Technology
Ruchira Gupta: "Where are all the girls?"
In this episode, Ruchira Gupta, a lifelong activist against human trafficking, shares her journey from a journalist to a leading voice in the fight against sex trafficking. She discusses her impactful...
Ruchira Gupta: "Where are all the girls?"
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Worse persecution and poverty are probably the main causes of people fleeing their
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countries. When they have no choice but to abandon their roots and their communities,
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simply as a chance to survive. But those who try to stick it out, who stay, may be no
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less vulnerable to predators who will use that vulnerability to traffic them or their
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members of their families as well actually as slaves, whether we call it sex trafficking
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or forced labour, it's slavery. My guest today is Ruchira Gupta. Ruchira has been a
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lifelong activist against human trafficking. She's also a journalist, an academic and
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author and much more. She first came to the fore with her Emmy Award-winning documentary
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The Selling of Innocence in 1997, which I personally found extraordinarily painful to watch,
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not because it was sensational but because precisely because it wasn't. It was the
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banality of the evil of the madams and the traffickers, the matter of factness, if you like.
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And the resignation of sometimes these very pure faces of young women and mostly children
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who were being prostituted, that made it extraordinary painful for me to watch. I actually
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had to stop and start a number of times. Ruchira went on to found up and air up with women
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worldwide, dedicated to eradicating sex trafficking. She's worked with the United Nations in Iran,
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Nepal, Tanzania, Thailand, Kosovo and many other places. And apart from the Emmy, Ruchira
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has been awarded the Audra National du Mehiday for her works in helping shape and actually
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change laws in many countries. Amongst her many publications, she has written two novels
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for eight to 18-year-olds. Her first was I Kick and I Fly, published in 2023 about a young
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girl in Bihar, India, who escaped being sold into the sex trade by the best I can describe
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it is learning to fiercely value and fiercely defend herself and her body. Her second
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novel, The Freedom Seeker, published on August 5, 2025, again starts off in India and traces
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the forced migration of a 12-year-old daughter of a Hindu Muslim mixed marriage to the US. But
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thank you, Stephen. I'm a big admirer of migrant odyssey and the human balance. So it's a privilege
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for me likewise. Thank you very much. Obviously we've got now double privileges because it's a privilege
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for me too. Ruchira, I didn't actually ask you either that or you avoided that when we were doing
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the briefing a couple of weeks ago. Tell me something of your own backstory. Tell me something about
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where you come from and what turned you into a journalist and an activist.
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So I was born in Calcutta, one of the most populated cities on our planet.
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You know, it grew and grew from the time it became the capital of the British Empire.
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It also grew poorer in the process because the native, so-called native populations were exploited
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mercilessly. And then when India became independent, Calcutta became this thriving center was the
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thriving center of commerce and also intellectual outpouring because we had been through a lot and
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was born in that city to a merchant family. My family had used to own rice mills and solvent
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extraction plants, etc. But my family were also influenced by Gandhi and they were socialist.
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They are socialist. They would hit for me to say a word. And my dad went to prison as a 15-year
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old just because Gandhi she had asked all young people to go to prison for India's freedom.
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And my dad has always worn since I can remember as a child from that time onwards,
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Homspan, Kadi Klauth, you know, a white long shirt and a white duty.
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Because Gandhi she said that we have to avoid wearing British made in England Klauth and people
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were spinning yarn at home and making Klauth. So my dad has always worn that. My mother wears no
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jewelry. She always wears a white sari. This was all part of India's symbol for freedom.
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It was also the new modern India that was being created and I grew up in that kind of household
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and atmosphere. And my uncle was very much into the founding of India Socialist Party and we had
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leaders from Nepal and Sri Lanka and India who came home all the time holding meetings, talking to
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each other about the more equal world they would create. And I was made a member of four
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libraries. You know, so I would go and get books all the time. I was influenced by this conversation
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going on at home. And with the books I was reading, which made me empathize with everything I was
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listening to in more sort of academic and policy ways. And I too wanted to make a difference,
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just like all of them. And I decided, okay, I'll be a writer. And my first published article was
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in my school magazine as a 10-year-old. It was called the autobiography of a pencil. So then I knew
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I was on the right track. What was it that made you actually follow that? Because many children
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of political families go completely the opposite way. They just say, I don't want to this anymore.
