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Safety Report – October 2019 (data to June 2019)

Operation Red Alert

HIGHLIGHTS

As part of Operation Red Alert, the Safe Village Program is addressing sex trafficking in India by teaching vulnerable girls and their families how to identify and avoid human trafficking situations. Over the past six months, the number of individuals benefiting from Operation Red Alert has increased by 337,451 individuals in these vulnerable communities.

A helpline dedicated exclusively to handling human trafficking cases—advertised in high-risk villages through the Safe Village Program—saw 31,587 calls for assistance, with 218 cases of human trafficking being reported. The helpline is a collaborative effort that includes some of India’s most reputable anti-trafficking organisations, and helps provide assistance and legal aid to callers that would otherwise have nowhere else to turn.

In July, My Choices foundation hosted the first Asian Anti-Trafficking Forum in Hyderabad, India. The forum focused on building resources and relationships and was attended by more than 90 Indian, Bangladeshi and Nepalese organisations who are working collectively to end sex trafficking in India by 2025.

Operation PeaceMaker

HIGHLIGHTS

Operation PeaceMaker provides the knowledge and support required to help women and children live lives free from domestic violence and abuse. Over the past six months, the number of individuals benefiting from the PeaceMaker program increased by 9,113 individuals in these vulnerable communities.

The PeaceMaker program incorporates three main objectives: prevention, intervention, and conversation. Through school programs, girls and boys 12–17 are trained on their rights to stay safe from abuse, violence and exploitation and provided with tools to help keep them safe. To date, more than 46,377 school children have received essential safety information through these programs.

The Grassroots Awareness program also brings this education to older girls and women through community meetings, where issues such as women’s rights, gender equality, legal assistance, and women’s safety in the home are discussed. More than 68,597 community members have participated in these community sessions.

The heart of the PeaceMaker program includes training women to become PeaceMakers. These PeaceMakers provide counselling, rights education and legal aid to victims of abuse and violence, empowering them to seek healthy solutions. To date, 7,839 cases have been handled by PeaceMakers across India.

This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).

Safety Report – March 2019 (data to December 2018)

Operation Red Alert

Fundamental to Red Alert's strategy is preventing trafficking in India at the source – vulnerable families in rural communities. But with over 600,000 villages across India we have to prioritise where to bring Safe Village education first. 

Technology has helped Operation Red Alert create a strategic approach to preventing human trafficking in India. Without it, prevention is a guessing game. With it, prevention efforts translate into real lives saved.

With big data analytics, we're prioritising trafficking hot spots. Red Alert's mapping tool, built by Quantium, brings together a growing number of data sets from national and regional bodies to identify where girls are most at-risk. Analysing this data, Red Alert can prioritise delivering Safe Village Programs in these communities.

Operation PeaceMaker

A PLACE TO CALL HOME

Women and their children seeking to flee domestic violence often have nowhere safe to go. The first PeaceMaker safe home opened in late 2018 – the Lotus Safe Home. A key step on the journey to lives free of violence and abuse, Lotus can accomodate 12 women and their children at any one time. Women staying here experience not just a safe shelter but holistic support. This includes counselling, legal aid and vocational and skills training to equip them to implement their individual plans for independence. 

EDUCATING TEENS TO PREVENT FUTURE ABUSE

The Shakti program for girls is a year-long, peer-support and mentorship initiative for teenage girls. Over twelve months, these teenagers build bonds with their peers – so they have friends to turn to when they need help – while learning about the dangers they can face, and strategies to take charge of their own lives. For example, girls are taught to recognise and resist illegal child mariage. They are taught to negotiate for themselves and develop healthy relationships, as well as how to access services in times of need.

In October 2018, 63 teenagers graduated from two Shakti Circles – we congratulate these girls on their commitment and encourage them to use their new-found confidence and knowledge to take control of their own futures, and impact their communities.

Operational sustainability is the ability of an organisation to cover the costs of its lending program with the revenue earned from its lending program. 

Portfolio at risk is a stringent measure of a microfinance institution’s loan portfolio quality. The portfolio at risk calculates the total value of outstanding loan balances for loans, for every payment that is overdue by more than 30 days.

Meet Sumi and Sadhita*

Having never attended school or learned to read or write, the sisters didn’t know there was a way for them to access any kind of support or assistance for domestic violence. But when their mother approached the PeaceMaker team for help in leaving the girls’ father due to years of physical and emotional abuse, the counsellor sensed the girls had been affected as well.

