The Emancipation Network
Fighting Human Trafficking and Slavery with Empowerment

 Subscribe in a reader

Subscribe to Made By Survivors Blogs by Email

Destiny - Blogging and Fighting Slavery in Kolkata, India

Updates from our Destiny Program in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, and our Destiny staff's experiences helping us fight slavery and human trafficking through economic empowerment.  

Sarah Symons - Everyday Miracles

Sarah, co-founder of TEN, blogs about her experiences creating a abolitionist organization and her work building a network of shelters and survivors working together to end slavery. 

John Berger - Business With A Mission

John, co-founder of TEN, blogs about the abolition movement, social enterprise, and life as a social entrepreneur.

Team India 2010

Stories from this years Feb 2010 volunteer trip to India.  Read a long and perhaps you will want to come work with us on our next trip in August 2010

Abolitionists in Action

Reports from volunteers, guest bloggers, and abolitionists around the world.

 

 

Up, Down, and back Up again.

Okay, since my last posting I have had a heat rash, swollen joints, and a fairly bad case of diarhhea.  Ya, I know, not pretty.  But, after a much needed 12+ hours of rest, and a bathroom, I was slowly back on track.  I did discover one thing though, that I was never going to eat Indian food again....which was kind of tricky, since I still had 9 days left in the country.  Fortunately, though, we were hours away from our much anticipated side trip to Darjeeling, the tea capital of India, near the Nepal border, where I assumed more western style food, as well as a more Asi

Social Ventures Employing Survivors - This is Not Charity

When thinking of social ventures like Destiny Center, Freeset, or Sari Bari, it might be tempting to think of them along the same lines as charity.  I not only believe this is incorrect, but also that this perception among some customer segments inhibits the success of these ventures.  If the quality of the products is very poor, then the case could be made that buying these products is an act of charity. 
 

Three Stories You Should Hear About

In Calcutta (or rather Kolkata as it's usually spelled nowadays) there are three young women from the US who have each done something extraordinary.  I hope more people can hear about what they've done and gain inspiration from their stories.  Let me start off by noting that Kolkata is not an easy place to live for most people used to life in the US or other Western countries.  The reason for this is that the public services, air quality, general living conditions, and the culture are very different from what most of us in the western part of the world have grown accusto

Calcutta Nights

Most of the overt prostitution in Calcutta occur in the evening in the red light districts where women actually line up along the street for passers by, like some sort of commodity that can be picked over, chosen, used, and abused.  It might be tempting to think that the women want to be there since they`re standing out there without a gun to their head.  But the gun in this situation is behind the scenes in the physical violence, coercion, and desperation that holds these women hostage to a brothel owner/madam.

A Tree grows in Calcutta

It is hard to find words for everything I feel and all the wonderful and inspiring things that have happened this week. At the same time, it has sometimes been overwhelming, and some moments have been difficult to bear.  Most of the girls and children that we have been working with for the past few years are thriving – making a success out of lives that they could never have imagined - but there are a few that we have lost, or that in dire peril, and it is hard to come face to face with that reality.  We are doing everything in our power to intervene and help these individuals, and I am grateful to have the chance to try, but working on this issue, in this underworld, there are huge challenges.

Strong Women All Around...

Hello Everyone
We are preparing for a busy weekend.  We have a field trip to some public gardens a couple hours outside of Kolkata tomorrow with some children from a red light district shelter.  And when we are finished with that, we'll be taking an overnight train trip to Darjeeling for some sight seeing and fresh air (please!).  So I wanted to blog a bit about the past few days before we head out.
 

Auntie, Auntie...sweeeet!

I only have a few minutes before we go to a different shelter, so i can't do the last two days justice. i thought, instead, that i would jot down a few notes
-i have spent the last three days at a women's interlink foundation shelter which houses about 100 girls and sends about 50 of them to school, with the rest learning a trade and the younger ones just being young (4,5,6)

With Love from Kolkata!!!!

Hello from Kolkata!!  We have been working at the shelters now for four days and it has been such an incredible experience.  Three of the days I have worked at Womens Interlink International, about an hour and a half outside of the city.  There are about 100 girls currently living at the shelter.  The girls are surviviors of trafficking, orphaned because of AIDS or taken in because they were at high risk of being trafficked.  There was one little girl who was rescued right before being auctioned off, her pr

Finding a Voice for all Women

Tuesday at one of the Made by Survivors production centers we had a wonderful discussion with the young women about the rights of women around the world. We shared our own experiences as women with them and learned more about how they perceived women in the U.S. We also got to hear about some of the ongoing struggles they experience as women while working towards becoming more independent. They expressed that it is difficult for women in India to find a safe place for their voice while honoring their families, cultures and religions. It is sometimes hard to imagine the violence that occurrs against women around the world, including in the U.S., but we all agreed, there exists a world without this violence and slavery, we just have not gotten there yet. Everyone proposed ideas on how to combat violence against women, and in my opinion, ALL of them are possible. Educate girls and women, Teach girls about the biology of their bodies, Promote sexual health education for all, Give access to better (and more) health care for all. And, to all the Men out there: Join the movement, Speak out against violence against women, Show your children (boys and girls) how to respect and love women, Teach your daughters that they deserve to be treated well, and Give them as best an education as you can.