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What was it that made you become even more adamant about supporting a cause and supporting
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human rights? One was that, you know, I read a lot of books. I was a bookworm. So that made me understand
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the larger world around me and that I wanted to do more in that world. The second was that while
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my family was political, they were also, it was a very loving family. And we had like a family of
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birth and a family of choice. So all these political leaders also who came home would include us.
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They would never exclude us. And, you know, I was always asked my opinion on things even when
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there were party meetings being held. What do you think? And so for me, that became like a fun time.
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I didn't really want to study. I wanted to sit in on their conversations. So I think that was it.
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And also, you know, in our home, I was not asked, what are you going to be? I was always asked,
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how are you going to make a difference? So I think the love that I got, the sense of inclusion
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in this wider political community, how are you going to make a difference motivated me to actually
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go out and make a difference? And that's an extraordinary lesson, isn't it? I had that it's
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called me quite vice-by surprise. This, what are you going to be? Which of course, most children are
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asked, including when I was a child, and how are you going to make a difference? It's a wonderful
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way of approaching one's children's future, isn't it? Yeah. So you went off to, went on to be a
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journalist and you wrote for a number of newspapers in India, correct? And also that's right. So at that
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time, you know, I didn't really see a pathway to becoming a writer when I was in college, but there
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was a new newspaper opening and I thought, okay, you know, I'll go be a journalist and that's the way.
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And so I went to college in the morning and in the evening, I went work with this newspaper
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in Calcutta and it was quite an eye-opener because on one hand, it was one of the first newspapers in
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India to give jobs to women and give them not just jobs as people who are writing on gardening or
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social columns, but as correspondence as bureau chiefs, etc. And they were also like an anti-establishment
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paper. So it was a lot of fun because they were breaking stories, investigative journalism, those
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were all fun things that were happening there. At the same time that paper had a sexist atmosphere,
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I think without even the editor realising it, he was also sexist and, you know, what were stories
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related to women were considered cultural and what were stories related to men were considered
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political and also, you know, how women were treated in a sort of, you know, jokes and teasing and
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all of that, it was not professional and I always wanted to speak up, but because I was the youngest,
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my nickname in the paper was Kiddit and so I didn't really like it, I was uncomfortable with it.
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So when I reported, I would make sure I quoted women in my stories and if I reported, say,
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riots, I would report how caste violence actually affected the woman in the kitchen or if rape was
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reported, what did she have to go through? And why was she targeted as the enemy, as the colonising
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of the enemy, etc. So I did begin to ask those kind of questions very early on as a reporter and that,
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of course, then led to the next steps in my journalism journey. So, take us there.
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The next step. So, you know, then I was given an assignment to see how villagers in Nepal were
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managing the natural resources. It was quite interesting, like, how do you divide water from a river,
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how do you make a path through a field and who does that path belong to the field or the
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community. So things like that, it was good. So I was hiking through Nepal when I came across
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rows of villages with missing girls and I was really puzzled. So I asked the men sitting around
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rigging tea, playing cards, you know, where are all the girls? Some were hostile, some were sheepish,
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but a few did answer and they said, don't you know the all-in Mumbai and I was a bit taken a back
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because Mumbai is like 1400 kilometers away from these remote, remote hamlets in the Himalayas.
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So I, you know, of course, I had to follow the trail as a good journalist and I found that a smooth
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supply chain of human beings existed from Nepal to Mumbai. There were the, you know, recruiters.
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These could be shop owners, truck drivers. They would come to these villages, offer a little money
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to these very isolated poor and starving farmers, cluster together three or four girls,
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take them in a bus to the border of India and Nepal, wink wink nod nod pay the border guard some
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money, take the girls across the border and then there were these lodges where the girls were
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starved and beaten and drugged and completely subjugated till they were willing to do anything
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and then put into trains and buses to hand it over to another set of agents or transporters who
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take them to Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi and then there were these pimps waiting for them in these
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red light districts who would negotiate the price of the girl by what they defined as beauty
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and to them beauty meant fair skin, voluptuous, docile, the younger the better, the youngest
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I met was a seven-year-old. Seven years. And then they would hand over seven-years-old
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and then these girls were handed over to the brothel managers who would lock them up in rooms
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and bring them out for eight or ten men every night for the next five years. And then behind the
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brothel managers were the landlords, the money lenders, organized criminal networks and finally
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of course the customers called clients in India, Johns in America who would want young girls,
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virgin girls, docile girls, you know etc etc, driving the whole trade. And when I reached Bombay
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I saw girls on display in cages, literally in cages and I was so taken aback that first of
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course I burst into tears and I sat down on the sidewalk and then I got up and I decided I've
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got to do something about it. So I was a journalist I said I'll break the silence I'll tell the story
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and I spent the next 18 months of my life between Nepal and Bombay investigating, building friends,
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building trust with the women and girls, taking on criminals, one of them pulled out a knife at me
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while I was filming in the brothels of Mumbai and said I won't let you film here. And the women
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in the brothels formed a circle around me and told him that if you kill her you've got to kill us
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first because we have decided to tell our stories because we want a different future for our daughters.
