Puducherry: In the 35 years that the founder of Guria India has worked on issues of commercial sex, child trafficking, and forced prostitution in red light areas, Ajeet Singh has never seen a government commit itself sincerely towards this cause.
“New laws may come, but their proper implementation has never been a priority,” he says in an online interview.
Guria India is a not-for-profit that works out of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, towards eradicating sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children. Over the past three decades years, Guria has succeeded in creating a compensation fund in UP for rape survivors, in putting together a medical board for age verification in rape cases, in getting 41 traffickers imprisoned in one case of child trafficking, in ending child prostitution in the city of Varanasi, and achieving many other commendable milestones.
These children and women are not a vote bank, on the contrary they are used by a large network of procurers, traffickers, pimps, brothel keepers, politicians, and even policemen – and so their voices are easy to ignore. This is the complex nexus that organisations like Guria must fight, says Singh.
Failures: Governmental, constitutional, and Human
More than simply the lack of proper implementation of laws, Ajeet Singh believes that the constitution itself has often been disregarded by most parties in power.
According to him only the rule of the elite persists, where one can forget about any commitment towards the women of India’s red light districts. Singh adds that the new rhetoric of the Congress suggests they have learnt from their past mistakes, and if they are elected to power now, they might adopt a more progressive stance, instead of perpetuating religious orthodoxy and a brutal form of Hindutva.
But it is not just the government that is to blame. “There is such a deep-set decay in society that people allow such injustice to go unquestioned,” Singh says, adding that common people silently accept this system too.
Guria India workers with rescued children. The minors’ faces have been blurred in keeping with the law. Photo: By arrangement.
The role of NGOs
As someone who has dedicated his whole life towards the liberation of women and children in the red light districts, Singh is disappointed with the attitude and approach of many modern day NGOs and activists. According to him, an NGO’s work begins where that of the government ends. However, he feels like there is a mechanisation amongst NGOs where they work only as much as required for the select few projects they have taken up and “as soon as the clock strikes 5 they think their job is done.”
Providing minimal aid, whether it be food and security, or condoms at a red light district, does not address deep rooted issues, and to work in such a field one must immerse oneself in this life and cater to every aspect of the issue.
It is these ideals that Singh brings into his work at Guria. From the age of 18 when he adopted the children of a Muslim sex worker, to now, he has conducted many intricate operations to rescue thousands of women and children, and put many brothel keepers behind bars.
Guria takes pride in having an end-to-end system that sees to every aspect of this pervasive problem. Singh and his team are pioneers in this field, but he recalls that when they first began, they “didn’t know how to hold the snake, by the tail or by the neck.”
The NGO uses a three-step process of pre-rescue, rescue, and rehabilitation of victims, that consists of identifying places of rescue, victim’s identities, obtaining legal warrants, allotting shelter homes, collecting evidence, putting together preventive measures, and making sure the rehabilitation and reintegration process goes smoothly. It also conducts mock trials to prepare victims, ready them for witness protection programmes, to testify in cases and so on. At the post-rescue stage, the organisation has installed non-formal vocational training as well as art therapy and other practices to ease the transition of survivors into the mainstream.
In the past, Singh has worked for 11 months undercover as a pimp and has sold cosmetics in the red light district to be able to secretly record evidence using hidden cameras. He urges the government, whichever party that comes to power, to work for the society as a whole, to battle against inequality of all kinds, and use the model that Guria India follows.
Ajeet Singh with rescued children. The minors’ face has been blurred in keeping with the law. Photo: By arrangement.
Caste, religion, challenges, and dilemmas
The nature of Guria’s work forces it to interact with the legal system.
Whether it Public Interest Litigations, ongoing court cases, or first information reports – the pace is most often slow and inadequate. There is a 90% acquittal rate, and a 91% pendency rate for human trafficking cases. Even when criminals are caught, they often escape punishment, Singh says.
“This is one area where direct government intervention could significantly help the women involved,” Singh says, adding that he and his team members have faced 31 attacks, one recently where a truck hit the back of his car.
Singh says families too legitimise prostitution in some cases. While working in a red light district makes it slightly easier to distinguish between perpetrators and victims, in some villages it is passed on from mother to daughter. In such cases, it significantly more challenging to identify a course of action. Singh says that women from the landless deprived castes, are all the more vulnerable to exploitation.
Singh added that victims are almost always respectful of each others’ religious identities and “celebrate Diwali, Eid, and Holi all together.”
Ajeet Singh with rescued children. The minors’ faces have been blurred in keeping with the law. Photo: By arrangement.
The way forward
While talking about the various challenges of working against commercial sex, Singh admits that by far the worst aspect of it is the social discrimination that he has had to face.
On the practical front too, his work is fraught with decisions. He must decide whether he wants to work at the source of the problem, in the villages, or at the destination, in the brothels, or in transit areas against unsafe migration. He must determine whether to carry on alternative forms of education to empower women in the sex trade, or simply battle prostitution as a whole. He must choose between attacking pimps and brothel keepers or opposing corrupt police officers.
A commitment like that of Singh’s turns into a life-time’s personal fight.
Singh says that any kind of change must come from the people. He asserts that it is extremely important to instil in children values that make them good human beings, values that foster a deeper connection with nature and society. “When this human solidarity grows within people, the world will finally become a better place. This is his way forward,” he says.
Janaki Pande has a Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Sciences degree.
