In Vrindavan, thousands of elderly widow mothers face the harsh reality of abandonment and suffering. With no one to turn to, many are left begging on the streets, exposed to heat, cold and rain,Donate so that Maitri can provide shelter, food, clothes and medical support to abandoned elderly mothers now. Give generously.Winnie Singh has witnessed many cases of widow mothers being abandoned on the streets of Vrindavan, one of the holiest places in India. “Children leave their mothers as soon as they become widows. The children start feeling the burden. This has become a practice in today's society that money comes first and everything else later,” says Winnie whose Maitri India, rescues widowed mothers from the streets of Vrindavan.Many widowed elderly mothers often end up living a lonely life and begging to survive on the streets. And Maitri aspires to take care of every widow in need of help, but because of lack of funds, Winnie and Maitri are in a position to do it."Elderly widows don't have shelter. They sleep in cowsheds over sacks. They don't have a blanket. Nights are really difficult for them," shares Winnie Singh. <img src="https://cfstatic.give.do/1abfb906-563b-4747-85b8-8af2071a2856.jpg" />Maitri aims to:<ul><li>Provide shelter and nutritious meals leading to improved health and wellbeing</li><li>Make physical and mental health services accessible</li><li>Offer necessary quality aged care and assisted living support</li><li>Increase awareness and engagement around the struggles of abandoned widow mothers</li></ul>Why donate to MaitriWinnie needs your support to help those in need of food, healthcare and well-being. “Maitri urgently needs your support to provide nutritious food, clothing and healthcare to sustain these widow mothers who are prone to more illnesses as they age,” appeals Winnie. “You can become the family they were denied. Hold their hands so they don't need to beg ever again,” she adds. Let’s rescue abandoned widows mothers from the streets of Vrindavan and give them a better future. Donate now.Our help will enable Maitri to save hundreds of abandoned widows from a life of begging, and restore the respect, dignity, and identity they deserve.

Help provide shelter, food, clothes and medical support to abandoned widow mothers of Vrindavan. Donate now

Human trafficking in India is a horrifying crisis. Thousands of victims, primarily women and girl children, are exploited in red-light areas. Over 10,659 cases were reported between 2018-2022, but experts say that these numbers are likely a fraction of the reality due to underreporting, yet they still do expose the magnitude of the crisis. Girls make up 71.4% of missing children in India and a large number of these girls end up at red-light areas. Sex trafficking is particularly gruesome, with girls as young as 12 sold for as little as a few thousand rupees.

Help Save Young Girls From Trafficking

“I used to be sexually abused repeatedly, and when I screamed in pain, they hit and threatened me with more violence,” says Priya (name changed), a rescued child sex worker. Priya was abducted by traffickers and sold into a red-light area house before she was rescued by Guria led by Manju. For over two decades, Manju has been rescuing young girls forced into prostitution across the country. She has been shaken to the core seeing some of the most horrifying crimes that young girls have to undergo. “You can’t imagine the state of girls forced into sex work. The girls are given electric shocks and burnt with cigarette butts just to get kicks out of it. And if they get pregnant, the "owners" kick them repeatedly in the womb so that the child inside dies…If you want to see hell, it is here on this planet where young girls are sexually abused,” says Manju.Manju needs your help to rescue more young girls from forced prostitution and reunite them with their families. Donate now.Guria’s work over the yearsBased out of Varanasi, inarguably the holiest place in India, Manju and her organisation Guria, fights the sexual exploitation of girls, especially minors, by taking on the traffickers head-on, and rescuing and rehabilitating them.Started in 1993, Guria has rescued over 5500 persons from slavery, sex trafficking, and child prostitution so far. It has also been instrumental in shutting down hundreds of places that housed trafficked girls and putting scores of traffickers out of business and in jail.For instance, in 2005, a Guria-led rescue operation in Varanasi's red-light area led to the freeing of 49 women and girls, including minors. Many of them were kept against their will. Some of the traffickers were also arrested and tried. Since then, Guria has rescued thousands of young girls.Manju and her husband, Ajeet Singh began rescuing girls from Varanasi’s red-light areas and then working to stop the sex-trafficking of young girls within Uttar Pradesh and outside. The organisation’s aim is to eliminate the sex trafficking of women, especially minor girls, end second-generation prostitution and child prostitution, and rehabilitate women and girls who are rescued from the trade. Manju has faced violent backlash from the traffickers and other vested interests, but it has not deterred her from carrying on rescuing young girls from trafficking. Rescue and rehabilitationBesides rescuing girls trafficked for sex, mostly from low-income families, from across the country, Guria fights on their behalf in courts and also provides education, food, vocational training, and other facilities until they are united with their families. But because of a lack of funds, Guria is finding it difficult to rescue more girls and also take care of them once they are away from the clutches of the traffickers. Take the case of Sameena (name changed), who was abducted from Uttar Pradesh all the way to Telangana. Guria took it upon itself to rescue the girl with the help of its own work and also the authorities. After months of rehabilitation, Sameena went back to her family and even completed her education. With your support, Manju can rescue many more young girls from trafficking and help them live the life of their dreams.

Help Manju rescue young sex trafficking victims. Donate now

This is a sample description for Human Rights. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Human RightsHuman RightsHuman Rights.

Human Rights

This is a sample description for Women Empowerment. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Women EmpowermentWomen EmpowermentWomen Empowerment.

Women Empowerment

Prajwala is a pioneering anti-trafficking organization working on the issue of sex trafficking and sex crime. Established in the year 1996 in south India, Prajwala has pan India and International operations. Prajwala works on the five pillars of Prevention, Rescue and Rehabilitation &amp; Reintegration

Donations through Give Foundation, registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961 are tax-deductible.