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And he slung away knowing it was too much trouble to kill 23 women and that's when I experienced
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the power of women's collective action. They rescued me you know literally before I even thought
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of the word rescue. And so I finished making this documentary it was for the Canadian Broadcasting
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Corporation. Sorry to interrupt. Sorry to interrupt. So you were filming on your own you were
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using were you doing camera all by yourself and everything else? No, no, no, no, you had a crew.
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No sorry so I was the field producer like the investigative reporter and there was a director
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who was Canadian there was a cameraman who was Indian at all strapping Sikh man. And you know when
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the criminals were attacking us and throwing stones and threatening to break our cameras and
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all of that he actually this guy said I'm not going up into the brothels with you because
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it's too much danger. And I told him I said that you know if I can go it I'm half your size and
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I'm a woman then you can certainly follow I'm going up anyway any followed me. So you know I had
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a whole crew and they were funded by CBC and later the film was shown on HBO and CBC the selling
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of innocence it's called and I won an Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism for that
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documentary. And then I'm on stage and I'm looking at the bright lights in New York, Broadway
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marquees hotel I still remember applause clinking glasses and bright lights but all I could see were
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the eyes of the women who had told me their story and that's when I decided in that instance that
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I'm going to use my Emmy and my documentary the selling of innocence not to build a career in
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journalism but to make a difference. And that's when it came out didn't it make a difference yeah.
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That's when you you also met a member of is that right Clinton's cabinet is that correct and that's
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that's right that's the how of it then so what happens is I step off the stage I'm 20 something
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don't know how but I've decided right so I turned to the lady who gave me the award Donna Shalella
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she was the US Secretary of State for Health in President Clinton's time and I said thank you
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for the award and can you help me do more and she looked a bit wary but she said what do you want
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and I said well I want to change laws in the UN the United States and I want the traffickers to be
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punished and countries to invest in the most vulnerable girls so they are not trafficked and
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you know I want offices and governments to take this seriously and she paused and she took me seriously
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and she gave me her email and her contact people and she said okay get in touch and I did
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and she connected me with the Clinton administration with their health I showed my documentary
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at the United Nations 30 years ago this year and you know actually with 180 countries watching
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I was able to get into a dialogue about the kind of laws we needed show the film
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and convince a lot of people who were in the audience you know member states ambassadors
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policy experts NGO leaders foundation heads that yes we needed a new law and then I went on to
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contribute to the passage of the UN protocol to end trafficking in persons which is now the
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goal standard for the 180 countries who have to change their laws as per that UN protocol I did the
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with republican and a democratic senator for the United States government I went to the Senate
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testified showed my film and helped pass the first US law on trafficking the Federal law
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trafficking victim protection act so through these acts of doing I became bolder but for me I
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could still not forget the women that I had met who had told me the story and who had rescued me
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from death so I also went back to them simultaneously these are overlapping activities and I said listen I
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won the award here's the award and you know I've told your story broken the silence the world is
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going to do something about it and the women said that's fine but how does the award help us you've
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got to help us and I said what do you want I'm not a lawyer a doctor a social worker I'm just a
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journalist and they said but you have two things you know English and you have access to money and
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networks so I said yes I do but I said you know the battle is really yours because you are
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they exploited and they said we can do it together and I thought that was true and I said you know
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I didn't even know how to make a business plan at that time so I asked them I said what are your
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dreams and they said we have four dreams one is a school for our children a room of our own where
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we can sleep for as long as we want and nobody can walk in when they want our molest our children
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either this was Virginia Woolf in the brothels of Mumbai and then they wanted a job in an office
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which to them if you really saw those brothels you know they were rat infested 20 rooms to one
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toilet constant fighting and noise all around drunken brawls shouts from women being raped the smell
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the stink because you know the rooms were closed there were iron bars on the windows and in the middle
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of that they said they wanted a job in an office and I understood after conversation that it really
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meant something which would give them dignity a fixed income no violence and old age pension
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and the fourth dream was they wanted punishment of their perpetrators they said those who
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have broken away our dreams bought us in sold us so that's how we set up this NGO and we called it
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up-near-up women worldwide up-near-up means self-action in Hindi because we agreed that we would fight
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for us own rights and justice but women worldwide that we would federate with women around the world
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who were going through similar experiences and you know we put we found a room in an abandoned
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municipal school put a straw mat on the floor I hired a teacher and that's how we began and you
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know we've educated more than 20,000 women and girls connected them to livelihoods put them
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through school and college even now 1400 kids are in school and college in India from the red light
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areas and many of them have become lawyers police officers nurses managers of pizza parlors gas station
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attendants animation artists so many things and you know they are helping their mothers out of the
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red light area and those red light areas themselves are transforming not by you know putting the kids
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and the mothers into institutions but by putting the kids in schools connecting the mother to bank
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accounts and livelihoods and putting the traffickers in jail so just like the domestic violence movement
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where you know till 50 years ago it used to be called a private actor it's their family etc.
