RESCUING 5 GIRLS FROM HUMAN TRAFFICKING

As we have mentioned in previous reports, more than 500,000 people worldwide become victims of trafficking networks every year. That's one every minute. Without a doubt, we are fighting a huge and terrible problem that affects hundreds of thousands of people each year.

For us, eradicating human trafficking is the main objective of our projects in South Asia and also in Spain. We invest the greatest efforts in prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation. However, many women and girls still continue to fall prey to human trafficking networks and become sexually exploited.

Thanks to the work of our teams on the field, always in collaboration with local authorities and specific anti human trafficking police units, we have managed to rescue more than 115 victims in recent years, subsequently providing them with a safe place for rehabilitation.

Recently, our local team in Mumbai joined forces with a local police's Anti-Trafficking Unit to participate in an operation against a trafficker who was allegedly forcing two young women into prostitution on the northern outskirts of the city.

The joint rescue operation began at noon. According to the plan, the trafficker was approached by a decoy client, actually a member of our team, who proposed meeting her at a local restaurant, indicating that he was interested in hiring two girls for sexual intercourse. The trafficker attended the meeting bringing the two victims along to the location, believing she would get a good sum of money.

As our team had gradually discovered, this trafficker lured vulnerable and financially challenged girls with false promises of high-paying jobs. In reality, she forced them into prostitution. The victim charged clients with sums of upto 10,000 rupees (approximately US$112), then paid only 2,000 INR (almost US$23) to the victims, and kept the remainder for herself.

During the operation, police officers intervened and freed the trafficker's two victims. One was originally from the state of West Bengal (northeast India) and the other from Bhusawal, in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra. Both were taken to a government shelter, where they received the care and attention they needed and deserved, with the follow up and supervision of our team. After some weeks, they will be able to decide if they want to return to their native place or remain in the shelter home.

The trafficker was arrested under the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (a law passed in India in 1956 to curb human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation) and sent to jail pending trial. 

Since 2020 we have carried out 58 rescue operations, through which we have cooperated in the rescue of 115 victims from trafficking.

We are proud of what we have achieved so far. Although still there is a lot of work to do, every single life saved is definitely worth it. All these efforts can be done thanks to your support.

Thank you!

We keep our peaceful and tireless struggle against human trafficking and exploitation in the Indian city of Mumbai, as well as other South Asian regions. In this opportunity we would like to highlight a case particularly outrageous, as the victims were minor girls. They were being forced into prostitution with adult men at an age when they should have been playing and going to school.

These girls were needy and extremely vulnerable, as they came from poor families who had many difficulties to bring them ahead. As is often the case in these cases, a man without morals or scruples appeared and saw nothing more than a business opportunity in these girls' situation.

He started to promise them a better life, and was eventually able to establish a pretended frienship with them. Unfortunately, what he really had in mind was a very different reality, and soon the two girls found themselves far from their families and forced to have sex with several adult men each and every day in a Hotel in Nallasopara, a city in the outskirts of the Mumbai Metropolitan region. He even used to blackmail and threaten them in order to force them to stay with him and not try to escape.

Our team came to know about the situation of these girls and started coordinations with Anti Human Trafficking police units to develop a rescue operation which was totally succesful: both girls were transfered to a specialized shelter home where they started their recovery process, and the trafficker was arrested and is in the process of being charged and prosecuted.

This is one of the occasions where there is a favorable and hopeful outcome for the victims. They now have the opportunity to return to the normal life expected of girls their age.

And as for the trafficker, we hope that the law will prevail and he will receive the punishment he deserves. Especially since in the meantime, he will no longer be able to continue subjugating or exploiting other girls.

However, we are not always able to find a satisfactory end to these types of situations. It is difficult and risky to follow the leads we receive until we find the place where the victims are being sexually exploited. And when we do, sometimes the operation ends in failure and the trafficker manages to escape with his victims, leaving us with the frustration of not having been able to save them.

That is why your support is always so important, because every successful rescue operation requires a lot of effort, many hours of work, many leads followed, and many expenses.

And that's why, when, like this one, we can celebrate the rescue of two girls, we feel proud and very, very grateful to you for your support.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!