We arrived in Kolkata late Tuesday night, May 19th, and have spent the past week here settling in with Maya Karmakar before we leave for Allahabad next Tuesday, May 26th. Ms. Karmakar is an incredible woman we were introduced to through Michelle’s aunt. She has not only become our second mother by opening her home to us, but has also become an amazing inspiration and role model for us by sharing her life story. She has dedicated her life to working towards solving social issues in India, specifically focusing on women and children, and each day we learn something different from her about her work in these areas - like her perspective on the kinds of barriers a lack of education creates, especially for women, or different ways there are to solve this lack of education. I can’t believe we only have one week with her – she has so much knowledge and experience to share with us, not only about the educational system in India, but about the role women are expected to play in Indian society and how she was able to break free from this role to pursue her own dreams.
This morning, Ms. Karmakar took us to meet a woman named Indrani Sinha, the director of Sanlaap, an organization that has been working on the issue of human trafficking for the past 8 years. Ms. Karmakar knows her through the work that she is currently doing on women’s political involvement. (It’s incredible how many different organizations she has managed to network with – she is an amazing resource!) Ms. Sinha spent some time talking to us about her organization and offered to meet with us again when we return from Allahabad at the end of July. She also gave us several books and research papers on the issue of child trafficking, which we are planning on reading on our long overnight train ride to Allahabad!
Sanlaap’s program has three main parts: rescuing women and children from trafficking or abusive situations, rehabilitating them at one of Sanlaap’s 4 shelter homes, and running an awareness/outreach campaign to prevent trafficking. Much of their work is done with children under the age of 18 so that they can break the cycle of trafficking. It was interesting to learn about the unique obstacles to education for girls who have been trafficked. For instance, it is important to focus on vocational training, because girls are able to rely on these skills to make money instead of reentering the cycle of prostitution. It is also possible to use these skills in either a professional setting or out of their own homes. This vocational training includes textile printing, fashion design, batik printing, embroidery, cooking, dancing, and beauty parlor training. Another obstacle are the mental challenges girls who have been trafficked have to work past before they can get an actual education and eventually reenter society. Sanlaap’s shelter homes are all staffed with psychiatrists to serve their mental health needs, and it can often be weeks or months before a girl is ready to talk about her experiences, let alone start her education. A final interesting part about Sanlaap’s outreach programs is that they focus on support programs for children that are born into brothels. They have a drop-in center program for children to stay in during the day and evenings after school so that they do not have to be in the brothels with their mothers. This situation is not only mentally damaging for many children – Ms. Sinha told us the story of one boy who committed suicide when he discovered that one of his friends was his mother’s client – but actually puts the children in physical danger as well, because most of the clients in brothels are drunk and would just as soon rape a child as have sex with a prostitute. In addition, many children are ostracized at school because they are known as the children of prostitutes. This, along with the fact that their mothers do not have enough time to work with them after they come home from school, makes it very difficult for the children to learn and sets them up to enter the cycle of human trafficking. Sanlaap’s drop-in centers help with this issue by providing after-school tutoring and support for these children.
29 MAY 2009