Preventing human trafficking in India's Assam: the impact so far

Being close to multiple international and state borders, Assam faces the scourge of human trafficking in a great magnitude. Socio-economic factors like poverty, illiteracy, and lack of employment opportunities, compound the problem further. Adults and children get trafficked on the promise of jobs, marriage, education, and a better life.

Trafficking is a means to supply illegal human capital to sustain multiple criminal activities. These include bride trafficking, prostitution, child marriage, bonded labor, child soldiers, organ harvesting, etc.

Having rescued more than 5000 trafficked children and adults, I decided to reflect on the impact I may have created. One of the key learnings was the need to take a step further and not only focus on just rescuing and rehabilitating trafficking survivors but rather, preventing the incidence of trafficking itself. To that end, my initiative is to create awareness among the most vulnerable population through training and capacity-building sessions.

The organization I founded and lead, Impact and Dialogue Foundation, has been reaching people at the grassroots. Due to a spike in Covid, our work was limited; yet, with my initiative, I have reached more than 20 dioceses (congregation of sisters) along with 15 villages physically in different districts of Assam. In a span of 4 months, starting from September 2021 to December 2021, a total of 20000 people have been reached.

Also, I have been speaking in webinars in different universities across the country and abroad, with about 10000 teachers and students being impacted through virtual training and campaigns which started in January 2021 and continue to date. I have also reached out to 5000 auto drivers, bus drivers, doctors, nurses, and police officers across the country and started different kinds of dialogues around trafficking. In total, I have reached more than 35,000 people.

I have learned that it’s very important to get rid of our inhibitions and work on the ground in the remotest parts of the country, as that’s the main area of my work. Working in our roots is important. A lot of people work in cities but I want to build my native state, Assam. I want to make the individuals aware, and empower people on the ground so that they can stand for their rights and uplift other people in the communities.