Gone to Work in Mumbai
“I found a system to procure girls, truck them to the Indo-Nepal border, then shift them into trains–to brothels in Mumbai’s Kamatipura district. I saw procurers on the prowl, parents selling daughters, money changing hands.”
Ruchira, a journalist, knew she had a story. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation sent a team. “Certain politicians were involved and the mafia did not want us to continue,” Ruchira remembers. “Our helicopter was denied permission to land; our car was stoned.”
The shooting finally finished, Ruchira was not. She used “The Selling of Innocents” to raise awareness. It was screened at the Stockholm World Congress on Sexual Exploitation of Children, UNICEF regional workshops, a UNAIDS conference in Manila, and UN Headquarters in New York. It was dubbed into 6 languages and shown in South- and South-East Asian villages. And in 1997, it won Ruchira Gupta the Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism.
But she never lost touch with the women in Mumbai’s brothels. When they asked her to help them change their situation and protect their daughters from prostitution, she founded Apne Aap. Because women who are helping themselves also deserve to be helped.
And this is where Donor Direct Action comes in.