A grassroots movement to end sex trafficking
On July 2nd 2015, 15 girls participated in a comic book workshop in Apne Aap’s head office, conducted by Ram Devineni, Producer, Director and Co-writer of the Priya’s Shakti comic book.
The girls were taught basics of drawing a body and a face and how to use speech and thought bubbles. They were also taught how to draw a comic book poster. The girls drew their schools, their family etc. They were enthusiastic and did a great job!
Urgent help needed in Nepal after devastating earthquake
Apne Aap’s main center in Forbesganj is only 14km away from Biratnagar in Nepal. A devastating earthquake has hit Nepal and Apne Aap needs to start a soup kitchen and get clothes and water there. Women and girls are sitting in the open with their families and they urgently need our help.
Photograph: News Agency/REX Shutterstock via The Guardian
Dear Friend,
A 7.8 magnitude earthquake has hit Nepal, killing over a thousand people. According to the United Nations over a million people may end up without shelter. Aftershocks are still occurring. During disasters women and girls are disproportionately affected. We work 14 km away from Nepal in Forbesganj, Bihar and have partners rooted in communities in Bihar and Nepal. We need money for food, soup kitchens, medical supplies, clothes and to run safe spaces for women and girls.
Please make a gift. Your support is urgently needed so that Apne Aap and its friends and partners can support women and girls in Nepal during this devastating crisis.
Thank you,
Ruchira Gupta
Founder, Apne Aap Women Worldwide
To read the article in The Guardian: Click Here
To read the article in The New York Times: Click Here
You can donate online by clicking here
Checks can me mailed to:
Apne Aap International
Peck Slip Station
PO Box 916 New York, NY 10272
Click the image above or here to hear our founder Ruchira Gupta deliver a keynote address at the Apollo on CSW59 Consultation Day which took place at the historic Apollo Theatre on Sunday March 8th, 2015.
Please share the recording and the documents on this page with your peers and help us advocate for change.
Transcript of keynote address: Ruchira Gupta, Apollo CSW/NY Consultation Day 2015
Our Letter to UN Women: Apne Aap’s letter to UN Women
2012 UN Reports: UN reports 2012
UN Women’s note 2013: UN Women’s note on sex work sexual exploitation and trafficking
All of us at Apne Aap Women Worldwide are pleased to share some exciting news with you! This year’s NGO CSW/NY Woman of Distinction awardee is our founder Ruchira Gupta. We are so pleased to announce this honor and share our joy with you! Please find the official press release below…
Press Release:
NGO CSW/NY Announces 2015 NGO CSW Woman of the Year Distinction Awardee
January 28, 2015 – New York, NY – The NGO Committee on the Status of Women, NY (NGO CSW/NY), one of three women’s committees of CoNGO that advocates for women’s rights and gender equality, is pleased to announce the 2015 NGO CSW Forum Woman of Distinction awardee, Ruchira Gupta from India, founder of Apne Aap Women Worldwide.
After winning an Emmy for her documentary on sex trafficking, The Selling of Innocents, Gupta started Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-sex trafficking organization in India that empowers more than 20,000 low-caste girls and women and their family members affected by prostitution. She received the Clinton Global Citizen award for giving a voice to the voiceless and for tenaciously standing by the last girl in brothels in Bihar and India.
For over 25 years, Gupta has worked to end sex trafficking by emphasizing the link between trafficking and prostitution laws and lobbying policy makers to shift blame from victims to perpetrators. In 2000, she testified in the United States Senate before the passage of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act and addressed the UN General Assembly on human trafficking.
Gupta will be the keynote speaker at the NGO CSW/NY Consultation Day (8 March 2015 at the Apollo Theatre) along with Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women. The formal presentation of the NGO CSW/NY Woman of Distinction award will take place at the annual NGO Reception (9 March 2015 at the Armenian Convention Center Ballroom, 6 pm–8 pm). This year’s theme of the UN Commission on the Status of Women is the 20th review of the Beijing Platform for Action.
About the Women of Distinction Award:
This annual award is given to a woman in recognition of her leadership in the struggle for gender equality and women’s empowerment. The honoree is a leading activist from a developing country who can address the theme of the CSW, will benefit from participation in Consultation Day, and make a difference when she returns home.
About the NGO Committee on the Status of Women, NY:
The NGO Committee on the Status of Women, NY (NGO CSW/NY) is one of the three women’s committees of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the UN (CoNGO). Under CoNGO’s umbrella, the NGO CSW committees helped plan the NGO Forums at the UN World Conferences in Mexico, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing. NGO CSW/NY is a volunteer-based, non-profit NGO funded largely by individual contributions.
Photo Credit: David Goldman (davidgoldmanphoto.com)
“I have always longed for equality and justice. I have joined any campaign or movement for social and political justice. I slowly began to see that sex was a kind of class or caste; that of any group, females were the largest group that were universally unequal. So I began to campaign for women’s empowerment to create a world which respected the full social, political and economic equality of women,” said Ruchira Gupta, Founder of Apne Aap Women Worldwide.
In this month’s article for Women LEAD, Nepal, Megan Foo, President of Women LEAD’s Hong Kong Chapter, takes a closer look at Ruchira’s history in advocating to put an end to to sex trafficking and Ruchira speaks about why she campaigns for women’s empowerment.