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now it's called a crime we were able to shift what the prostitution of so many women and girls
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and get the world to acknowledge that it was sex trafficking so we shifted the paradigm
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couple of questions come to mind it's fascinating one is the mundane one was which is you've
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you've done so much with through up near how did did you get funding is it public funding is
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a funding from private people donating both all of those funding is very precarious so I have
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created a model where I can expand or shrink the work that I do and so I don't have to dance to
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a donors tune but I have had money from governments you know including in the past the US government
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now there's no likelihood of it because after Trump was accused because of the Epstein case
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he's closed down the trafficking in persons office altogether this week this week
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the global trafficking in persons office is closed and everyone's lost their jobs there
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and so yeah we've had from different governments from the United Nations from private
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family foundations and from individuals you know students and activists and survivors sometimes
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even and you know friends and family of course it all began with money from friends and family
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and a little bit from my own salary and then slowly I didn't even have a salary because I gave up
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my job with the United Nations but by then we began to get funding from other places
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I hire people from the community in India and then train them to become leaders and teachers and
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program managers and build their capacity so you know it's a little inefficient sometimes you
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wake mistakes sometimes the work is not slick but it's good and real and in America what I do is
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that I do a lot of policy work out of New York especially with the United Nations and different
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governments you know on what child protection should be how can we make laws better how can we
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make policies better I also engage with foundations and universities here and because of that I have
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a whole bunch of students who work for me and so students in America and Europe and India actually
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also are a big part of what I do who fill in for what like salary staff would be doing
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the other thing that struck me as you were talking about how you know you you enter and you met
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the secretary of state of health and then you said to her what I wanted more then you know what
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more stuff than you then you then she put you in touch then you got into the United Nations
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you made it all sound very easy but it clearly wasn't how did you how did you manage to get to
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those steps so it's fine getting the contact but then you managed to persuade her and then you
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managed to persuade you know somebody to go and that you were going to go and to talk present this
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film to the United Nations then you the task of persuading cynical bureaucrats you know who
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have been in the business for a very long time sort of thing and how did you manage to do that what
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what was it the film was it every gain every gain there was a loss and there was a lot of
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heartbreak because people would tell me things like men will be men or you know prostitution
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is as old as the hills they would insult me they would say what is this 20 year old woman coming
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and saying things like this I would be heckled I would be turned away I would wait for hours and
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hours outside the offices of senior police officials I remember when we wanted time at the UN
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someone from the Clinton administration and I would literally go knocking and even though
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they were part of the Clinton administration on doors to ask for time and we would not get them
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you know all together but then on the other hand I also formed so many alliances which became this
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groundswell that people could not ignore with other NGOs with other leaders other activists and
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you know we just kept pushing with the people who would respond and you know let go of the people
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who would not but it was not at all easy I made the film in 1996 and it was only in 2000 that we
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were able to get the law that we wanted so you can think about the four years like we would go I
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would have alliances with NGO leaders from say Philippines and Canada and Norway and South Africa
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and I'm still friends with them and we still laugh about how we used to reach out to our own
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country delegates and say we need this UN protocol and we are sitting in the lobby of the hotel
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in Vienna or Geneva or wherever and we see that delegate actually being given an escort by someone
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and so there was all that you know masculinity and patriarchy and you know resistance even the head
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of the Gates Foundation at that time in India you know they were funding a program I remember in
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Calcutta actually a million or you know a program which was more than like 15 million all over India
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to control AIDS and the great bright idea was exactly like the British colonial times idea
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that you know save the men from disease and never mind what happens to the women and girls
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so they were distributing condoms in the brothels and hiring pimps and brothel managers as
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they're so-called peer educators through this program and everyone I knew because they were
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spending millions of dollars including school friends and college friends they were all consultants
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for this Gates program and so you know I created a UN crime and speeches all over the world and
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finally I got a meeting with the CEO of the Gates Foundation and he said oh what can I do here we are
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you know I said you're damaging you're actually making the system of prostitution stronger by
