The EML that changed a few!

It has been a long time since I blogged about anything. That was because I didn't get any topic that I really felt the urge to blog. And after a long time I've finally found the long lost inspiration to blog. Thanks to Dr. Sunitha Krishnan and her amazing talk on 3rd march at 8pm in CLT on human trafficking.

I'll not elaborate on the whole talk so don't you worry :). Until 2 days before the EML I only knew that she is a social activist who has brought about a lot of change in many lives. On march 2nd a friend of mine pings me a link and asked me to watch it. It was the youtube link of her TED talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeOumyTMCI8) that she had delivered last year in Mysore. I had thought that it would be like a normal human rights talk that we keep encountering which is powerful enough just to make us ponder over it for maximum a day. But in the second minute of the video I was taken by her words and had goose bumps all over!! The stories that she told about herself (she was gang raped by 8 men at the age of 15) and many other little girls as young as 2/3 years made me wonder where have the humans lost there sanity and humanity.. :( It was then that I decided to publicize this EML and make a huge number of IITians turn up for it. And I am happy many did turn up for the talk.

Her talk itself was for 70 minutes or so. But its not the length of the talk that mattered but the strong message that she conveyed in it which has changed quite a few people. There was not a single person in the hall who was not moved by the stories she told about those little kids. I was in tears!
She spoke about how the small girls and boys are used as commodity for flesh trade, brutally violated and raped. The rapist just takes away the childhood of that kid. When one doesn't have the ability to give something he has no rights to take away anything. I was shocked that how people don't even see that its a child who hasn't even seen the complete world. Its a child who still has to be taken care by parents as he/she doesn't know whats good and whats bad. I was under the impression that human trafficking was just flesh trade and prostitution. But I then learnt that it was not only these two. Many people traffic in the name of adoption, forced labour, circus, beggary, domestic help and camel jockey. The story of the children working in glass bangle making factory who were kept away from sunlight for years was so touching that many people cried in pain. The worst was the story of a 6.5 year old boy who was sold as a camel jockey and was paralyzed when the rope tying him to the leg of the camel broke and many camels stamped him. At least the boy is still alive, but God save those poor souls that get buried in the sands of desert during the race :'(

She then touched upon the most sensitive part of the whole lecture, about sex trafficking. All those girls who became victims of sex trafficking had the same origin, they were either option-less or consumerism took them in. It ranged from showing them faith of good job to good education to promising them Lakme Lipstick! The most visible being the brothels, lodges and hotels. The next most sex tourism and then Pornography. Most people were of the opinion that girls and boys who entered this multi-dollar industry had a luxurious life because of easy money. But only then did we get to know what all tortures they had undergone. Many yielded to it thinking that it would be the end of tortures of their initiation phase but seldom did they know that it was the beginning of a life of never ending trauma. Most of them die of AIDS and as a result even their children (if they have any) are also born being HIV positive! :( These are just a few impacts that this has on their life. The worst being losing their self-esteem, their identity and getting a substance abuser! The impact of all this is that it becomes really difficult for the rescuer to rehabilitate them! The talk then touched upon the rescue techniques and the difficulties they face and the infinite pain they undergo to rehabilitate them.

But the impact part of the EML! I was of this opinion that it is impossible for a person who watches porn to come out of it. But I was surprised to know that after attending the EML some people were guilty and actually took a step towards their first contribution to the cause of abolition human trafficking by stopping to watch porn! :) And I was so happy to know that :) And this was the EML that changed a few and I wholeheartedly hope that it goes on to change many! :)