Research Critique 2: Interview with Stanley and Parashuram

Prior to departing for this trip, I was aware that we would be exploring public health by visiting and conducting research in rural areas. Rural areas are the areas located outside of urbanized cities of low population density, lacking economic development, and restricted infrastructure such as proper roads, electric lighting, public transportation, or a sewage system,, etc. Most children in India are living in rural areas, which often have limited access to fundamental needs such as nutritious food, access to healthcare, education, and protection. With this information in mind, I planned to explore how limited access to resources and healthcare affected a child’s behavior and development.

One of the crises that I learned is currently heavily impacting both young girls and women in India is Human Sex Trafficking. Sex trafficking can be defined as a trafficker using force, fraud, or coercion to make an individual engage in a range of commercial sex acts. The sexual exploitation of children in India is a public health issue, one that takes a toll on its victim’s mental and physical well-being. As I have been seeking to understand the various circumstances that place youth’s health at a detriment, I thought it would be beneficial to learn the antecedents to women and children being sex trafficked.

In a study conducted by Vidushy, he was able to distinguish various factors that contribute to humans being trafficked into two categories: push and pull. Factors that fall into the push category are elements that make individuals more susceptible to trafficking and provide incentives for sexual exploitation. Factors include but are not limited to poor socio-economic conditions of large families, poverty, reoccurrence of natural disasters, lack of education, low status of girl children, pressure to collect money for dowries, etc. (Vidushy, 2016). The factors that pull victims into trafficking include promises of better pay, easy money, and the high demand for young girls especially for marriages, adoptions, sweatshop labor, and military purposes.

I had the privilege of visiting and touring Odanadi Seva Samsthe, a home for sex-trafficked women and girls. During this tour, I encountered some of the girls living in the safe haven and had the chance to speak with founders Stanley and Parashuram. Our conversation circulated the mental health status of the girls and the rehabilitative care that they use to help fully integrate the inhabitants back into society.

When Stanley was asked to describe the mental health status of the girls when they first are rescued, he used the word “shattered” to describe their minds. This word choice is an accurate summarization to declare considering the victims are suffering from anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, eating disorders, and a multitude of mind battles upon arrival. He described the healing process as “ongoing”. The time it takes to regain mental fortitude varies from case to case and some victims need more extensive care than others. Upon arrival, each candidate undergoes an assessment conducted by a licensed professional, indicative of the treatment that the individual will receive. The steps to reintegration are as follows: first victims are rescued and during that time until rehabilitation their mental state is scaled and addressed through treatment. Meanwhile, if the candidate is eligible, they will attend school and can receive in-house cosmetology vocational training. The candidate’s mental scaling will continue to be analyzed until it correlates to one that is ready to be integrated back into “mainstream” society. The success of Odanadi Seva Sam can be observed by the number of girls post-rehabilitation who have gone on to receive their bachelor’s, and master’s degrees, and completion of vocational school. These girls are no longer labeled victims but “lawyers”, “doctors”, etc. who are now able to financially sustain themselves, get married, have families, and be happy.

With all this good resulting from Odanadi Seva Samsthe one would imagine the organization receives high praise and support from society, the government, and law enforcement. However, this image could not be further from Stanley and Parashuram’s reality. They are met with conflict and resistance every day. The police dislike the organization because their efforts cause more work for the police to conduct as traffickers, brothels, and victims are identified by Odanadi. The government views human trafficking as an endeavor that produces economic revenue for the country, which benefits their resolution and prevents them from assisting this organization and others like it from effectively rescuing and rehabilitating victims. These men have been taken to the court of law, arrested by the police for their organization’s cause, and emotionally and physically attacked, however, none of these are the biggest challenge they face. The biggest challenges faced are (1) addressing the mental issues of the survivor and (2) the guilt surrounding answering the question “Where were you?” that is raised during the rescue. To elaborate on the latter challenge, it is in reference to when the victims question why they were not initially protected and prevented from ever entering that lifestyle.

With this sentiment in mind, rescuing people from sexual exploitation is a valiant cause but it is only curative and reliant on the violence initially occurring before the rescue can take place. To make a difference on a larger scale violence must be prevented from happening altogether. The best preventative measure is for India as a society shifting its cultural beliefs that women are less valuable than men as this promotes gender inequality, sexism, and gender-based crimes. This perception of women acts as a catalyst for the majority of the push and pull factors that ultimately lead to human trafficking. Even so, this progressiveness will take time, some shorter-term solutions are enforcing laws and regulations that protect health and ensure safety, informing, educating, and empowering people about social and health issues, and making accessing equitable education more readily available in rural areas. Community health workers can promote messages to reduce the risk of recruitment into trafficking, increase understanding of the health impact of exploitation, and promote help-seeking behavior.

As someone who works with children, it is baffling to imagine one of my students engaging in sexual activity with strangers as a means of survival or even raising a baby procured during exploitation. It is vital to have a consistent and loving support system to help a child reach the self-esteem and efficacy milestones necessary to create functional and healthy adults. It’s heartbreaking to know that children are enduring this violence alone without a support system but are instead living in a neglectful world surrounded by predators.

Meeting the people at Odanadi really brought an issue I only thought of in passing to the forefront of my mind. It’s one thing to hear the statistics and stories of sex trafficking and another thing to stand in India in the middle of a home for sex-trafficked girls. Prior to this experience, it was an intangible problem to me. The victims were invisible and silent, but when I met the girls at Odanadi, I saw a visage of oppression and years of pain wrapped in their young bodies. I also saw childlike curiosity laced with hope in their eyes as they looked at me in wonderment. As much as their minds were “shattered” they were not defeated.

I have now been educated and made painfully aware of this issue. As I return home I will continue to research and educate myself on how I can assist in preventing this public health issue. To conclude I would like to iterate the words used by Stanley to describe how he pushes forward: “Every day is a challenge here. Every day. But you live for today and if it is successful we hope for tomorrow.”

To learn more about Odanadi Seva Samsthe check out their website:

https://www.odanadi.org/?page_id=8

References:

Oram, S., Stöckl, H., Busza, J., Howard, L. M., & Zimmerman, C. (2012). Prevalence and risk of violence and the physical, mental, and sexual health problems associated with human trafficking: Systematic review2. PLOS Medicine. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001224#s3

Public health approach. Applying a Public Health Approach to Human Trafficking | National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center. (n.d.). https://nhttac.acf.hhs.gov/soar/eguide/guiding-principles/applying-public-health-approach-to-human-trafficking#:~:text=Essential%20Services%20of%20Public%20Health,approach%20to%20prevention%20and%20response.

Vimal, V. (2016) Human trafficking In India: An analysis. International Journal of Applied Research, 2(6), 168-171. https://www.allresearchjournal.com/archives/?year=2016&vol=2&issue=6&part=C&ArticleId=2089