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hiring pimps and brothel keepers and the first thing women and girls need is not a condom they need
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like basic needs food clothing shelter and protection from all the violence which they are
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facing every day in the brothels so he said oh we don't do we only do health we don't do
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education I said you can do something so he set up a meeting with the Indian Head of the Gates
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Foundation and I still remember it clearly that guy said I said you know okay whatever you are
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doing your AIDS program you know and you're saying it's reducing AIDS until date there is no evidence
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of that and I said that you know but you're enabling these prostitute buyers and
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haven't you thought about that that you're creating a false notion of ethical demand that if
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they put on a condom it's all right to buy sex and he didn't even understand what I was saying
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and then I said you know but he refused to budge so I said what about investing an equal amount
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of money in the education of girls if you have so much money or even one third of the money
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we can work with governments identify the most vulnerable girls who are most prone to being
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trafficked and put them through school in government schools which are not even very expensive
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so his eyes glazed over and he said oh but you know if prostitutes don't exist girls from good
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families will be raped and I thought this man is so sexist and so elitist at the same time
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you know that some poor women should be available and so entitled that you know some women should
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be available for men who can buy sex and the other thing he told me was also awful he said that
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you know and their children are prostitutes what's the guarantee that they will finish school
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and meantime his two sons were in Stanford or wherever so I was so taken aback in any case I said
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you know I'll just keep doing my community service and my groundwork and we'll see and eventually
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the gates program was closed down shut down quietly you know the whole Epstein thing blew up there
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to as Melinda gates now says and you know I ended up actually getting education to these
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thousands of girls who now are my testimony and the evidence of what I was talking about
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and the red light area in Bihar where I spend the most time working that's nearly shut down you
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know there were 300 and something brothels there and now there are two or three and not by running
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institutions or spending tons of money just changing the ecosystem of the community by investing
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in the women and girls so the first book that I wrote I kick and I fly actually is just that because
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you know these foundations keep talking about data but they forget looking at human beings in the
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process and that is such a danger that is such a danger because data can be forged and that's why
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even you know this whole thing that's happening in America right now with child migration is exactly
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the same thing you know the data becomes just a statistic right people say 300,000 children are missing
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are they being trafficked then the response is that okay let's strip them off legal representation
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now will that shift push them more underground will it make them more fragile what will happen
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to the protection system then so you know it's a problem data just data without thinking about
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human beings is a problem yeah you also you also worked with the United Nations in refugee camps
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and of course as we were as we were talking and as we both know you know where there is a
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where there is whatever institution where there is a regime of oppression from this from the top
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if you're like that oppression almost magnifies as it goes lower and lower and lower so you found
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exploitation in refugee camps and in war zones as well even soldiers human soldiers
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exploiting the the women correct yes so in Kosovo when I was posted there I saw that there were
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you in our staff members you know who would be buying girls from the communities who were at risk
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because we were just out of for war and Kosovo had this indeterminate status and so you know we
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really didn't have systems in place to protect anyone and Serbian women were in danger Roma women
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were in danger and they didn't have food they were displaced from their homes they had kids to feed
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and the UN soldiers would go meet them invite them home etc. pick them up in their cars
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and literally become what the term now is called sugar daddies so in exchange for food and
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information and even just safe passage they would exploit these women and girls and I saw this
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and there were nightclubs where they would go there was this UN official who would actually
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invite girls to his house and just sit and stare at them that's what I saw I don't know what else
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he did after that so I was I saw all this and I spoke to my boss I was very young at that time so
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I spoke to my boss and I said what can we do about it and you know I obviously can communicate well
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because of my journalist training or as a storyteller so she
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said let's create a gender task force and we worked together to create a gender task force
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in Kosovo which then became the blueprint for doing other things like we made certain areas
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off limits to UN officials we said we created guidelines for UN officials saying they would be
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sacked if they were found with a girl and things like that and then I was posted to New York for
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the UN and I worked with the Secretary General's office to create a zero tolerance policy for any
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UN official who wasn't who was buying or selling girls and then I ended up also making a training
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video for all UN peacekeepers who were getting posted to you know these conflict zones where girls are
