Our Vision
To build a just and humane world where all beings co-exist in harmony.
Our Mission
To end sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children
Our Objectives
- To eliminate second generation prostitution
- To prevent child prostitution and trafficking of women and children for forced labour, prostitution, and other forms of sexual exploitation
- To end sex tourism and discrimination in the name of HIV/AIDS
- To empower women in prostitution to end their dependence on the criminal nexus that enslaves them
- To advocate for improvements in government policy and law enforcement pertaining to trafficking and prostitution
- To ensure that justice is achieved for the victims of human trafficking through involvement in the legal process.
- To support and rehabilitate survivors of trafficking, prostitution, and other forms of sexual exploitation
- To eliminate negative cultural attitudes and practices towards women in sex trade
- To prevent human trafficking in vulnerable rural areas through livelihood support programs
HISTORY
Ajeet Singh pioneered with the adoption of 3 children of a woman in commercial sex in 1988 and he finally got Guria India registered in 1993. Guria India works towards eradicating sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children. This milestone of adoption of children by Mr. Singh is astonishing as he was only 17 years of age. Guria has fulfilled the absence of an organisation in India that works towards sex trafficking and sexual exploitation of women and children since its inception. What sets Guria India apart from other organizations is that not only do we strive to rescue victims, we also strive to fight the organized criminal nexus completely. Over the years of its working, Guria India has managed to develop an innovative holistic end-to-end approach to fight sex trafficking successfully. While responding to their immediate suffering we are focusing on the root causes of sex trafficking – poverty and inequality. We strongly believe that it is not charity that is wanting in the world but justice to make a humane world where all beings co-exist in harmony.
Goal
Guria pursues an innovative holistic end-to-end grassroots approach to achieve the following goals:
- To prevent sex trafficking
- To end child prostitution
- To prevent second generation prostitution
Strategy
For Guria India, prevention of sex trafficking, second-generation prostitution andending child prostitution have never been isolated issues with simple isolated solutions within our larger vision of building “a just and humane world where all beings co-exist in harmony”. Rather we understand that an issue as complex and multi-dimensional as trafficking and sexual exploitation requires a holistic end-to-end approach with innovations as our hallmark.
Broadly, Guria’s approach is focused on eradicating the slavery of women and their children in brothels, which will be achieved by ending their dependency on the criminal nexus involving drugs, sexual exploitation, mafias, police, politicians, and, above all, the impunity enjoyed by all those criminally involved.
The break-up of the criminal nexus will depend on using the continued tools of education, health, availing government programs, vocational training, emotional
support, dignity and protection of already victimized women and children from corrupt police and criminals, in order to ensure liberty to avail alternate opportunities. Guria’s strategies for ending child prostitution, preventing second generation prostitution and sex trafficking moves parallel and often cross cuts and supplements each other in a converged and synchronized manner. In the context of easy sex, easy money, easy drugs, easy wine etc. in the red light areas, Guria India’s approach to prevent second generation prostitution involving education through art therapy (clay work, bead-making, painting, music, dance, theatre), exposure visits, laughing/shouting classes, meditation, gardening, watering the birds etc. echoes its guiding principle of connecting with the entire creation and life-centric development. Also key to Guria’s strategy is support to the aged and erstwhile victims of sex trafficking/forced prostitution as well as adolescents so that they themselves do not become collaborators or victims, respectively of such a complex situation.
Guria recognizes that overall the critical mass for a change and deterrence from attacks on activists will depend upon the mobilization of civil society and people’s participation at all levels within the source, transit and destination levels of sex trafficking – whereby the likes of worldwide Freedom Now campaign (theatre, art exhibit etc), 100000 membered women vigilance groups, longest foot march (800 kilometres) against sex trafficking, cultural group of women in commercial sex, livelihoods, entitlements and much more have been collectively very impactful. To supplement this, Guria has taken up rescue, counseling, legal intervention, and rehabilitation/reintegration to take things to a logical conclusion and avoid re-trafficking. Considering the situation of the rule of law and delay in justice delivery (reflected in the 90% acquittal rate in trafficking cases – NCRB 2020), we had to innovate once more by providing victim-witness protection, living with Bedia community (intergenerational prostitution) and innovatively using brothel seizures, Guria as witness, spy camera evidence, opposing fake victim custody /bails of traffickers and challenging fake protection orders/acquittals. Guria also creatively converted grass-roots level interventions into Public Interest Litigations (PIL) and released 100 cases report on police misconduct, to bring about a change at the policy level. Lastly, in the ever-changing context of this organized crime, we experiment as we build up the movement against sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation.
