Trafficking survivor stitches empowerment dreams

CHANDREYEE GHOSE, TT, 30 Jul 2019, Calcutta: This 30-year-old entrepreneur is confident, ambitious and proud to be have provided employment to several underprivileged girls like herself over the past four years.

She is also a trafficking survivor who had spent nearly four years in the redlight area of Kamathipura in Mumbai in her teens and among the few who have succeeded in turning her life around post rescue.

But the journey has been far from easy. The girl, with roots in Maharashtra, was rejected by her family after she returned from the clutches of traffickers.

"Many girls are married off after returning home, some are re-trafficked while others go missing. Only 10 per cent get back to education or learn a skill to earn a livelihood," said Manabi Nag, in charge of a shelter home run by NGO Sanlaap, where the girl spent 12 years after her rescue.

The trauma of her ordeal didn't, however, rob the woman of her zeal to do something. "I always wanted to do something big and realised soon enough that tailoring was my forte," said the 30 year-old, now married and a mother of one.

Besides continuing to educate herself, she started learning stitching and cutting under the skill training department of Sanlaap. "I trained there for two years before being selected for a workshop at the National Institute of Fashion Technology. I was declared "outstanding" at the end of the course in 2004. Since then I wanted to run my own business," the entrepreneur said on the eve of World Trafficking Day, which falls on July 30.

From taking orders at home post marriage, she moved on to setting up her own shop with just one machine in a space owned by her in-laws next to the house in South 24-Parganas. "I took a loan to do up the shop," she added.

In five years, her business has grown and so has her confidence. She now has several machines and four apprentices who work at her shop. Many more girls train under her. " "I provide free training to underprivileged girls in the locality. Many start their own business after the training while some continue to work with me," said the woman, who gets 20-30 orders a month for blouses and salwar suits. The orders double during festivals.

"I know embroidery and many other stitches. I also can stitch western attire. But the demand for that here is low. My husband and I download designs from the Internet which we show our customers. During festival,s I am flooded with orders and my shop remains open till 1am," said the entrepreneur who dreams of opening a branch in Calcutta and venturing into e- commerce. Her typical day starts at 5am. "I do my household chores before opening the shop around 10am. My girls report for work by 9.30am. We work till 1pm and break for lunch. I reopen my shop at 4.30pm and work till 9pm. Sometimes I have so many apprentices that my shop is overcrowded. But I am happy that I am empowering others too," said the woman.

Trina Chakrabarti, the regional director (east) of CRY, which has been working in partnership with Sanlaap, stressed the need for empower- ment of trafficking survivors.

"Trafficking survivors need hand-holding for years, to come out of the trauma.

They must be trained in livelihood skills because economic independence checks trafficking. There are success stories where village-level child protection committees have been able to avert trafficking, through simple measures such as identifying vulnerable families and linking them to various government schemes. We need to empower more survivors so that they do not become vulnerable again," Chakrabarti said..