STOP - Stop Trafficking and Oppression of children and Women
Human trafficking, the forcing of a person into sexual or labor exploitation, is both a human rights violation and one of the fastest growing criminal activities in the world with over four million people disappearing into trafficking every year and 70% of these being trafficked into the sex trade. The physical and emotional pain that victims of sex trafficking endure is unfathomable. This project will fund the healthcare needs of women and children rescued from brothels in India. STOP will work with local hospitals and physicians to provide health care services (including annual physical exams, immunizations, vision and dental check ups, HIV/STD screening, and mental health counseling) for the 50 rescued survivors/vulnerable children in STOP’s AASRAY large extended family home in New Delhi. Completed! Click on this need's title to read more.


Ms. Roma Debabrata, who is a senior Reader in Delhi University and also the President of STOP, was introduced to trafficking in 1992 while reading a newspaper article on a trafficked Bangladeshi child who had been brought to court after being raped in police custody; Roma decided to volunteer as the official translator in the case. It was the girl's plight that led her to launch the STOP movement in New Delhi, India, in 1998. A group of academicians, professionals and grass root level workers joined hands in order to create a habitable society that ensures justice and equality for women and children. STOP’s aim is to combat trafficking and HIV/AIDS while at the same time bring about the empowerment, self reliance, and self-sustainability of women and children through awareness generation, income generation and community mobilization programs.

Human trafficking, the forcing of a person into sexual or labor exploitation, is one of the fastest growing criminal activities in the world with over four million people disappearing into trafficking every year and 70% of these being trafficked into the sex trade. The United Nations estimates that approximately 1 million girls/women are forced into the commercial sex industry each year. This highly sophisticated industry is the most abominable violation of human rights and has no boundaries as it exists in almost every country, including the United States. It is estimated that over 200,000 persons are trafficked annually from South Asia (UNDP 2003) while 30 million women and children have been trafficked across the Asia-Pacific over the past 30 years. In 2005 the Government of India's Ministry of Human Resource Development estimated that two million children between the ages of 5 and 15 were forced into conditions of commercial sexual exploitation. $5 billion of the commercial sex industry is generated from the exploitation of children.

STOP is fighting to combat human trafficking and HIV/AIDS by a multi-pronged human rights-based framework addressing all levels of the trafficking trade and human exploitation. STOP is creating an informal policing system within the communities by turning migrants living in the urban centers into informed, vigilant investigators, effective at gathering and handling information critical to rescue efforts and arrests. STOP has developed a humane direct rescue module and files legal charges against perpetrators. STOP is also providing the AASHRAY large extended family home, a safe space for the trafficked and HIV affected women and children with a free, participatory and non judgmental approach. Not only is STOP organizing rescue, rehabilitation, and repatriation efforts for the girls, but also working on the preventive front by providing education, healthcare, advocacy, and career training in the most vulnerable areas, the slums.

RESULTS:

Providing healthcare to girls in the AASHRAY home is one way in which STOP can strengthen women's health and development, empower vulnerable individuals, promote women’s and children's rights and eliminate violence against children and women.

The children have been provided with counseling services which included trauma counseling, health services, board and lodging, formal and non-formal education, skill training programme, yoga, music etc.

STOP has developed a counseling cum medical room at STOP’s Large Extended Family Home. Medicines for common cold, fever, stomach disorders, dehydration, and skin infection and for any such common illness are available all the time in medical room and are given timely to girls whenever required. Medical files for all girls are made and maintained regularly with every recent updates. Doctors have been arranged for regular check-up of the children and women. Referral services have also been arranged for complicated cases in Jaipur Golden Hospital and All India Institute of Medical Sciences. Apart from the general physicians, there are specialist medical experts who are being consulted on regular basis.