=========================== Raising Awareness =========================== Moderator: Srikanth Voorakaram, Asha Srik: Awareness could be at different levels through different avenues. We could choose to focus along the following lines: -Awareness among general public about WIP -Attitude of school teachers and students about children of WIP -Awareness amongst the WIP -Awareness about trafficking -Awareness amongst NGOs themselves about different GOs and legal aspects. -About different avenues Type of awareness we want to raise Awareness among the general public- Rammohan: Mobilization of social support groups is also important. Knock the doors of the policy makers. Awareness is most needed in the long run. Srikant: Stanly, I know OSS has a pretty strong support group. Can you elaborate? Stanly: As far as awareness is concerned, we opened all our doors to the public. We thought of some programs where every individual can contribute. Like a doctor or a lawyer, or officials, police- any body can contribute. We periodically monitored our awareness and sensitization programs and it gave us lot of positive results. Now we have many people who know about the issues and are proactively involved with OSS and this issues. Many , many people are involved. Maybe we can sit on the last day and chalk out some measures that we can take. We had wonderful experience with people; we had bad experience also but I prefer not to dwell on it. There was a stigma but it is dimishing now. We are conducting seminars like this at state-level too. And WIP are now demanding rights. Mr. Manavade: Unless we have a social support group, our task will not be made easy. Vimochana has created a corpus fund and it now stands at Rs 18 lakhs thanks to the support of people. Ajeet: We have done programs with women where they can tell people first hand their experience. WIP have traditionally had music and dance as part of their prostitution. We have formed groups where we promote their music and dance. This not only serve as rehab program but also becomes an effective medium for educating the people. This is more effective than communicating the same through a third people. The first two festivals were free but now we have started to pay them and this is little constraining. But giving them money is important because it bolsters them. We had very good response when we did these festivals. However, the social stigma still remains and we have to work very hard. Anita: I want to add on to Ajeet's idea. I think many of us tend to look at TV/newspapers as medium of dissemination. But we should think of other media like radio or the festivals like Ajeet is talking about. We should may be try to get artists to put up programs on these issues. We should like at alternative sources of media for awareness Hansa: OSS had organized something like this. They had a massive canvas where the artists painted on it. Ajeet: Singing and dancing was always there. We just need to change the slot. Rajaram: The artists who performed were WIP or was the theme about WIP. Ajeet: The women themselves performed. They talked about their lives through the singing and dancing. A good compere and how you conduct the program is very important. Manavde: Our children also participated in the programs. Apte: I agree with ajeet's suggestion. In MH also we have this tradition- Lavani music these dancing girls are getting organized and performing themselves. They are getting acceptance from the society. Also there are good role models. There are 2 examples in MH- one who become a doctor and one who is now district collector. These people are held as examples of what the children of WIP can become. Rajaram: In TN, the cultural forms have passed out of the traditional people and come into the hands of the Brahmins Anuradha- why don't we ever talk about the customers? Why do we talk about women rehabilitation? Why not a bad word for the customers or the clients? Srikanth- Has any group tried to analyze the root cause of this phenomenon? Manavade: We had an opportunity to work with the village women when we were working with the devadasis. They demanded that the men folks should be sensitized. We strongly suggested to the village panchayat that such programs should be held for the men. We have prepared a grant/report of GoI that we should sensitize the men/village panchyat for men. Anuradha- Sensitization is not what I am, talking. I am talking about customers/clients. We never identify the men. Manavade: Most of customers belong to higher officials, politicians, students, police officers. Anuradha: We should maybe have a name for them Parashu- Media is very important. Sensitizing the ruling political class is more important. Stanly: I have been observing from the NGOs is that we are forming our own movements but are not moving with the progressive movement of every state. We can work with these groups and try to promote our thoughts trhough them Subash: There is a conf called world people’s conf. Mumbai is the next venue. This can be used to discuss the issues of CSW/SW. Neelkamal: We had difficult time mobilizing people. We used to go village to village cleaning up the place- cleaning campaigning. Later people started doing it themselves. We also did a campaign about literacy. Shanmuga- which dalit movement are you talking about. Stanly: There are different of opinions about the groups. My preference is to promote our thought through the existing the movements. Ours is a micro component. Most of the children who are trafficked are from the grassroot area. The end goal is to come up with some policies on this issues. Instead of working in isolation, we can become part of a movement and pass our