SALIMA SARWAR'S AWARD ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
GOLAM AND ROUSHAN - TRAFFICKED CHILDREN
SAIRA SHAH'S SPEECH

Salima Sarwar's Award acceptance speech

"Ladies and gentlemen, at the outset allow me to convey to you regards and love from our children and women. They were rescued from traffickers, police custody, and from the streets. When I told them about the Anti-Slavery Award, they were thrilled to know that our support for them has been rewarded. They asked me to thank you all and give you their love and regards.

I am profoundly grateful to Antislavery International for conferring this Award on ACD. This is a great honour for my organization, for the activities it has been conducting over the last decade. I, on behalf of our children and destitute women and on behalf of all those around the world working against child and women trafficking, accept this Award.

I was never so emotional before as I am right at this moment. I am a woman and I am a mother. I can feel the wave of sorrows that lashes the mind of a mother when her child is snatched away. I can sense the situation under which a mother is compelled to let her child go to face an unknown destiny. I know why a girl submits herself to a man coming across the border. This happens and repeatedly happens because of poverty. Poverty is the father of all causes dehumanising our culture.

Receiving the Award has renewed our energy and has given us a wider vision. We realize now that not a single slice of good work for humanity goes unnoticed. This feeling does not deceive, rather it nurtures confidence.

Also, I feel that an award like this carries some additional weight of new responsibilities, which I will work to fulfill until I die. ACD has an army of committed, young workers. They are capable and have the aptitude to implement any activities they understand will benefit the people they serve. My strength is in them.

Almost 30 years ago, I started my career as a development activist. The challenges I had to encounter in the early days taught me a lot. I worked for several organisations in different capacities. I noticed how the NGOs were mushrooming during that time in Bangladesh. There were new horizons, visions and new hopes. But within a decade I realized that the reach of the NGOs was limited to conveniently accessible areas like the bigger towns and cities. A vast number of people living in comparatively remote areas was being neglected. I wanted to work for them.

I also found that women had little access to the resources which came from overseas funding agencies. This was due to their absence in decision-making bodies. I wanted to change things. So, in 1989, I founded the Association for Community Development - ACD.

Initially our programmes were similar to those of other NGOs working in Bangladesh. But the way we operated was different. We started working in the northern border area where Bangladesh and India meet. Here we soon discovered some alarming facts. We found that, apart from the smuggling of goods being an established practice, human trafficking had also taken root. It was operated like an industry in which people were sold like cattle and ducks, and adolescent girls were the most preferred item.

What then is trafficking?

It is defined as 'the transporting of a person from one place to another through deception, kidnapping, or through the threat or use of violence'. This transportation of people happens within a country or between countries. It is a business in which human beings are treated as a commodity to be used as slaves or sex objects. It is a reprehensible practice. The consequences rupture the victim's world.

Trafficking affects peoples' mental and physical health as well as their social situation and future life. It involves extreme psychological stress that may lead to trauma, depression and in some cases to suicide. Perpetrators often use psychological means in order to break down their victims -- a trafficked woman or child may be exposed to isolation, fear, abuse, rape and other forms of violence. Trafficking is a major violation of human rights.

In the case of sexual exploitation of children, the effects may last throughout their lives and seriously hamper the child's physical, psychological and social development. The most obvious physical consequence of trafficking is the high risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, especially HIV/AIDS.

Those trafficked into the sex industry are stigmatised by their families and communities making it hard for them to return home.

The problem is not just one of violence by the trafficker against the person trafficked. But also of how the State acts towards the victim of trafficking. In the vast majority of destination countries, trafficking is primarily seen in terms of illegal migration and prostitution. Since people who are trafficked rarely have travel documents or residence permits when they are caught, they - rather than the traffickers - are treated as the criminals. Victims are arrested and deported while the perpetrators go unpunished and continue to operate.

The abuse is not a new phenomenon. It is perhaps as old as our history. But during recent decades the pace of globalisation, the free movement of capital and people, as well as sex tourism, have made the problem more acute. Poorer countries, like Bangladesh, are used as supply zones for the richer countries.

Bangladesh is seen as an area rich in women and girls for supplying the sex industries in India and Pakistan. Several thousand are taken across the border each year for marriage and many end up in brothels in Calcutta, Mumbai and beyond. Hundreds are taken to Pakistan every month and NGOs report that, in the last two decades, 200,000 Bangladeshi girls have been trafficked to countries in the Middle East. As the market economy in the area is taking root the problem is becoming more widespread. Almost every day, newspapers report that young boys from Bangladesh are being trafficked to the Middle East to be used as camel jockeys. Our most precious resource - the country's people - is being squandered.

The women and children who are trafficked come from low-income families. They lack formal education with many not having finished primary school. Many are from ethnic minorities. They believe they have very little to loose by risking going abroad, dreaming of a better livelihood. The general public is not aware of the dangers which may lie ahead. The reality is they are trafficked into a range of exploitative work such as the sex industry, domestic labour, factory work, construction, agriculture, or into marriage. They are also used for begging and drug trafficking.