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vulnerable to being trafficked and exploited and that training video still being used
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so there are monitors as well are they in these zones I assume in these
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absolutely there are monitors there are cases people are caught you know so there are standards now
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you know there are 50 conflicts going on in the world right now and you know there is so much
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flux and of course women of the enemy group are often targeted by people in conflict right for
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rape and sexual violence as a message to the whole community and you know like when Ukraine was
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attacked Ukrainian girls became the most search for term on the internet for some time you know
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the story about the ISIS survivors etc so you know I've been to refugee camps and I've seen
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traffickers literally prowling outside the traffic the refugee camps to pick up girls who are
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running away or whatever and then there are stories of rape and sexual exploitation inside some of
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the camps the most notorious was the one in Selek where these Congolese women were exploited in the
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camps so yes you know the predators are out there organized crime is out there the United Nations
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says that human trafficking is the second largest organized crime in the world there are
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it's crossed the drug street because you know you can use a human being again and again whereas you
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can just consume drugs once so it's a multi billion dollar industry and it often overlaps with migration
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and people smuggling so the more I see our world today I feel that this is going to be the issue of our
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I feel not even just the next decade much longer because people are on the move there is so much
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inequality and there is conflict there's climate change and you know wherever there's food
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and stability people will go there so we have to think about ways how can we humanize and not
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criminalize these people yeah yes and I think that to to make a segue into your book I think that's
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the one thing when I said it was it was it was very clever very moving it was clever it's clever because
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it does humanize your characters enormously I mean your protagonist is a 12 year old girl who's
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very clever a leader in her school the captain of the hockey team very articulate
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independent it comes from a loving family it's a mixed Muslim Hindu family and yet is put in this
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absolutely helpless straight jacket almost when she has to leave or father has to leave
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first and then then she has to with with her with her mother and then of course trying to get
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into the United States from that illegal path and just completely drowned in that system in that
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or that chaos of the of the the coyotes you know the pretending to get them through the desert etc etc
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I found it I found it very moving I mean much to my much to my surprise because I thought this
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yeah this is going to be aimed at eight to 18 year olds and I'm a little older than 18 as you know
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but it was very moving and and the moving part of it was of course that this was
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at every step of the way you could imagine one self or one's children and you know in getting
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through that you aimed it specifically at 18 at 18 year olds is that because you feel this
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there is a need an educational need is my first question on that one and did you base it on
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cases that you know because your your research it seems on on on that whole
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track through the the deserts and through from from Mexico onwards was quite detailed so those
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two questions did you did you feel that this could be a great educational book I think it is by the way
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and to your research how much how much you know experiential research if you like did you
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did you track yeah the freedom seeker is not just a novel it's a call to conscience right
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and it's a story which says we must not look away we must listen to children we must see them not
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as illegal aliens of you know whatever the terms are flight risks but as what they are kids who
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want safety family and freedom like any child because you know there's a whole propaganda movement
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going on right now that immigrants are criminals they are military age men being released from prison
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who are coming to take over our countries and actually they are not they could be kids they could
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be families who are just basically seeking home and safety so through semi I wanted people to
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humanize not criminalize that was my first attempt and I'm glad that you found that you could
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relate to her and she felt like your children I also wrote this book because I've met girls
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traffic to cross borders boys separated by war and children who've never known a home you know
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I've sat with them in shelters in prisons in classrooms and they were giving not just knowledge
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with empathy and so I wanted to write this book to bear bear witness to say I see you but also
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um Indians are now the third largest group of migrants crossing into the United States by the way
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and many are Sikhs Hindu Sikhs and Sikhs fleeing religious persecution or Gujarati's who are
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Dalits from marginalized caste escaping political and economic insecurity so when I began writing
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this book I read two articles one was about a Gujarati family who who tried to cross into the
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US from Canada in the dead of winter and the froze to death in the snow and the other was about
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a Sikh mother and daughter who were crossing from from Mexico into the US through the Arizona
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desert called the Sanora Desert and the mother went to look for water for her daughter and the
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daughter's remains were later found by the border guards so I began to think who are these people
