India: Trafficking Rehab

Anita’s parents eventually learned about our anti-human trafficking shelter home. They appealed to them to help rescue their daughter. The staff members took immediate action to find and rescue the girl, using their high-level connections to get the job done. Further, the shelter’s leaders have filed a suit against the perpetrators and everyone is hoping that justice will be served in this case. Anita is presently living in the shelter home where she is recovering from her ordeal and is going through literacy training and a tailoring class. She hopes to have a better future.

Roughly 26 million people around the world are victims of the modern-day slavery called Human Trafficking. The United Nations’ definition of human trafficking is “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation."

India is a source, destination, and transit country in South Asia for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Half the world’s victims of Human Trafficking reside in India. The problem in India is staggering. OM has a preference for prevention of trafficking by educating and providing opportunities and alternatives. But we still want to reach out to girls that are already enslaved in trafficking and exploitation. OM has four shelters that provide a safe place for trafficked women. Once a girl has been trapped in this lifestyle, it takes so much more to bring healing and rehabilitation than it does to prevent her from ever entering such a world.

Care and counseling are at the core of the programs. But the girls are also provided opportunities for alternative lifestyles. Sewing, computers, tapestry work, and beading are all examples of trades these women are taught so they are not resigned to a future set out for them by those who view them as possessions. When you have no money, no training, no education and no one to help you, you have few options. Many of the girls at the centers feel as though they finally belong, they find their worth and know that they are truly loved and cared for.

We shelter and counsel 40 women who were rescued from prostitution networks or escaped from their bondage as temple prostitutes. Your generous gift will contribute to the $1925 cost of caring for and ministering to each woman for a year. A gift of any size will help shelter, feed, clothe and provide the care a girl needs.