They had.

In a second counselling session, Sumi and Sadhita cautiously began to reveal the horrific extent of the sexual abuse their father had subjected them to for more than eight years. An Operation PeaceMaker counsellor provided legal assistance in filing a complaint, and the girls’ father was imprisoned for his crimes. Sumi and Sadhita were able to move into a new home with their mother, preparing for a fresh start with the help of the Operation PeaceMaker staff.

But the road to recovery has been long. In their first few counselling sessions, the girls struggled to identify and express emotions – without being able to read or write, they had no access to the language they needed to work through what they were feeling. To help them articulate their feelings, their counsellor turned to art therapy: music, painting, drawing, clay modelling, and crafting. With time, and through hands-on therapy experiences, the girls slowly began to share some of the horrors they had experienced, allowing them the chance to heal. 

In the safety of their new home away from their abusive father, the girls have let their true personalities shine. Sadhita is insightful and caring, always tending to the needs of those around her. Sumi is talkative and loves to be around people. 

Thanks to a six-month professional stitching course, the girls are also working toward their goal of becoming famous fashion designers – and their salaries from tailoring help support their mother as she undergoes medical treatment. The girls have long wanted to learn to read and write in Urdu, their mother’s native language, and with the help of a MyChoices Foundation volunteer, they are finally getting a chance to have an education. 

Operation PeaceMaker gave Sadhita and Sumi the chance to write a new future for themselves – one where they could live free from abuse. Your support of Opportunity’s Safety program continues to provide assistance and support to the most vulnerable of those living in poverty.

*names changed to protect privacy.

Meet Saidul

Saidul and his wife have five children – three daughters and two sons. The family are from a minority group, like most families in their community they face persecution and limited opportunities – for example, neither of them learnt to read or write. Saidul and his wife rely on seasonal agricultural jobs, meaning their income fluctuates through the year.

In communities like Saidul’s it is very common for parents to arrange their daughters’ marriage to men they do not know, who live outside their village – in the hope that this will give their daughters the chance to find better opportunities and leave poverty behind.

When a woman from their community came to Saidul with a marriage proposal for his 16-year-old daughter, Saidul thought this sounded like a good opportunity for her. He was told the man was a successful business person who would care for his daughter.

Despite the family never having met the man in person, marriage preparations were well underway when Operation Red Alert’s Safe Village Program came to Saidul’s village. As Saidul learnt about how traffickers operate he became suspicious of his daughter’s marriage arrangement. He rushed home and shared what he had learnt with his wife. They both agreed that their daughter could be at risk, so they decided to call off the marriage.

When Saidul told the woman, who had helped arrange the marriage about their decision, she pleaded with him to reconsider. She visited their home every day for several days, until Saidul threatened to inform the local police station and call the Red Alert helpline.

In time it was confirmed that this woman was associated with other girls going missing after assisting to arrange their marriages

Saidul now knows that this woman has been connected to numerous girls going missing after helping arrange their marriages. He feels certain he would never have heard from his daughter again if they had gone through with the arrangement. 

Meet Maheshwari

Maheshwari was 16 years old when she married. Her husband didn't work, so Maheshwari worked as a maid in an office building to ensure she could support her two children. Eventually, she decided to leave her husband and live with her parents, but she always felt as if she and her children were a burden on them.

Shortly after moving back to her parent's home, Maheshwari joined the PeaceMaker training program. She found it difficult because of what she was experiencing in her own life, but the counsellors and teachers rallied around and supported her. "I discovered strength, independence and peace during my training," she says. "While it gave me the ability to help other women, it also taught me how to deal with my own pain and frustration. I'm now a better mother and communicator."

As soon as Maheshwari heard the stories of other women, she felt she had a responsibility to use her new knowledge and skills to support them. She runs awareness workshops throughout her local community and provides support to women who are experiencing domestic violence. She reconciled with her husband and they are making a new start in their relationship. "I have a great sense of pride in both my family and work," she says.

Thank you for empowering PeaceMakers like Fouzia and Maheshwari to help reduce domestic violence, so more families in India can live peaceful lives. Lives in which women find their voice, are heard and respected. 

I have a great sense of pride in both my family and work.