So, what lies behind this abuse?

In Bangladesh, poverty and social shifts are at the root of trafficking. Low income and limited scope of earning have psychologically uprooted a vast segment of people. This has made them vulnerable to trafficking.

The increase in divorce and desertion is exposing women to the traffickers. And the patriarchal attitude, which locks women in servitude, remains dominant in our culture, despite challenges to it. Traffickers are taking advantage of these conditions which make women powerless.

Generally trafficking operates through international networks, local rings or through occasional traffickers. Sometimes they overlap. In South Asia, including Bangladesh, local trafficking networks and occasional traffickers dominate the scene. Sometimes they are women who were themselves victims of trafficking. Many live in the same village as their victims and accompany them to their final destination. In some cases they come from distant regions or even from abroad.

To understand the reality of trafficking in the northern border areas, ACD conducted three studies. We found that the combination of the socio-economic conditions and the geographical location made the area particularly prone to trafficking. Because most of the people were poor and regularly migrated across the border looking for work; it was part of the region's culture.

Geographically, the area is comparatively accessible as the river Padma - also known as the Ganges - borders India and Bangladesh there. Traffickers and smugglers take advantage of this. A big city is near the border which further encourages traffickers to use this area as their principal route.

ACD launched its anti-trafficking programme in 1996. We faced opposition from various directions. The local crime syndicate threatened and harassed me and other ACD staff. They controlled the border police and security forces.

Instead of shrinking away, we continued to develop contact with the local people. We would not stop. Opposition also came from religious leaders. They asked me to withdraw ACD activities from the area. They said we were spreading anti-religious feeling among the women. When this failed, the crime syndicate again tried to use the border and police forces against us.

They tried to portray us as anti-social and anti-state elements. But, as a result of the Beijing conference on women in 1995, the Government gradually softened its position towards women activists. And, we began to get support from the law enforcing agencies.

So far, the measures taken by the Government to address this issue are not inappropriate. But they lack effectiveness because they do not approach the problem as a whole.

ACD recognises the complexity of the issue and the interrelationship of its causes.

To fight trafficking, ACD has run integrated programmes from the outset. We raise social awareness of the problem, teach adult literacy and run programmes on development.

Local leaders, members of the local government and law enforcing agencies are given training on human rights issues, gender equality, family laws, and other related issues.

ACD has also developed networks with national and international NGOs. We have developed Village Development Committees and Villages Protection Committees which inform people from the community about the dangers of trafficking.

So far, ACD has provided shelter for 80 rescued girls, boys and women. Fifty of these have been returned to their families while the others continue to live in our shelter home. They are gaining vocational training and many are attending formal schools. But, many of the girls and boys do not want to return to their parents or relatives. This poses a challenge for ACD as it raises the question of how can we continue to support them?

Despite the challenges which lie ahead, we can be proud that people in the areas in which ACD works are more aware. Thanks to our activities the instances of trafficking have dropped considerably. We will work until trafficking is stopped and the women and children of the border region are safe.

Lastly, I would like to express my views about the success, failure and progress of my work which is largely dependent upon the constant support my deceased husband. He was the university professor of literature, he always encouraged me to involve welfare services for disadvantaged people so I deeply remember the departed soul of my husband at the time of receiving this outstanding award.

I once again thank you for your solidarity and support.

Golam and Roushan - trafficked children

Golam and Roushan were trafficked from Bangladesh to India and are now living in ACD's shelter home. They attended the Award ceremony in London; here is what they said:

Golam - Now 13 years old, Golam was trafficked to India to work in a factory making beedis (local cigarettes) when he was 12 years old. His first attempt to escape was unsuccessful, but in the end he managed to get away and find his way to Bangladesh.

"My name is Golam, I am from Bangladesh and I used to play a lot a year ago. Because I was not serious in school, a neighbour suggested to my father that I be sent to work. The neighbour, who told my father he could get me a job, gave my father 2-3,000 takas (US$35-$52) and he took me to India and put me in a beedi making factory.

Once I was there, my job was to make 2-3,000 beedis in 24 hours. I didn't know how to make beedis so they used to beat me up and I was in a lot of pain because of that.

Once I realised they were trying to traffic me somewhere else I tried to run away, but they also realised I was trying to run away so I was tortured.

In the end I managed to escape. I took a bus, but I had no money on me. When they discovered this they let me go at the Indian border. I walked to Bangladesh and ACD heard about me, they contacted me and since then I have lived there.

Since I have been in ACD I have had vocational training and I also play cricket.

I have something to say: I want to study and I want to be somebody one day. I can run away from many things, but I am poor, how can I run away from that?
Thank you."

Roushan is 14 years old. When she was nine or ten years old, she was trafficked, first as a domestic and then to work in a bangle factory in India. A man helped her to escape and, at the border, she was told about ACD. She now lives in ACD's shelter home where she has vocational training.

"My name is Roushan, I have come from ACD Bangladesh and I want to tell you some stories.