To read the full article in Women LEAD, Nepal: click here
Prostituted Girls, Women and activists marched in the Sonagachchi red-light area to demand police investigate the murder of 20 year old Saathi Das, who was trafficked there 9 months ago. Prostituted girls and women from Kolkata’s red light areas and activists under the banner of Apne Aap Women Worldwide took on a, first of its kind, candle light march in the Sonagachi red light area, to demand police take action against the murderer of Sathi Das.
Sathi was a member of the Apne Aap network. She had started attending Apne Aap’s adult literacy classes and had auditioned for a part in a TV serial and was trying to get out of prostitution. She had planned to start conference bag making classes with Apne Aap just two days before she was strangled. Shockingly, she was found dead in the morning and somebody had run away with her two children. Her cell phone is also missing. The brothel owner and one of her regular clients are also missing. The police have failed to investigate the case. The march was followed by a meeting of survivors, activists and Apne Aap team members to plan followup actions against the growing violence against prostituted girls and women in the Sonagachchi red light area.
“RUCHIRA GUPTA: I am once again reminded why slavery still exists, because the laws are on paper and they are never implemented. And this is like – is back to ground zero, where I realize that the police, come what may, do not want to implement the laws on behalf of women and girls.”
Above Ruchira Gupta speaks on the troubles involved with fighting sex trafficking in the PBS NewsHour special which aired this week. Special PBS correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro traveled to India to take a closer look at the issue.
Please take a look at Apne Aap working in the field to put an end to sex trafficking as they conduct a rescue in India in a two-part special. Links provided below:
To watch Part one: click here
To watch Part two: click here
In memory of Nirbhaya, Apne Aap Women Worldwide activists and students launched a march asking for an end to violence against women and girls. We started the global march in the redlight area of Forbesganj, Bihar because we believe that the last girl who is poor, female, low caste is the worst victim of sexual violence. She is invisible and neglected. Our march hopes to make the last girl visible and to be included in all laws and policies and government interventions for her uplift. We want the ‘uday’ of the ‘ant kanya’. The march was flagged off in Delhi and Kolkata too. Everywhere the march will leave a mural in the memory of Nirbhaya.
In the memory of Nirbhaya we are launching a march asking for an end to violence against women and girls. We have started this global march in the red light area of Frobesganj, Bihar because we believe that the last girl who is poor, female, low caste is the worst vicitm of sexual violence. She is invisible and neglected. Our march hopes to make the last girl visible and to be included in all laws and policies and government interventions for her uplift. We want the ‘uday’ of the ‘ant kanya’.
The symbol of the march is Priya, a comic character who is a rape survivor, who flies around the world on a tiger standing upto sexual violence. Every march will start with a mural painted on a street wall and end at a bus stand, in memory of Nirbhaya or Jyoti Singh Pandey who was brutally raped in a bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 and then murdered. The mural will also be the image of Priya sitting on a tiger against sexual violence.
This march will go all the way to UN in New York City with a call to action on March 2015 during the International Women’s Day asking the UN to include the last girl as they debate the Beijing Plus Twenty plan of action.
We invite everyone to join our march by doing similar events anywhere till March, 2015. You can join our March by uploading photos of your march and selfies with Priya on our facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Apne-Aap-Woman-Worldwide/
Anybody can download the comic online from this free downloadable link, https://www.facebook.com/priyas.shakti and the image for the mural and march from Apne aap’s website, https://www.apneaap.org/
The epic comic book, PRIYA’S SHAKTI, creates a new Indian hero who tackles the problem of sexual violence in India and around the world, premiered at the Mumbai Film and Comics Convention from December 19-21, 2014.
Inspired by ancient mythological tales, the comic book tells the story of Priya—a mortal woman and gang-rape survivor—and the Goddess Parvati as they fight against gender-based sexual violence in India and around the world supporting the movement against patriarchy, misogyny and indifference.
Creators Ram Devineni and Dan Goldman are presenting the innovative comic book that uses the popular augmented reality APP – Blippar – to make animation, videos, real-life stories, and other interactive elements pop-out of the pages. Additionally, several large colorful murals from the comic book are being painted on the walls throughout Mumbai. Audiences will be able to see special animation and movies pop out of the wall when they scan the murals on their smart phones. Priya’s Shakti is a recipient of a 2014 Tribeca Film Institute New Media Fund grant supported by Ford Foundation.
Apne Aap Women Worldwide is the project’s engagement partner. Priya’s Shakti highlights the threat of sexual harassment and violence that women face on a daily basis unless deeply rooted patriarchal norms are challenged. Additionally, this project will help define the new frontier of integrating literary publications and exhibitions with augmented reality technology such as Blippar.
The comic book is free worldwide in every digital format and downloadable on the project’s website and at ComiXology and BitTorrent. Rattapallax, a literary publishing house and film production company based in New York City and New Delhi, is producing the entire project.
For more information, visit www.priyashakti.com
Please take a moment to listen to our voice messages on soundcloud below
Priya and the Wolves written by Ruchira Gupta and illustrated by Melanconnie. The comic is a re-imagination of the classic fairy tale, “Little Red Riding Hood,” but set in India during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic when millions of migrants walked back to their villages.
Click here to download full comic.
One in every 250 girls and women have been trafficked for sex in our world today. They are The Last Girls - the most vulnerable of human beings. We will change that. Here's how.