Maheshwari

An Army of Good Fathers

Safety Report – March 2020 (Data to December 2019)

OPERATION RED ALERT

HIGHLIGHTS

As part of Operation Red Alert, the Safe Village Program is addressing trafficking in India by teaching vulnerable girls and their families how to identify and avoid human trafficking situations. Over the past six months, the number of individuals benefiting from Operation Red Alert has increased by 432,174 individuals in these vulnerable communities.

India’s first national helpline dedicated exclusively to handling human trafficking cases—advertised in high-risk villages through the Safe Village Program—received 36,003 calls for assistance, with 251 cases of human trafficking being reported. The helpline is a collaborative effort that includes some of India’s most reputable anti-trafficking organisations, and helps provide assistance to callers that would otherwise have nowhere else to turn. 

OPERATION PEACEMAKER

HIGHLIGHTS

Operation PeaceMaker provides the knowledge and support required to help women and children live lives free from domestic violence and abuse. Over the past six months, the number of individuals benefiting from the PeaceMaker program increased by 24,210 individuals in these vulnerable communities.

The PeaceMaker program incorporates three main objectives: prevention, intervention, and conversation. Through school programs, young people are trained on their rights to stay safe from abuse, violence and exploitation and provided with tools to help keep them safe. To date, more than 61,049 youths have received essential safety information through these programs. 

As part of Operation PeaceMaker, the Lotus Safe Home provides emergency accommodation for survivors of domestic violence. The home can accommodate up to 12 women and their children while counsellors help find alternative housing.

Funding provided during 2019 allowed for the purchase of basic facilities (mattresses, pillows and bedding) for the Lotus Safe Home and the installation of CCTV cameras.

The heart of the PeaceMaker program includes training women to become PeaceMakers. These PeaceMakers provide rights education and referrals to counselling for victims of abuse and violence, empowering them to seek healthy solutions. To date, 8,828 cases have been handled by PeaceMakers across India.

Safety Report – October 2020 (Data to June 2020)

IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON SAFETY PROGRAMS

In India, COVID-19 lockdown was extended from March - June 2020 with supply chains being significantly disrupted. Consequently, regular program activities have been largely slowed or paused until lockdowns are lifted and Opportunity’s program partner began to focus on the urgent needs of people across the country. Since July, there have been tiered levels of restrictions depending on local cases and some inter-state transport is resuming. 

Opportunity’s program partner has reported a sharp increase in the number of traffickers using technology — including social media platforms — to lure and trap unsuspecting victims, and an increase in the reported cases of domestic violence since the COVID-19 lockdown began. In response, they are providing increased access to counselling services and support for victims of abuse for the next 12 months, including the creation of a national counselling hotline for domestic violence. They are also building community awareness around COVID-19 alongside awareness of prevention of domestic violence and child trafficking.

During the lockdown, many people lost their source of income which made it difficult or impossible to purchase essential materials. Operation PeaceMaker provided for 12 women survivors of domestic violence by supporting them with immediate medical assistance, rent and other household needs.

PROGRAM PROGRESS

OPERATION RED ALERT

As part of the Operation Red Alert, the Safe Village Program is addressing trafficking in India by teaching vulnerable girls and their families how to identify and avoid human trafficking situations. Over the past six months, the number of individuals benefitting from Operation Red Alert has increased by 238,609, reflecting a slowdown in growth of beneficiaries from the previous six-months due to the interruption to normal program activities because of COVID-19 lockdown.

India’s first national helpline dedicated exclusively to handling human trafficking cases—advertised in high-risk villages through the Safe Village Program—received 43,410 calls for assistance. The helpline is a collaborative effort that includes some of India’s most reputable anti-trafficking organisations and helps to provide assistance to callers that would otherwise have nowhere else to turn.

OPERATION PEACEMAKER

Operation PeaceMaker provides the knowledge and support required to help women and children live lives free from domestic violence and abuse. Over the past six months, the number of individuals benefitting from the PeaceMaker program increased by 12,275 individuals in these vulnerable communities, which is just over half the growth of the six-month period before. The slowed growth in beneficiary numbers is directly attributed to the interruption to normal program activities due to COVID-19 lockdown. 

