America.gov - Engaging the world

16 June 2009

Innovative Activists Save Trafficking Victims in Jordan and India

Government-public partnerships, mobile technology raise public awareness

Dr. Sunitha Krishnan of India

By Jane Morse
Staff Writer

Washington — Dr. Sunitha Krishanan knows what it is to be a survivor. Well-traveled and the daughter of a government official, Krishanan was brutally attacked by a higher-caste youth when she was 19 and living in the Dalit community outside of Bangalore in her native India.

She managed to recover from the trauma of sexual violence and decided to devote herself to working with oppressed and exploited people in her society.

In 1996, one of the oldest red-light areas of Hyderabad city was evacuated and thousands of prostitutes and their children were uprooted and displaced. It was then that Krishanan, joined by Jose Vetticatil, a brother belonging to the order of Montfort Brothers of Saint Gabriel, established the nongovernmental organization (NGO) called Prajwala aimed at preventing further exploitation of these children.

Prajwala’s “second-generation” prevention program operates in 17 transition centers and has helped thousands of children of prostituted mothers. The NGO’s strategy is to remove women from brothels by giving their children educational and career opportunities. Krishanan and her staff train survivors in carpentry, welding, printing, masonry and housekeeping.

Prajwala has used videos of victims making statements to advocate for better legal protection of trafficking survivors, and it has created an alliance of 30 citizen groups to replicate the organizations’ work in other Indian states.

Aida Abu Ras of Jordan

EDUCATION A TOOL IN PREVENTING EXPLOITATION

Aida Abu Ras sees education as a way to prevent the exploitation of women. In 2003, she created Friends of Women Workers, the first NGO in Jordan to tackle human trafficking and the problems of female migrant workers. The NGO provides training in equal rights, health and safety, as well as legal counseling for migrant women.

Abu Ras is now developing additional training programs for foreign workers and is working with the Jordanian government to build capacity for enforcing regulations and assisting domestic workers.

In recent years, thousands of foreign women have come to Jordan lured by the promise of jobs, mostly as domestics. According to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, there are some 60,000 to 70,000 legal and illegal foreign women workers in Jordan. Their lack of language skills and knowledge of protective legal mechanisms, such as contractual agreements, makes them vulnerable to many forms of abuse.

Friends of Women Workers tries to rectify this with public awareness campaigns. In one such campaign, the organization sent 2 million e-mails and more than 120,000 text messages to Jordanian mobile phone users instructing them on the appropriate treatment of their workers.

The work of Abu Ras and Krishanan has earned them the honor of being named one of the “Heroes Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery” in this year’s Trafficking in Persons Report, issued annually by the U.S. State Department. The report catalogues human slavery in countries around the world as well as what their governments are doing to combat the problem.

An estimated 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year. Millions more are trafficked within their own countries.