by Lynnette Lounsbury
I had the deep pleasure of meeting Anita recently when she was visiting Australia and she agreed to talk to Ytraveler about the issue of trafficking in India and much of Asia, what she is doing to end it and how you and I can be wiser, kinder and more ethical travellers.
Ed: Anita, what exactly is trafficking and why is it such a problem in India?
Anita: Trafficking is the trade in human beings. It is the second biggest illegal industry in the world after drugs, but it is fast becoming the biggest problem because, unlike drugs, human beings can be sold again and again. The industry is worth over 32 billion dollars a year and is spread across every continent – we mustn’t think this isn’t happening in the developed West as well. For someone to be considered “trafficked” they must be taken by either force or coercion -in other words deceived about what is actually happening and they are then sold into some sort of labour. It is not the same as working in a sweat shop for poor pay. It is being “owned” and forced to work either to pay off your “ownership” or simply as a slave. The problem is rife in India and many of those who are trafficked are children under the age of fifteen.
Anita Kanaiya
Ed: How did you become involved with the fight against trafficking?
Anita: I grew up in small place in India called Vellore and my parent’s worked at a small Christian hospital there. I saw the people coming in for treatment and the terrible poverty and I knew I want to work in aid. I completed a Masters in Child Development and began to work for Oasis India in the city of Bangalore. It is a non-government organisation whose mission is to provide a place where the weak and endangered of India can find safety and community. We have seen the problem of children going missing in our area and we began to work with the local police to start some sort of system to locate trafficked girls and rescue them. We worked with police to start recording missing persons and collating the data. We discovered that over 1000 girls under the age of 12 had gone missing in the last year – just in our small city. We knew we needed to spread awareness of the problem.
Ed: What happens to a child when they are trafficked?
Anita: Sometimes they are kidnapped from the street and drugged. But very often traffickers go to the deeply poverty stricken rural areas and slums and offer to buy children and give them jobs that will send money home. Parents believe it is a good system and since some money – even a small amount – does come home, they don’t question what is actually happening.
Ed: And what is happening?
Anita: Some, the luckier ones, work in terrible conditions in the garment industry, working very long hours for almost nothing. They are not safe conditions either, as we saw recently with the factory collapse in Bangladesh. But for many, it means the sex industry. Girls are taken to a brothel and “broken in” by the pimps for 48 hours until they are so psychologically damaged that they do as they are told unquestioningly. They service about 25 customers a night on a single bed in a large room with rooms separated by curtains. During the festival months the girls service an average of 40 men a night. The doors are guarded by bouncers and they are never allowed to leave. They earn over $500 a night each for their owners and so it is a lucrative business. Some of the girls are as young as 8 and with this sort of abuse they have a working life of only 4-5 years before they are sick with HIV, physically damaged and psychologically traumatised. Many become pregnant and the children live on the floor underneath their working beds.
Ed: What does Oasis do for these girls?
Anita: It is very hard to get the police to take the matter seriously as they have so many problems that they believe are bigger – terrorism for instance. So we have teams that go undercover into the brothels and factories to try and gather enough evidence that the girls are there without their consent and are too young. When we have the details the police come with us to raid the brothel and try and free the girls. It is difficult and dangerous and many times the brothel owners are tipped off and move the girls around. We do succeed though – and when girls are freed we place them in rehabilitation for 2-3 years in the hopes of providing them with the means to live a fulfilling life.
Ed: Is it possible to stop trafficking before the girls are taken into the sex industry?
Anita: That is our hope. We realised early on that the biggest problem was a lack of awareness. People in the rural areas have no access to media, they genuinely think their daughters are going to given good jobs. We are talking to communities and schools about being aware of traffickers and keeping safe. It is difficult when people are so desperate for food, some simply do not care what happens to their children, because they have so many others to care for.
Ed: What role does the tourist play in this problem?
Anita: Sex tourism is a huge industry in India as is child pornography. People come from all over the world to access very young children. The demand is a huge part of the problem. But many regular tourist are also caught up in the sex trade simply because they are unaware that in India, unlike some parts of the West, the girls are not involved by choice, but are sexual slaves.
Ed: What can we as travellers do to be more aware of the problem and help to end it?
Anita: Keep an eye out when travelling. Males may be offered girls by their taxi drivers or in markets. If you are you can call 1098 – a child help line – and they will give Oasis the information. Anything about where the girls are being held is useful for us. Raids are very difficult as brothels often have hollow walls, floors and roofs so that the girls can be quickly hidden. One young man who was travelling through was offered girls by his driver and he called us immediately. We asked him to say yes and he stayed on the line until he was able to locate and meet with some of the girls and get us their information. If you are brave enough to do this – it can save help us save the girls. Travellers can also be aware that if someone is travelling with a large group of children they are probably moving trafficked children around. The traffickers mostly use public transport to avoid being caught. The children are often drugged and sleepy. You can call the local police immediately. Recently a tourist called the police and they caught a woman with six young girls. They caught her because the girls were so heavily drugged they could barely walk and the tourist noticed. But there are also simpler things you can do. Being aware of where the clothes you purchase are made is one thing – many are made by trafficked children in terrible factory conditions. If you’re clothes were cheap, this is probably the case. You can make it important to you that you know where your clothes come from.
Ed: Thank you Anita for both your powerful and important work, but also the words of wisdom for travellers.
If you live in Australia and want to make a tax-deductable donation, Oasis has an Australian partner – Asian Aid.