Three days of pure love

I have just completed three days in a row of "service" at a Women's Interlink Shelter outside of Calcutta, and it was such a beautiful experience.  I was never prepared to be greated at the gates each day by 60+ little girls yelling, "Auntie, Auntie", or the buffet style lunch fit for an Indian king each afternoon, or the infinite amount of hugs and hand holding that takes place, just because I am me.  Nobody too special, really, just a middle aged mom of two from Cape Cod that likes to read.  Nothing more or nothing less.
 

"AUNTIE...YOU...ARE...LOVE"

Greetings from Kolkata!
There has been no greater feeling on this trip than being greeted by sixty perfect and beautiful girls and young women as we enter their home.  A couple hours outside of Kolkata is the Women's Interlink Foundation shelter that provides full time care and housing for almost 100 survivors of sex trafficking and orphans of sex slavery victims.  Four days in a row, we pull into the shelter to a round of applause and squealing girls chanting "Auntie!  Auntie!".  We are met with bear hugs, huge smiles, and whole lot of girls battling to hold hands with their "aunties".

Words can't do it justice

I can't possible recap the last 3 days in a single blog entry.  I've met inspiring people doing challenging, life changing work.  The social enterprises I've been able to visit and experience firsthand are making a profound impact in the lives of hundreds of women who have made it out of the sex industry, forging ahead in a new life for themselves and often their kids as well. 

“This is the Best Day of My Life!”

On Monday morning, we began our 2 weeks of programming in Calcutta shelters and red light areas, starting with our very own Destiny girls.  After some very silly and hilarious icebreakers, we joined in a forum discussion about women’s rights,  comparing progress and continuing challenges in the women’s rights movements of each.  We talked about the fact that although the girls all consider America more progressive, we have yet to have a woman president or vice president, whereas India has had two women in the two highest offices.

 The girls felt that the biggest difference between Indian and American women is their confidence.  American women have more
confidence, they unanimously think, because we are allowed to make all kinds of decisions for ourselves – what to wear, where and how long to study, who to marry, where to live, if we work, and in what field.  In India, especially among the poor and in villages, male relatives make all these decisions.  Even Becky has to give her father’s name every time she wants to rent an apartment of get a cellphone or Internet connection.  Obviously, this systemic sexism is a huge factor in human
trafficking.  

Sunny Sunderbans fight Trafficking

This summer, Smarita and I had the privilege of coming to know a small NGO working in the Sunderbans, called Gosaba Anwesha. The Sunderbans is a mangrove forest, mostly island district, in southeast West Bengal. Many of the islands border Bangladesh, and because it is such a porous geography it is easy for traffickers to bring women from Bangladesh into India. Also, many young women are trafficked from the Sunderbans into Kolkata or another big city, because their homeland is extremely poor. Most people there rely on the rice patty crop, which only yields one crop per year.

And this is why friendship bracelets were a bad idea...

Well hi! Haven't been able to blog as we have had veryyy demanding schedules :)

Dirt...and the best shower ever.

With technical difficulties solved, here is my first blog entry.
What has troubled me the most about Calcutta, is the dirt and pollution.  Though I have never witnessed poverty (and population) of this magnitude, reading books, watching documentaries and being reminded  (more than once) by Paul and Sarah, I felt somewhat prepared for the shanty style huts and tents, emaciated animals, and some very sad, solemn faces.

A Different World

Today we visited 10 of our school sponsored kids who have been placed in Ram Krishna Mission Boarding School.  It was absolutely amazing! The kids looked so good, so happy and healthy and clean, that I almost did not recognize them.  These girls, aged 6-13,  were all born into the Kidderpore red light community of Calcutta.   Their mothers were
trafficked as young girls into brothels, and are still working the streets, kept captive now by a complete lack of other options, and by the extreme stigma hanging like a cloud over the whole district.
 
When the children lived at home, they shared a tiny room in the brothel with their mothers – it was a dangerous situation in the extreme, as there is always the risk that a client would tire of the mother and reach for her young daughter instead.  Our partner agency Apne Aap, which runs a prevention program in Kidderpore, eventually took these 10 girls into the night shelter because they were at especially high risk or had already been exploited.  The Emancipation Network began paying for their schooling three years ago and this past spring, they were enrolled in the Boarding School.

"Obey the Rules of Traffic"

That's what this large barrier in the middle of a 4-lane road running out of Kolkata airport said.  It wouldn't be very noteworthy in most places but it is here where an outsider visiting for the first time wonders if there are any rules at all!  Cars, trucks, motorcycles, auto rickshaws and bikes all jockey for position, honking incessantly and flashing each other as they approach too closely, all in what seems like a chaotic though rhythmic dance extenuated by loud horns and large black puffs of diesel exhaust. 

Finally!

Hi everyone!
My journey started in Boston, then stoppped in New York. From JFK, we flew 14 hours to Delhi, a flight  on which I got a total of 1 hour sleep. yay. At the airport in Delhi, we had about a two and a half hour wait. The lines are slow moving in any place in India, but staff and other travelers were curious and friedly. We were all so thirsty and bought hug bottles of water (we will be drinking only bottled water while we are here). I went through a Duty Free store which sells designer perfume at about a 20% discount.

Arrived in Kolkata!

After a long trip we have finally made it to Kolkata!  It in unlike anywhere I have ever been before, there is so much going on everywhere you look.   The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was insane.  I have never experienced anything quite like it.  We were swerving all over the roads at high speeds while cutting off cars by inches and blaring on the horn.  I was pretty certain we were gonna hit something or someone at anytime.  Did I mention there are no seat belts???  It was a nail biter but