MS SUNITHA KRISHNAN

PRAJWALA (A SOCIETY FOR POOR AND DEPRIVED)

This nonprofit is registered as a charitable trust under section 12A of India's Income Tax Act, 1961.

This nonprofit is registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961. This means you can deduct 50% of the donation you made through your tax return.

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Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) is one of the most disparaging crimes crippling India’s social development and economy and threatening the dignity and security of women and children. In this context, the southern states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are no exception. These states continue to constitute the core destination areas for the victimization of trafficked women and children for economic profiteering at the cost of their human rights. Despite the absence of official statistics on CSE in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, civil society organisation estimates suggest that one out of every four victims rescued from CSE is a child and 60 per cent of all rescued children from CSE are HIV positive. Further, 75 per cent of females in the Telugu region between the ages of 15-35 years are found to be engaged in sex work.[1] Reports in the print and digital news media also indicate that sex trafficking of both vulnerable women and children is progressively on the increase. Given the scale of the issue, the government has not placed due attention and priority on the rescue and rehabilitation of CSE victims in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In addition, there is a lack of systems and capacity to conduct MEL and research, weak and uncoordinated monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) of existing programs and no investment in empirical research to understand gaps and issues. Rehabilitation of trafficking survivors remains the most persistent challenge within the current legislative framework. Rescued victims require specialised support services to recover from and overcome the years of trauma-induced mental health issues, physical atrocities and social stigma attached to being former sex slaves. In the absence of statutory rehabilitation that ensures complete and sustainable reintegration into society, CSE victims, even if removed temporarily from their immediate environment marked by social, economic, sexual, psychological and physical extremities, are highly likely to end up in the same vicious cycle of sex trafficking, either through the nexus of same perpetrators or new agents who are on the lookout for feeding on their aggravated vulnerabilities for the second time around. On-ground organisations lament that CSE victims who only receive piece-meal assistance and support post-rescue remain uncertain about their future prospects in absence of hope for alternate opportunities to sustain themselves and end up going back to sex slavery. The circumstances surrounding this lack of choice with CSE victims are marked by haplessness and isolation due to lack of specialised support services for destigmatizing their identities and acute availability of comprehensive rehabilitation measures. Given the scale of CSE in both Telugu states, the following issues have emerged:<ul><li>There is no comprehensive protection and rehabilitation policy in place for CSE victims, either in the states or at the national level. Nor there are adequate budgetary allocations in the two states. In fact, Andhra Pradesh does not even have a budget line for CSE rehabilitation facilities and services.  </li><li>Rescue operations for removing victims of CSE from situations of abuse are ill-conceived and ill-executed due to a lack of comprehensive understanding of the crime and tactical expertise and a lack of industry standards for conducting such raids and rescues.</li><li>Institutional infrastructure (shelter homes/protective and rehabilitative homes/child care institutions) for rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of CSE is insufficient and severely ill-equipped to address their complex needs for recovery and effective, holistic rehabilitation, whose numbers are advancing with each passing year. As per an article published in the Indian Journal of Gender Studies, there is a lack of comprehensive protection services such as psychological counselling from trained counsellors through the Ujjawala and Swadhar schemes. This issue was further exacerbated in 2014 after the bifurcation of the Telugu region between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana 2014, where most rehabilitation homes fell under Telangana’s territory and Andhra Pradesh was left with close to none. At present, both states have 5 shelter homes each, for women.</li><li>There is a severe gap in meaningful and relevant data to even gain an understanding of the gaps and barriers in the rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of CSE victims. A study suggests that though there is abundant literature on trafficking worldwide as well as in South Asia, we still do need region-specific and locally-contextualised data that will yield theoretical and empirical insights, and lead to relevant policy interventions.</li></ul> 
 Sex trafficking is a multi-dimensional problem especially with regard to its impact on the lives of the victims. The tormenting experiences of being betrayed, sold and exploited by the people around (largely includes pimps, brothel owners and customers) takes a long-term toll on the victims. This traumatic situation combined with sexually transmitted diseases, chronic depression, suicidal tendencies, alcohol and drug addiction complicates the cycle of rehabilitation. Hence, the process of rehabilitation has to be an interlinked chain of psychological healing, vocational empowerment, economically viable and socially acceptable. In order to address the physical, emotional and psychological brokenness of the sex-trafficked victims, Prajwala formulated a holistic, therapeutic approach to support the rehabilitation process. The overall aim is to help the victims to overcome their trauma by providing them with psychological and coping skills and tools required to regain stability to lead a normal life. Therefore, the rehabilitation in Prajwala is a blend of psychological healing, civic empowerment and social identity. The three-pronged stages of rehabilitation spearheaded by Prajwala include:<ul><li>Psychological Rehabilitation: Trauma Care, Counselling, Psychiatric Care</li><li>Economic Rehabilitation: Life-Skills, Employability Training, Education/Livelihood program</li><li>Civic Rehabilitation: Aadhar Card, Bank Account, Interim Relief, Compensation</li></ul>A therapeutic community as a safe shelter has been established that provides holistic rehabilitation and has been instrumental in the social reintegration support of thousands of victims 
 600 victims of sex trafficking will be supported every year

Therapeutic Community For Victims of Sex Trafficking

Help provide shelter, food, clothes and medical support to abandoned widow mothers of Vrindavan. Donate now

Help Save Young Girls From Trafficking

Help Manju rescue young sex trafficking victims. Donate now

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