Founder Speeches

Speech at the 4th World Forum on Human Rights, Nantes-France, July 1, 2010

• The term sex-worker makes it convenient for different states and governments to ignore the structural social, economic and political policies that force women into prostitution.
• Very often governments, policy makers and buyers of prostituted sex argue that women chose prostitution as a work option over working in sweatshops, domestic servitude or other forms of hard or cheap labour. They forget, or chose to make invisible, that for women, other options have been limited in terms of highly paid employment (especially when higher education is lacking or husbands/fathers decide or have control over a woman’s time), and prostitution and pornography remain among the more highly paid occupations available to women. They refuse to look at or re-examine the fact that economic and social policies make other lucrative employment unavailable to women and that gender discrimination and occupational segregation funnel women into particular occupations. More

Interactive Thematic Dialogue on Taking Collective Action to end Human Trafficking; United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland (May 2010)

We want the plan of action that does not dilute, modify or change the protocol but is an implementation plan…..To tackle demand effectively we have to address the business which profits from it as much as the buyers of trafficked people who drive the demand…As nineteen-year old Naina, prostituted when she was thirteen in Bihar says: “As long as there are buyers, there will be traffickers. We must punish those who buy us. Their punishment will protect us from new buyers who will fear punishment too.” More

Acceptance Speech at the Clinton Global Citizen Award in New York (September 2009)

One of the self-help group members, Meena, trafficked when she was ten, found the courage within this group to rescue her daughter Naina, 15, from a brothel in Katihar. Today, three years later, Naina is studying to be a videographer, and Meena is a community mobilizer motivating women to set up more self-help groups. More

Interrogating Demand at the International Conference on Gender, Migration and Development (2009)

As long as the Demand expands, Providing services and instituting preventive mechanisms among those at risk to trafficking provides protection to pockets of vulnerable people but does not detract the traffickers and human smugglers. … Apne Aap has been working for the last six years in these areas and we found that that the traffickers simply shifted districts and villages from the ones that Ape Aap focused on. More

Address to the United Nations General Assembly: An Interactive Dialogue on Taking Collective Action to end Human Trafficking (2009)

We had asked for a coordinated effort to confront the demand for human trafficking so that law-enforcement agencies individually, and in collaboration bi-laterally and multilaterally investigate, arrest and prosecute traffickers and those who buy trafficked people. … Countries have to strengthen their law-enforcement response to trafficking and work across borders to tackle the organized nature of the crime by: Bringing traffickers to book, confiscating the illegal assets created out of trafficking, making the traffickers and buyers compensate for the damages and penalizing them. More

Speech at the White House on the Success against Slavery (October, 2008)

Apne Aap has found a woman-centred solution that transforms women in the community from victim to leader: the model developed by the victims and survivors of Apne Aap can be adopted by other cultures as it is localized and decentralized. It is cost effective and sustainable as it is led by women not segregated from their communities but living inside the communities. … There are hundreds and thousands of women and girls who are still trapped and at risk to sexual exploitation and prostitution. There are trafficking prone areas in India which have missing girls from age seven onwards. They need to be protected. Our work needs to continue. More

Address to the United Nations General Assembly (2008) on Protecting Victims of Trafficking and cross-border cooperation in prosecuting traffickers of persons (June 2008)

Countries and UN agencies can work together to investigate and prosecute traffickers across countries. The UN protocol has already laid out guidelines for this. … Sweden spearheaded a public education campaign, warning sex industry customers that patronizing prostitutes was criminal behaviour. The result was that sex trafficking to Sweden has declined. The danger of prosecution coupled with a diminished demand made Sweden an unpromising market for global sex traffickers. Based on the success of the Swedish model, country after country is following Sweden’s example-Norway, Korea, Lithuania, Philippines… and New York State. More

Speaking to the UN Security Council on Human Trafficking (2007)

The UN estimates that more that 2 million girls, boys, women and men are trapped in slave-like situations all over the world-the direct result of organized human trafficking. … They are women and children trapped in prostitution. They increasingly ask that the problem be acknowledged. They want their exploitation to be recognized as a crime. Their fist demand is visibility. Their second demand is relief. Their third demand is accountability. More

Speech at the University of Columbia on Child Prostitution, its Impact and Prevention (2006)

The first step is always to prevent children from being sold or pulled into prostitution. The second is to help them exit prostitution. The third is to mitigate the circumstances through support with health care via a system of referrals, alternative skills building and finding mentors for each girl woman caught in prostitution. The fourth step is to advocate against sex-trafficking and the fifth is education and awareness of the horrors of child prostitution. More

United Nations 2005: The Masculinities Project (2005)

Why do men buy women? What can we do to stop the demand?
The clients who visit the brothels are students, daily wage earners, migrant workers, office clerks, even policemen-anybody and everybody. … The educational system and religious institutions lead to a male socialization which steered boys away from building equal relationships based on dignity with the female sex. So the challenge was to change the attitude and behavior, of men towards women and to get them to stop buying sex. Could the men change? More

The Changing Nature of Prostitution (2004)

In 1994, a survey conducted by the National Commission of Women, said there were more than 25,000 trafficked women and children trapped in this red-light area. … The demand for younger girls has gone up. Older women in prostitution and members of Apne Aap said they had no income now. The premium age is now 12-16. More

Address to Sneha Inc. in Connecticut on the issues of sex trafficking in India and the West (14th September, 2002)

Ten years ago I was walking the hills of Nepal researching a story on how villagers manage their natural resources when I stumbled upon rows of villages which did not have any girls from age 15-45. I asked where the women and girls were. I was given sheepish smiles, giggles and sometimes the answer, “Don’t you know they are in Bombay?” I was intrigued and I asked why and how? I then found that modern day slavery still exists. The trafficking of women had been institutionalized. More

Interview with the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID)

Q: You prefer to refer to the women you work with as 'Women in Prostitution' rather than 'sex workers.' Why is this?
The term sex-worker makes it convenient for different states and governments to ignore the structural social, economic and political policies that force women into prostitution. … Governments, policy makers and buyers of prostituted sex refuse to look at or re-examine the fact that economic and social policies make other lucrative employment unavailable to women and that gender discrimination and occupational segregation funnel women into particular occupations. More