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why did this happen to them and then when I dug in I found that you know surprisingly India
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has the largest number of migrants to the US one but also how they are being treated you know
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languishing in jails in San Diego in Texas in California you know some Sikhs even went on hunger strike
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because of the hard treatment inside the jail and also you know kids who are here who have to make
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who have now been labeled as unaccompanied alien child now that takes away the face of the child
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you you you you can't see her anymore you can't see them anymore and so I decided that I would go
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and see for myself what's going on so I went after doing all my research and seeing the numbers and
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all of that you know 17 million people are living with a child in America an undocumented
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alien child I hate using that word so I stumble over it is very often not
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unaccompanied she may be undocumented and she normally has a family member here but because of
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whole indifference system she's just labeled as unaccompanied as semi is in my book after she's
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separated from her mother in the Arizona desert so I went to the desert because I wanted to know
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what it was I went to the US Mexico border and I saw that streets were cut you know barbed wire
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fences cut streets they were divided by wire mesh fences and families were still trying to
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connect with each other passing soda cans and gossip and flowers and food and then I decided to
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even walk through the desert for a day or two without water to feel what it must be like for
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these migrants how desperate were they because I wanted to write about it in my book to show they're
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not coming here to colonize they're running away you know they're running gang wars or they're
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running poverty hunger conflict you know so many things and I met missionaries who left water
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bottles for migrants in the desert and local townsfolk who opened homes to strangers with you
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you know give them a set of clothes or allowed them to take a shower in their home or give them some
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soup and then in Queens where my the remaining part of my story said I spent hours and hours meeting
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South Asian families through Guldwara's and through youth groups and all of that helping immigrant
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kids in schools and you know I saw how lost they were how scared they were how they wanted
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desperately to build a new life here of safety and love and then I also met you know NGOs who were
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ferrying undocumented mothers from detention centers like the Iloy prison two New York so
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a mother and a daughter could unite so I saw absurd policy things which were so tragic and then I
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saw human acts of kindness while doing my research and all of that came through in the book as
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you noticed yeah yeah and I you know these narratives which say frame children as threats you know
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it's just such a lie and so the need for my book is two when you ask me you know what did I feel
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there was a need for the book I really felt there was a need for the book because I realized that
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this is happening to so many kids but nobody's talking about it two kids and you know teachers
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I can't don't have anything to talk to kids about it parents don't have anything to talk to kids
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about it and so I thought you know if I can write a book for young people then I know that older
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people will read it because they are the gatekeepers to what young people read but at least it will
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definitely get into the hands of young people who might find an answer to their own lives or to
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a friend's life and also you know kids who are being brainwashed by all this propaganda will see
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something else that nobody's coming to invade America you know and that a child at the border
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is still a child not a policy not a statistic but a person suffering from fear and loneliness and
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yet they have courage and it comes through perfectly and it's it's it's I recommend it strongly
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it's the freedom seeker and it's published by Scholastic and it's available from the 5th of August
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and available for order right now so the more orders I get for the freedom seeker the more likely
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it is to get into a bestseller list which means that it will get more attention and more kids
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and parents and teachers will find out about it and help build empathy humanize instead of criminalize
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wonder but sheda thank you so much that's been it's been a wonderful conversation and I wish
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you all the success for the book and I wish you all the success with all the work you're doing
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and I wish you lots of happiness which is even more important thank you I hope you stay in
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that you know I'd love to someday meet you in person we will do we will do I promise we will do
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my guest today was the wonderful ruchira gupta author and lifelong activist against human trafficking
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and particularly the trafficking of women as ruchira said with the increase in wars and
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destitution that they create the praying on the vulnerable by human predators will grow horrifically
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unless nations specifically the richer ones devote energy and resources to stamping it out
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rather than blaming the victims so when people recklessly call for war from their armchairs
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against this all that so-called enemy I hope they think for a moment at least about the many
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forms of human cost that every war execs ruchira gupta's book is the freedom seeker
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it goes on sale on August the 5th and is available now for pre-order it's aimed at young people
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but I would be very surprised if their parents did not find it both incredibly moving as I did
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and an eye opener I'm Stephen Barden this has been another episode of migrant odyssey