Training women to become PeaceMakers is the heart of the PeaceMaker program. While no new PeaceMakers were trained during this period, they continued to provide rights education and referrals to counselling forvictims of abuse and violence, empowering them to seek healthy solution. To date, 9,452 cases have been handled by PeaceMakers across India, as well as:

• 152,584 community members benefitting from violence prevention training
• 60 active PeaceMakers supporting their communities

VOICE FROM THE PROGRAM

REEMA'S STORY

Reema has been married for twenty-eight years. During that time her life was characterized by abuse and financial instability. Her husband never financially supported Reema, and he was constantly suspicious of her. He also severely physically abused Reema.

In 2001, Reema filed a police complaint against her husband. He was also having an extramarital affair and regularly brought the woman to their home.

When Reema’s husband promised her he had changed, Reema believed him. Unfortunately, the abuse continued, as did his extramarital affairs.

Reema filed a complaint, which saw her husband detained, but he was let go a few days later. He began harassing her by stealing her property papers, her gold, and her savings. She no longer expected him to return to her or to the children, but she did expect that he would financially support their children.

Due to previous experiences, Reema did not entirely trust that the police could help her. Reema considered her husband a threat to her life and the lives of her children. He frequently threatened that he would take the children and give them to the woman he was having an affair with. Opportunity’s program partner’s legal team is currently helping Reema file a maintenance case. Because of the COVID-19 lockdown, Reema lost her job and was rendered financially unstable. 

Opportunity’s program partner’s counsellor called Reema to enquire about her and her children. Reema shared that she was suffering with a leg injury and due to the lack of transportation and privacy because of the lockdown, she was unable to visit a doctor. This complicated health condition made it difficult to carry out daily activities, purchase groceries and run the household.

To help Reema survive these toughand turbulent times, INR3,000 (AU$57) was transferred to her account to help her run her household. Opportunity’s program partner also helped Reema procure a gas cylinder and purchase groceries for the family. The constant follow-up by Opportunity’s program partner provided Reema with psychological, emotional, and financial support. She is happy knowing that she and her children are now safe.

CASE STUDY

WHAT DRIVES THE DECISION TO SEND GIRLS AWAY FROM HOME? 

In India, 78 per cent of girls trafficked into sex slavery are from West Bengal. Most of these girls are aged between 12 and 16 years and come from marginalised and vulnerable groups called scheduled castes or scheduled tribes. These communities experience high rates of poverty, illiteracy, and seasonal unemployment during monsoon. 

The trafficking network in West Bengal is strong and resilient. Traffickers are patient and they usually use informants or colluders embedded in the community who select a household and appropriate time to approach them, such as during conditions of scarcity or a crisis such as crop failure, death of the breadwinner, or serious disease. Typically, they offer marriage or jobs in the city for their daughters, providing a false hope for the family’s future, relief from the suffering of the crisis situation, and releasing the economic burden of the girl child from an overburdened household. They might offer some upfront payment or pardon outstanding debt to lure the father to relinquish their daughters. The offer of a marriage from the city may even bring a sense of pride and prestige to the family.

In India, once married, wives become the husband’s responsibility and they become part of the husband’s household. It is not unusual for families to have no communication with their daughters after they are trafficked, so the story of their trafficking and poor living conditions never reaches their families or their home communities as a warning to others. Open conversations about incidents of child sex trafficking do not happen due to shame and stigma attached to the subject. Consequently, the villagers mistakenly perceive the risk of trafficking as low.  

To reduce child sex trafficking, Opportunity’s program partner provided awareness education to vulnerable communities to sensitise them to the real dangers, alert them to the tactics employed by traffickers, and empower at-risk families to take action, such as calling the helpline, when they suspect someone is being targeted. They start conversations about the sensitive topic of child sex trafficking through public events like movie screenings, festivals and performances. They strengthen girls’ agency by communicating directly with girls at school and increasing their knowledge of  At the same time, they approach parents through participatory homework assignments, questionnaires, and quizzes.

Safety Report – March 2021 (Data to December 2020)

VOICE OF THE PROGRAM

MALANI'S RESCUE

In July 2020, 17-year-old Malalani went missing from Gadag, Karnataka. In India, this is an all too frequent occurrence, with estimates that one child goes missing every few minutes. Many children are trafficked as part of a nationwide trade separating them from their families; millions end up in forced labour, domestic slavery and sex work.

Some people in Malalani’s village started a rumour that she had eloped. This meant that her family did not file a formal complaint with the police because they feared the loss of respect and reputation that would result if their unmarried daughter had run off. They asked the police to find out what had happened but police were unable to trace her.

