Ruchira Gupta
In India, violence against women has a long history which
has been kept alive by the patriarchal society, where women are still often
seen and treated as inferior to men. We
have seen headlines and read reports of gang rapes, forced prostitution, and other
violent crimes against women in India for many years now and sometimes I have
been wondering if there has been any improvement in how women are treated there
after the world-wide news reports on these crimes. Therefore, while reading the book "200
women" by Blackwell and Hobday, I was pleased to come across Ruchira Gupta, who
has been fighting against sex-trafficking and violence against women in
India. She is a well-known journalist, social justice activist, feminist and a lecturer,
who has worked over 30 years to end human trafficking and prostitution.
“Working for a world,
where no human is bought or sold.”
Back in the 90s, when Ruchira Gupta worked as a journalist,
she found out about a systematic trafficking of girls and women from Nepal to
Mumbai’s brothels. Some of the kidnapped
children where as young as 9. These children and women were beat up until they
submitted to the prostitution. Gupta’s documentary report, The selling of
Innocents, depicting the sex-trafficking and abuse of these children received
an Emmy award on 1997, and brought the issues of human trafficking into focus across the world. It also shifted her career into improving the lives of
these prostituted children and women, when she realized that simply reporting
on the issue was not enough. She co-founded an organization, Apne Aap, which
helps these victims and their children and by doing so, is trying to put an end
to sex-trafficking in India. They help these women to get into the governmental
anti-poverty programs and give them access to food and health care, so that
they are not dependent on the forced prostitution anymore. The organization
also helps to get the children of these women into schools, so that they can
avoid the fate of their mothers.
Giving voice to the
victims
In addition to Apne Aap, Gupta has worked with UNAIDS, WHO,
UN, UNIFEM and UNICEF, and she is considered a global authority on
sex-trafficking. Her work has received multiple awards, such as the Clinton
Global Citizen Award for Commitment to Leadership in Civil Society. She has
been successfully lobbying policy makers to change the laws in India and to
shift the blame from victims to perpetrators. Her work has also given a voice
to the victims by taking them to court as witnesses and by sharing their
stories.
Even though gender discrimination and women’s inequality
remain substantial problems in India, it was inspiring to read about such a determined and courageous woman, who has dedicated her life to improving the
situation and the lives of the victims of human trafficking. There has also been progress on the
governmental level, with new programs to stop the violence against women and to
improve girl’s equality and access to education. As hard as it is sometimes to
read the reports and to watch the documents on such violence and cruelty, seeing
evidence of progress always gives me more hope and returns my believe in
humanity.
Interview in the book “200 Women” by Geoff Blackwell and Ruth Hobday, Chronicle books, ISBN: 978-1-4521-6658-2
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