Praneeta, Shaheen and Anjali are not related, nor are they friends. Yet, fate tied these three children together in a horrible fashion.

Aged between three and five, all three of them were abandoned by their parents in the face of poverty, sold away to brokers for prostitution and pornography, and simply left to be raped and tortured.

Their stories, as narrated by social activist Sunitha Krishnan during her TED talk, were bone-chilling and horrifying, yet unfortunately true to the last word. To date, Hyderabad-based Krishnan and her anti-trafficking organisation, Prajwala, have rescued more than 7,000 children across the country from the clutches of brokers, pimps, brothel owners and rapists.

At over 11,000, the number of grown-up women rescued is even more alarming.

WAGING A WAR

A crusader at heart, Krishnan showed her eagerness for social work at a very young age, when she started teaching poor children at a nearby village. But society wasn’t ready to take help from a woman. In return for her efforts, at the age of 15, Krishnan was gang-raped by eight men.

They wanted to teach her a lesson and break her spirit. Yet, their actions merely firmed her resolve to fight against atrocities towards women.

She remembers: “For two years, I was ostracised by everyone around me. But I never felt victimised – neither then, nor now. What I felt was anger.”

That anger never died, but it helped her start a revolution.

One of the oldest red light areas of Hyderabad city was evacuated in 1966, and thousands of women in prostitution were uprooted and displaced. Questions about their future and possibilities of offering alternative livelihoods plagued Krishnan and made her set up Prajwala, along with Bro. Jose Vetticatil, another like-minded social activist.

Since then, Krishnan and her team have worked closely with the government, law enforcement authorities and civil societies to prevent trafficking of women and children.

Every year, thousands of young girls and children are sold off by their families to brokers in exchange for money or lured into prostitution with the promise of a respectable job.

With several departments devoted to prevention of human trafficking through the spread of education, rescue operations, economic and psychological rehabilitation, HIV counselling and social reintegration, members of Prajwala work tirelessly to make the world a better place for women and children.

“Human trafficking is one of the biggest organised crime rackets across the world. The war we are waging is a long and difficult one,” says Krishnan, who has also spoken for her cause on platforms like TV show Satyamev Jayate.

“I look at Prajwala as a laboratory, where we demonstrate before the world how it is possible to restore dignity to the lives of these women and children,” she adds.

Most of the women Krishnan rescues are victims of sexually-transmitted diseases, yet they are fearless. They have no qualms about working in a male-dominated field. Many of these women have been successfully trained to be carpenters, welders, masons, security guards and cab drivers. They are now masters of their own life.

And that is where Prajwala’s achievement lies.

FRESH CHALLENGES

Now in her early 40s, Krishnan has been assaulted by goons 14 times and has even lost one of her staff to these attacks. But her biggest challenge continues to be posed by the common people in society.

“People have become more sensitised to these issues, they are willing to help out but they’ll never hire one of our rehabilitated girls as domestic help or let them study with their children,” Krishnan regrets.

Now she is trying to spread her message even further through documentaries and films. But no good deed goes unpunished.

“It has been two years since my husband Rajesh Touchriver and I have finished working on a feature film titled Ente (Malayalam for ‘mine’). While the process of filmmaking was in itself wrought with many difficulties, now we are facing an even bigger challenge. A film without superstars cannot find a distributor, even if it has won seven international and three national awards,” she admits.

“Yes”, Krishnan adds, “the world conspires to make it increasingly difficult to do good deeds.”

But that has never stopped her till now.

As she bravely prepares to find a way out of this crisis and take her film to the masses, she hopes that her conviction and zeal to fight can see her through many more.

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