Over the next three months, her family received missed calls from different phone numbers in Bangalore but every time they tried to call back there was no response or the person who responded told them that it was a wrong number.

Naraspur, who lived in a nearby village, had attended the Safe Village Program, run by Opportunity partner, My Choices, which creates awareness about child trafficking. She asked Malalani’s father to call the Red Alert National Child Helpline dedicated to addressing human sex trafficking to see if Malalani could be rescued.

After Malalani’s father called the helpline in November, the case was referred to a local NGO partner who followed up on the missed calls and discovered the identity of the man who had enticed Malalani away. The trafficker was known in garment workers’ circles for luring girls with promises of jobs in garment and shoe factories.

PROGRAM PROGRESS

OPERATION RED ALERT

From August to November 2020 the Safe Village Program reached 64,441 participants in 237 villages, distributing 40,246 comic books with anti-trafficking messaging and reinforcing key messages with social media campaigns. The Safe Village Program teams also distributed relief supplies, responding to the grave hardship that COVID-19 restrictions had caused.

By using targeted text messages and mass media community radio broadcasts the team broadened the reach of their anti-trafficking and women’s safety messages to 70,000 people per month.

Distressed helpline callers were geographically mapped using the SafeTracker tool which incorporates data from Operation Red Alert’s implementing partners.

Using this digital data collection tool, all helpline callers and local champions of the Safe Village Program who have been trained to be vigilant to risks of child trafficking were contacted regularly with text messages.

OPERATION PEACEMAKER

Operation PeaceMaker expanded operations from four states reaching poorer rural communities and is now active in six states. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Operation PeaceMaker recruited and trained new counsellors across West Bengal, Rajasthan and Jharkhand, creating awareness of domestic violence and conducting counselling sessions for women. Between August and December 2020, the team ran 541 meetings that reached 15,189 community members and students in these communities.

The PeaceMaker prevention program helps young students (female and male) become agents for change in their local communities. At the end of 2020, over 180,000 high-school and college students and adults had been trained in the prevention of domestic violence. From October to December 2020, counsellors handled over 2,300 domestic violence cases that had been referred through community-based Peacemakers or via the police.

Operation PeaceMaker launched a national toll-free helpline service they promoted through local community radio to address the huge spike in domestic violence during lockdown. The PeaceMakers and counsellors reached out to over 1,000 clients in their database to stay connected with the women they knew, and offered their support. They were overwhelmed with gratitude for reaching out – these often-isolated women felt comforted knowing someone was looking out for them. In some cases they used encrypted WhatsApp messaging groups to provide privacy for women who were concerned that their husbands or mothers-in-law might record their conversations or track their calls.

Engaging the local police in domestic violence training is a critical step in changing how women are treated when reporting a crime. Links with Telangana police were strengthened when 2,000 police officers received domestic violence training from Opportunity partner, My Choices. Training was also expanded for the community volunteers called Margadarshaks and Sangamitras to equip them to be change agents in their communities.

STRATEGIC PRIORITIES

• Support rehabilitation of women and girls who have been trafficked and experienced domestic violence by strengthening connections with their programs.
• Implement the competency framework built through digital data collection using SafeTracker for Operation Red Alert and PeaceTracker for Operation PeaceMaker.
• Train and upskill field trainers remotely using new digital training modules. Opportunity’s implementing partner will expand their digital training modules to improve their reach to rural women and girls in the poorest communities.

BUILDING IMPACT-MEASURING CAPACITY

In October 2018, Opportunity’s Evaluation Manager visited the Women’s Safety Program’s implementing partner My Choices and worked with them over the following six months to build their knowledge and skills in collecting and using data to demonstrate evidence of their impact.

The Head of Operation Red Alert, Sudha Upadhyayula, said that following the training My Choices:

• Built a monitoring and evaluation framework for the Safe Village Program to continue to improve their program design
• Started collecting survey data including statistics on the inclusion of people with disabilities
• Built digital training modules to reinforce the key messages and increase impact.

Overall, the team is now more aware of the importance of collecting monitoring data to measure the impact, scale and sustainability of their program.

 DOWNLOAD REPORT AS PDF

This project is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).

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2 BBC news 16 May 2020 https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-south-asia-52685559}