thoughts to the grassroots. Juliana- Why don't we give awareness to the victims? Rammohan: Create awareness amongst the NGOs themselves who are working in that area. Srikanth- What are the avenues open to educate victims? Juliana: NGOs working in rural areas- try to tell people what happens to a trafficked person. Venkata: One example in SA- NGOs started wearing T-shirts saying I am HIV positive- HIV became an acceptable thing to talk about. Kind of shock therapy. Sophia: Saathi has taken initiatives in Bombay to educate the victims. The children have started making a wall magazine, where children are encouraged to express themselves. Srikanth: Do you see this issue being publicized? Sophia: Yes. Different groups are involved. We are seeing changes- there is a pressure on the staff to improve. Srikanth: Govt does have transit home but we see those institutions are badly managed. To bring about these issue through wall magazine is a good idea. Larrisa: In SA the youth did a one hour radio show. Srikanth: What have your experiences about the state institutions? Juliana: State protective home in Goa- the govt in Goa closed this home as they thought there were no child prostitutes. Then Arz started working on this issue and then we pressurized the govt to open the home. But the govt wants us to operate the home. It is very difficult to work with the govt. Srikanth- Should we really be looking to make a bigger impact. Subash: There should more openess about sexuality. Apte: Public litigation about the various acts not being implemented. Similar to Goa was our experience. Even the high courts are angry with the state govt. Juliana: I think the people working with these people need to be sensitized. Anuradha: We should give them quality education, housing, food. We should not give them minimum. We should not throw crumbs at these children. Why do we send them to government schools? Anita: In terms of sensitization-has any group worked with the police and tried to sensitized them? Manavade: Nowdays HIV is causing greater concern. We need to sensitise people about HIV/AIDS. Shashikala: We had an interaction program with the police. We had a good experience. But when we have to deal with the lower levels of police, the experience was not good. Srikanth: What was the program about? Ramesh: we talk about the experiences of the children so that the police officers get to know what the girls went there. They dramatize the issue. Imagine if the girl was your daughter kind of thing. OSS has also conducted programs for police constables, police officers etc. But the sad fact is that the police inspectors, sub-inspectors are not very receptive. Anuradha- The effort has been going on for 10 years but we have not turned them. Their training needs to be feminized. Anita- But there are also success stories. Like the group in Delhi that works with the street children who have been able to sensitize the police. If we include it in the police training, I am afraid that it will get lost in jargon. It needs to reinforced. Rammohan: continous interaction with the police officers is needed. Start at the higher level. The DIG has give instruction now not to arrest the WIP but to arrest only the Madams and the pimps. Ashish- The police was very supportive of their efforts. And Calcutta has started a program called navadisha. Police are teaching/playing with the children. TF had a good experience. Anjali: we have visited their program Ashish: Till date children used to be afraid of the police but because of Navadisha, the children are now able to interact with the police and the police have been able to solve many crimes. Shashikala: Within the police jurisdiction, an anti-trafficking squad should be established. should we have women police? Juliana: That is not always case. Women police are in some cases worse. Hansa: can we think of what we can do nationwide? We need a sustained nationwide campign like the OSS effort where the 350 artists painted the canvas? Chandravel: Can we do some thing like December 1st- world AIDS Day. December 30th can be the child trafficking day. Ramamohan: Signature campaign. SKI: Pledge campaign about group to pledge not to go to SW Apte: We should do public litigation. (PIL) Let the court give judgement about the role of groups on child trafficking. Sophia- We work in Bombay central station. The police has allowed us to sit in their premise. We do counseling there. The children have become more confidence in the police. We had to training session with the police. We had to go through the entire gamut of police officials. Before we had to sit 24 hours in the station but now the police calls us to tell us that there is a girl in the station and whether we can come and rescue her. Rajaram: Lack of public awareness is the chief causes of child trafficking. Anjali: Are we going to issue a statement from this conference. Chandravel: We need to know about the government policies. Subashree: We should also think about sensitizing NGOs when working with the WIPs or children who have been trafficked. Srikanth- Is her concern really valid one? Anuradha- yes. NGOs need to be sensitized. ???: How do we get to the procurers? We need to address the issue of pimps. Summary: -PIL Nationwide campaign at the same time Social support groups Cultured teams of victims themselves-trdional forms Alternate avenues (radio, booklets) Projection/identification of role model from such background Awarenss about root cuases/agents/actors Involving existing movements ( World Social Forum) Awareness for potential victims Existing children;s publications Police training course Invovle police in programs Sensitization of Ngos when deal with children.