with We must say, 23 beneficiaries were provided job skills training under beautician course and mehndi course.

Aadhar card was made of 9 beneficiaries, voting card was made for 9 beneficiaries, pan card was made for 10 beneficiaries and birth affidavits were made of 9 Umang/ Udaan beneficiaries. All these are tools of privileges that women possess to be able to fulfill their needs.

Counseling:

AAWC understands that women in the red light districts go through both mental and physical traumas, and hence deem it imperative to support them through our mental-health assistance. We conduct regular counseling and therapy sessions with all of our women, along with providing specialized discussions on topics such as sexual and menstrual health, substance abuse, personal relationships, effective parenting, healthcare for chronic illnesses, etc. which play a vital role in their lives.

Most of our counseling happens on the field, while therapy sessions are undertaken on an individual and group basis at our centers. Considering that providing such nuanced counseling within the structures of prostitution is almost impossible, we have been able to counsel 152 women with their day-to-day issues, in this quarter. Few beneficiaries constantly require counselling to make them understand the importance of ART, daily care and their health issues etc.  

Celebrations:

This quarter witnessed the two celebrations. One was, “Independence Day” in which one of our ardent donor distributed rice, pulses, Oil to 120 PLHA beneficiaries. Beneficiaries also celebrated Independence day with the staff. Few beneficiaries sang patriotic song. They also sang National anthem along with AAWC staff.  

 Raksha Bandhan was celebrated with 90 Umeed beneficiaries. This was a part of one of the monthly meetings we have. The program began with sharing the reason behind celebrating “Raksha Bandhan” and then the moral beyond the story followed. Sitting in a line, the women tied “Rakhi” in each other’s hands and promised to respect and protect each other.