"My son used to kick me when he was in my womb. Why make an issue when he kicked me in my old age?" reasons a very forgiving Shakti Dasi. The widow travelled 2300 kms from Tripura to Vrindavan after her only son violently beat her with a burning plank of wood and broke her knee one evening. She had to leave behind the business she had built with her husband who had died a few years back. Shakti ended up on the streets of Brindavan begging for food and shelter. But when Winnie Singh of Maitri saw Shakti in a frail state in tattered clothes, she brought her to the shelter home where Shakti gets food, care and medicines. What more, with Maitri’s intervention, Shakti reconciled with her son - and daughter-in-law, and now travels home to Tripura twice a year to spend time with her grandchildren. But she is not leaving Maitri, as this has become her family.Not every elderly widow who comes to Vrindavan after being abandoned by her family gets as lucky as Shakti. Many of them often end up living a lonely life and begging to survive on the streets. Maitri aspires to take care of every widow in need of help.<img src="https://cfstatic.give.do/ce101369-528c-4d37-bc1d-1118b9925af3.jpg" />Maitri’s Project Jeevan to the rescueAbandoned, elderly widows are the amongst the most vulnerable in India. After being thrown out of their often abandoned by their own children and are forced to beg for food and shelter. “Through Project Jeevan, Maitri houses aging widow mothers in two ashrams in Vrindavan and Radhakund (Mathura), providing them with wellness and well-being. The programme also reaches out to widow mothers beyond the ashrams with fruit, milk and healthcare services,” explains Winnie Singh, co-founder and executive director, Maitri India.Save homeless elderly widows from begging on the streetsMost widows who make their way to Vrindavan are abandoned by their families, often after years of abuse. They come here hoping they will spend the rest of their days in prayer and devotion. But most live in impoverished conditions on the streets and in dingy rooms. Since poor living conditions often cause a wide range of health ailments, including respiratory infections and chronic conditions, Maitri comes to their rescue through its Project Jeevan.The project aims to:<ul><li>Provide 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 on and engagement around the struggles of abandoned widow mothers</li></ul><img src="https://cfstatic.give.do/1abfb906-563b-4747-85b8-8af2071a2856.jpg" />Project Jeevan needs your support to help those in need of food, healthcare and well-being. Donate now.“Maitri urgently needs your support to provide food, clothing and healthcare to sustain these widow mothers who are prone to more illnesses as they age,” appeals Winnie.Maitri believes in a woman’s right to dignity in life and death, more so a mother. 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.

Save abandoned, elderly widow mothers of Vrindavan from begging on streets

“They insert a candle in the vagina, fingers are inserted (in the vagina) and tortured, and if children don’t relent even then, they put chilli powder so that children will say “yes” because of the burning of the skin… There are teeth marks on their bodies, and their vaginal parts are burnt. When children stay in these conditions, it is painful even to hear,” says Lalitha SA of Society for Participatory Integrated Development (SPID), in course of talking about many heart-rending stories of trafficked children in red-light areas.In over three decades, the SPID led by Lalitha, has saved over 3000 children from the red-light areas, many from clutches of sex trafficking.Sadly, many more children need to be rescued and in need of a loving home. But Lalitha needs our support to carry on the mission, to move out of her small facility so that she can rescue more children, house them in a permanent location and give them all the love they deserve. Your support can help her give these children the care and upbringing they need. Donate now.Donate easily through UPI, all debit/credit cards and net banking. Charitable donations to this fundraising campaign are tax exempted under 80G of the Income Tax Act (India).A movement to protect vulnerable childrenAs a social worker, Lalitha has worked for decades in GB Road, the red-light area of Delhi and helped many women escape the clutches of being forced into sex. But it was the exploitation of children, many of them hardly ten or twelve or even less. The SPID has focused on rescuing such children and giving them a new life.Lalitha plays a vital role in the survival and safety of vulnerable children in the red light areas. As SPID is almost entirely dependent on donations from the public, we can support and strengthen SPID’s mission to save children. Donate generously.Donation to SPID’s fundraiser on Give.do“I have limited funds and very limited space, and if I had the funds, I would be able to rescue many more children and provide them with more comfort. With folded hands, I plead with you that you help us with funds in large numbers and support us in providing us children with a decent life. Become a part of the mission,” pleads LalithaDonate to this fundraiser by Give, India’s largest and most trusted online donation platform, to help Lalitha give hundreds of children rescued from brothels a life away from violence and abuse.NGO's 80G number: AADAS3217RF20212NGO's 12A number: AADAS3217RE20214

This Navratri, help Lalitha give kids rescued from abuse in red-light areas a safe and loving home. Donate now.

“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

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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

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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

Save abandoned, elderly widow mothers of Vrindavan from begging on streets

This Navratri, help Lalitha give kids rescued from abuse in red-light areas a safe and loving home. Donate now.

Help Manju rescue young sex trafficking victims. Donate now

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