Excerpt
SUMMARY: In India, outrage over a fatal gang rape of a college student two years ago has helped bring about some protections for women who are the victims of sex trafficking, but getting police to enforce the law is still a challenge. In the first report in a two-part series, special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro follows a human rights group that’s working to crack down on human trafficking and find victims.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO (NewsHour): There was an unusual demonstration recently in this small town near India’s border of India, Nepal, unusual because these women, most with backgrounds in prostitution, are rarely seen in public. They protested social evils, from gender bias to the caste system, India’s age-old social ladder in which they’re at the very bottom.
RUCHIRA GUPTA, Apne Aap Women Worldwide: In Bombay, in Delhi, in Calcutta, whichever red light area you go to, the girls and women are all low caste. Prostitution is passed on from mother to daughter and pimping from father to son.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Ruchira Gupta is a former journalist who started a group called Apne Aap, or On Our Own, which organized the rally. The group has rescued many of these women, found them new work in crafts and micro-enterprises, and put their daughters in school.
Apne Aap was also part of a protest movement that followed the fatal gang rape of a Delhi college student two years ago, a campaign that got lawmakers to act against what many called a culture of rape and misogyny.
WOMAN: I am not going to allow this incident to become another statistic.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The law was changed to penalize traffickers, instead of the women they traffic, recognizing the women as victims.
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