Project Chaitanya – Helping victims of domestic abuse and human trafficking

One of the aims of Project Chaitanya was to spread awareness on domestic abuse and human trafficking. The fundraiser, I ran for 3 weeks had two objectives:
1. Spread the awareness in the hope that my voice reaches the victims and they speak up.
2. Collect funds to help the victims. I was able to raise ₹ 25,701 which was donated to Khasmta, an NGO which works on rehabilitating victims of domestic abuse.

Domestic Abuse – About a third of married women in India face domestic abuse, the numbers are much higher in rural areas. This is a major public health problem and a violation of women’s human rights. The statistics in other countries don’t tell a much better story.
Domestic violence can cause serious short- and long-term physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health problems for women. They also affect their children’s health and wellbeing. This violence leads to high social and economic costs for women, their families and societies.
WHO’s RESPECT Women framework can be used to understand and device interventions to cub domestic violence.
R – Relationship skills strengthening
E – Empowerment of women
S- Services ensured
P – Poverty reduced
E – Enabling environments (schools, work places, public spaces) created
C – Child and adolescent abuse prevented
T – Transformed attitudes, beliefs and norms

Human Trafficking – Another social issue that is closely related to domestic abuse is human trafficking. The most common form of human trafficking (79%) is sexual exploitation. The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls.
Although trafficking seems to imply people moving across continents, most exploitation takes place close to home. Data show intra-regional and domestic trafficking are the major forms of trafficking in persons.
There is significant correlation between domestic violence and human trafficking. Similar to domestic violence, both labor and sex trafficking use force, fraud or coercion to manipulate victims. And many of the factors present in an abusive relationship – such as the perpetrator using isolation, intimidation and their own privilege to harm the victim – also exist in trafficking. Human trafficking is one of the largest criminal industries in the world, and victims of sexual abuse are at higher risk for being trafficked.