A report on the operations of Apne Aap, an anti-trafficking NGO, in Forbesganj and Kolkata
THE RICKSHAW PULLED UP a short distance away from our destination—the driver was reluctant to go any closer. I had arrived at Rampur, an area of Forbesganj, a city near the Nepal border in Bihar. With me was Sanju Jha, an employee of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an NGO with the stated goal of ending sex trafficking. Apne Aap operates a centre in Rampur’s red-light area, where it claims to have made great strides towards its mission. “We have not been able to stop it completely but we have saved the next generation from this work,” Jha told me on our rickshaw ride. “Now, women venture out into public spaces. They go to see a doctor. They even go to the bank.”
At the centre, Jha told me that sex work was long an inter-generational occupation in the area, but “it has stopped with their fourth generation, which is under our guidance, because we have completely connected them with education.” Children were now imploring their mothers to quit sex work, she added, and the presence of Apne Aap’s workers also deterred soliciting. “We are on duty for eight hours here,” she said, and “the work done by existing sex workers in those eight hours is next to nothing.”
I was invited to attend a class for children the next morning, led by Jha and with her colleagues Meena Khatun and Fatima Khatun helping out. There were 23 children at the centre that day, all seated in a circle, aged roughly between eight and twelve. They were from disadvantaged backgrounds, but, by Jha’s admission, most did not come from the red-light area, and were from other neighbourhoods nearby. Jha followed a uniform method, asking the children to recite numbers and the alphabet, and also some simple poems. She pointed out my presence, and encouraged the reluctant children to sing and dance for “didi.”
Afterwards, the Apne Aap staff took me to two houses in the red-light area—a single street with roughly ten single-storey houses on either side—where they were on friendly terms with the women. I had no chance on this small tour to interact independently with the area’s residents.
Meena, a former sex worker, told me the story of her life. She had run away from a brothel in nearby Katihar district, she said, and later, with Apne Aap’s help, had rescued her daughter from the same brothel after a police raid. Her story has been told in international television reports, been adapted into a short feature film by the Hollywood star Lucy Liu, and is a staple of Apne Aap’s publicity materials. Meena’s daughter is now married and settled in Delhi, while she remains in Forbesganj and works with Apne Aap.
Meena listed Apne Aap’s initiatives to discourage sex work in the area. “I formed the Mahila Mandal,” she said, and explained that the women’s group ran under the aegis of Apne Aap for seven or eight years before becoming an independent self-help collective. “I also started the Kishori Mandal. It was a group of ten or twelve girls who played games, learnt tailoring and crafts. We would hold discussions on child marriage. We told them that if you become aware, your mothers will.”
In close to three weeks in Forbesganj, spanning October
