Unsung Heroes: How a girl from a railway town in Assam became a daring anti-human trafficking activist in Bengaluru

The incident surprised her as she came from the small railway town of Lumding in Assam. Along with the hapless father, Ghosh tried to search for the girl but could not find any clue. She was just 12 then. Dejected, she noted the names of the missing child’s father and that village and went back home.

The Impact and Dialogue Foundation aims to prevent human trafficking and modern slavery, rescue victims, and rehabilitate trafficking survivors across India. (Express photo)

However, the incident lingered in her head and prompted her to start researching missing kids. In due course, she learnt about the term, trafficking. Ghosh encountered multiple instances of women missing from states like West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, and Karnataka, and getting forcefully married to men double their age in states like Haryana and Rajasthan.

In 2020, Ghosh learnt that children were being falsely declared Covid-19 positive and ended up dead only to facilitate illegal organ harvesting. This is what prompted Ghosh to establish the Impact and Dialogue Foundation, which aims to prevent human trafficking and modern slavery, rescue victims, and rehabilitate trafficking survivors across India.

“When we learnt about organ harvesting during the pandemic, especially in villages bordering Myanmar and Bhutan, we reached out to the villagers and spread awareness on trafficking through door-to-door campaigns. We trained villagers and the village heads in identifying human trafficking incidents and tasked them with the responsibility of averting such incidents,” said Ghosh.

While conducting raids against human trafficking rackets may seem adventurous, Ghosh warned about the challenges one has to face as an anti-trafficking activist.

“Many believe that anti-trafficking activists going on raids with law enforcement agencies and busting the human trafficking racket is adventurous. But it is not. The journey to identify the victims is so arduous that I travel 15 hours by train, take a toto, walk, and then reach the destination,” said Ghosh.

She further said, “Convincing police officials to lodge an FIR and book a case under Section 370 of IPC( trafficking) is a daunting task. Getting data on missing cases is challenging because most of the cases go under-reported. In addition, raising funds for anti-trafficking campaigns is also a major challenge. I have come across people who have normalised trafficking and believe that fighting it yields no dividends.”

Of the 10,000-odd survivors she rescued over the years, there is one case that still haunted the anti-trafficking activist. Recalling the case, she said, “This is about a case in North India in 2017. The girl was a minor and her father was diagnosed with terminal illness. Her mother entrusted the responsibility of her daughter to a well-educated person… The girl was beaten from head to toe and was subject to an extreme form of modern slavery. I received the tip-off from the police and later rescued her.”

Ghosh further said, “What moved me was that the girl did not realise the trauma and the pain she was going through. She was physically abused and subjected to sexual exploitation. She was so immune to the pain that she didn’t realise all this was wrong. However, she was convinced that by allowing herself to be subjected to such inhumane behaviour, she would get her food.”

Ghosh said fighting trafficking requires collaboration and building partnerships with law enforcement agencies, grassroots activists, local NGOs, and the survivors. “I believe in the 4Ps – prevention, protection, partnership, and prosecution. First, it is important to bring community awareness and normalise talks around human trafficking. Hate it or love it, but don’t ignore it,” added Ghosh.

The anti-human trafficking activist then said, “My primary goal is to make survivors financially independent, and upskill them… Second, cases of human trafficking must reach a logical conclusion through prosecution. Unfortunately, the conviction rates are so low that out of every 100 cases, conviction happens in only one case.”

Ghosh informed that as a part of its flagship program, Project Sahay, the Impact and Dialogue Foundation rehabilitates survivors and supports ‘at-risk’ populations by providing livelihood opportunities. The foundation also started a one-year stitching course at a vocational training centre in Lumding, Assam, for at-risk tribal girls in 2022.