Prerana, founded by Pravin and Priti Patkar, is a civil society organization that started working in the red light areas of Mumbai in 1986. Shocked to see the ultimate plight of the children born to red light area based prostituted women victim of commercial sexual exploitation (CSE&T) and their inescapable recruitment in the organized sex trade, Prerana took a view to protect and re-establish the rights and dignity of the women and children victims of CSE&T.
Prerana’s work has the following objectives:
• To eliminate Second Generation Trafficking of the children Victims of Commercial Sexual Exploitation & Trafficking (VOCSET).
• To Prevent Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE) of children, minor, under-aged girls and young women.
• To Prevent Trafficking of women and children for CSE
• To work towards proper Social Reintegration of the VOCSET
• To provide an Optional Dignified Life to the children of women VOCSET through comprehensive social intervention in their situation. More particularly, to give inputs like education, shelter, health, nutrition, recreation, vocational training, personality development, value education, counseling etc.
• To create Awareness among the VOCSET of their human and civil rights and to Empower them.
To encourage and empower the victims of CSE to establish their Human Rights including their rights vis-à-vis the HIV/AIDS problem.
• To take up Advocacy work on behalf of the VOCSETs wherever required.
• To undertake Capacity Building and facilitate a broader social involvement in the situation of the VOCSET for positive social intervention. More particularly encourage other NGOs to take up red light area intervention work.
• To make consistent efforts for effecting appropriate Changes in the Legislation, Policy, and Programmes pertaining to trafficking and prostitution domestic, and international.
• To undertake Research & Documentation and provide Consultations in the field of CSE&T.
• To undertake Sensitization and Training Programmes (STP) for GOs, NGO, INGOs, and UN agencies, the Police and other agencies to further the anti trafficking work.
• To set up and run a Clearing House of information in the field of CSE&T.
• To establish and run a Network of organizations working for the cause of the VOCSET and against Trafficking.
Prerana has programs on all counts and many of them work on 24X7 basis. Aptly accredited with starting and running successfully a large number of activities and for socializing the process of intervention in CSE&T situation, some of its activities and programs are detailed below.
Trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation causes irreversible damage to its victim. With the advent of HIV/AIDS the damage has become fatal.
The victim gets uprooted from her life system, she is physically tortured.. Her economic deprivation and the extremely unhygienic surroundings make her victim of deficiency diseases. As often she is forced to take alcohol and other drugs to please the customers it makes her drug dependent. Like a slave she is stripped of all her freedoms. As she loses any right and control over her physical existence she faces repeated multiple rapes, is directly and closely exposed to the danger of contracting a host of contagious infections including the deadly HIV infection, and is a victim of unwanted pregnancy and forced abortions. Although she is a victim of crime and is not responsible for her situation the social misperception and culture is such that she gets ostracized and penalized. Thus on all counts she is at the lowest end of exploitation.
The children born to these sex workers face constant difficulties in their life, from birth to adulthood. Most of them would end up in two forms – boys ending up as pimps helping in the trade, and the girls ending up as sex workers themselves. Hence it is very essential for them to have a shelter facility that would ensure they stay away from these anti-social elements and focus on things like education, vocational training etc. This is where Prerana comes in.
Prerana has reached out to over 7500 such children, shifted over 1,200 from the red light areas to children’s welfare institutions for long term residential care and protection and follows them up professionally, shelters 250 children on any given night in its 3 Night Care Centres in the midst of red light districts, and covers 8800 children through a comprehensive educational support program.
• This is a specialized centre in research & documentation, policy consultation, sensitization & training, clearing house of information, producing IEC material, library, information dissemination, social awareness, advocacy and networking on trafficking problems and anti trafficking initiative. Prerana has published several items at all levels – global and local – and thus has an impressive collection of documents on CSE&T in its attempts to fill the information gaps between the macro and the micro levels internationally.
• Prerana has facilitated the formation of a network of voluntary sector organizations NACSET (Network Against CSE&T) that is very active on the anti CSE&T front in the state of Maharashtra, the first Indian collective exclusively of VOCSET women called NISHANT (End of the Night) and the first Indian collective EKTA (Unity) of children of red light areas.
• Prerana started, globally the first ever, Night Care Centre (NCC) in 1987 for the protection of the children of red light areas from the traumatizing and undesirable night life of the brothels. NCC is the first initiative to de-link a child from the undesirable influences and trauma of the flesh trade without de-linking it from the mother.
• In 1987, the organization started the first Institutional Placement Programme in India for children of red light area based women VOCSET to place them in institutions for long term residential care. This is to delink the child from the red light area and to help the mothers consider the option of shifting the child away from the red light area into a place that can provide long term residential care and development.
• Prerana runs Naunihal, a shelter home for girl children from red light areas, and Pratishtha (Dignity), a residential vocational training centre for rescued minor girls, both at Kharghar, Navi Mumbai.
• Pratishtha is Prerana’s wing for recovery and social reintegration of girl victims of trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation.
• Under the rehabilitation programs developed for minor girls, the girls are trained and placed in the job market – some by corporate like Hotel Taj Mahal. Prerana has also begun a new venture ‘Group Homes’ for girls who have passed out of institutional life on completion of 18 years of age.
• Prerana also started the first Comprehensive Educational Support Programme in the country for the children of red light areas to ensure a child’s right to education.
• In January 1999, Prerana formally started India's first Project on Post Rescue Operation (PRO) with judicial mobilization at the Mumbai High Court seeking reforms in the PRO phase.
• Prerana is working as a mentor for a few project partners of CRS India on a project called Jagruti. Jagruti aims at mainstreaming the Minimum Standards of Care & Support for the Victims of Trafficking and Other Forms of Violence.