We are four sisters and one brother. My father died and my mother remarried and my grandmother took care of me, but she was old and couldn't feed me properly. Once some young men came and said they could help.

They took me to a market place for two to three days and they abused me, tortured me. One day one of them said I would have to be moved that day and they forced me into a boat. We crossed the border into India by boat.

Once I was in the bangle factory, I didn't know how to make them very well, which caused me to be beaten up. They were very abusive to me. There were also older girls there who were threatened that if they didn't work well they would bring boys and men who would abuse them.

I met a Bangladeshi boy there who said he could help me escape. At night he helped me run away. At the Indian border, the police asked him what he was doing with a young girl; he ran away leaving me there.

The person at the border asked me how I came to be at the border? They also informed me about ACD and asked if I wanted to go there? They said there I could get some education and some work; that is how I came to ACD.

I have been at ACD since 1997. I have learned to sew and I am also learning batik and tie-dye.

In the future, when I grow up, I want to be a human being. But ACD is not going to be able to take care of us all our life. What will happen when I am not with ACD? I am at ACD so I am quite well, but what about the other girls in the village who are in this situation and are not very well, what will happen to them?

I want your blessings so I can grow up to be a proper human being and also so I can work for the other girls who are probably being tortured like me.

Why do the bad people come near us, why not the good? Thank you everybody from Anti-Slavery for letting me talk here."

The British journalist Saira Shah presented the Anti-Slavery Award to Salima Sarwar. Below is her speech:

"It is an honour and privilege to be introducing an award winner like Salima tonight. She's an individual whose work is both incredibly brave and an absolute inspiration. Through her organisation the Association for Community Development, she's helped in an area very close to my heart: the trafficking of women and children. And through her work and through her shining personal example she's also shed light on a really important aspect of an even broader problem which is the general problem of violence and abuse of women.

As you'll all know in this room today, she works with the poorest of the poor in one of the neediest countries of the world, which is Bangladesh. She deliberately targets rural areas where other NGOs just don't get to. Salima's task is one that few individuals would dare to take on. The statistics are utterly daunting: 27,000 Bangladeshi women and children forced into prostitution; 200,000 Bangladeshi women trafficked in a period between 1990 and 1997; and more than 15,000 women and children trafficked out of Bangladesh every year.

The traffickers, it seems, will stop at nothing. Sometimes they simply kidnap women; sometimes they buy young girls from parents who can't afford to keep them. They'll exploit the cultural acceptance of child marriages in Bangladesh so procurers will pose as prospective husbands and go to families who are desperately in need of money and impress them and will actually get hold of the girls who will then, from there, be sold on into prostitution.

Perhaps, most poignantly of all, sometimes young women themselves actually pay to be trafficked because they believe they are going to be sent off to bone fide jobs. And from there they too quickly find themselves in brothels in India or to become prostitutes or to domestics servants in the Middle East. From there, anything can happen to them. They could be tortured, imprisoned, sexually abused or raped.

So, Salima's work is difficult to say the least and all of this in a culture where, rather than being celebrated, her work is often treated with suspicion or even hostility. As if this weren't hard enough, she also has a quite extraordinary vision. She sees past the immediate victims to look at the underlying factors and tries to address those. Her approach is completely holistic. Yes, she helps the individual victims of trafficking through her shelters, but she also tackles a lot more than that.

In a culture, for instance, whose dowry system contributes to the abuse and exploitation of women she works with the representatives of that very system. She works with the imams from the mosque, the community leaders, because these alone are the people to bring about reform. She says, "I can't change the culture, I have to work with it," and she's been incredibly successful in doing that. And she isn't frightened to take on the biggest underlying factor of all, which is poverty, and her micro-credit schemes, for instance, are intended to improve the living standards of whole communities. Hopefully enabling them to escape from this evil relationship between poverty and abuse of individuals.

Now, I have seen for myself how poverty can create a whole society, which is dependent on trafficking and slavery. And, in Benin, in Africa, I found villages where local children from these little communities are lured into slavery for years because they were promised a bicycle. They were forced then to work in conditions of unbelievable brutality, the girls were often forced to work by day and then sexually abused by night. Their slave masters would take all of their wages and beat the children.

But at the end of two or three years these people would then let the children go. They give the children a bicycle and they'd let them go back home. And the reason they did this was that they knew the children were their best advertisement for recruiting new children. The children were also paid and lured into becoming traffickers themselves so they would go back to their villages and they show the other children their bicycle and say, it's great, why don't you go and work as well?

Only because of the desperate poverty of those communities, only because there wasn't any other work for children and young adults was this work able to continue. So poverty is really a fundamental cause of this sort of abuse, without poverty it would not be able to happen.

Salima's work isn't only effective she is also extremely brave. When I was talking to her earlier today, she talked very casually of threats, both direct and indirect, from the traffickers themselves who were angry at her rescuing young trafficked brides; plucking children out of their clutches. And talking to her, one has the impression that at no time has she contemplated for one moment amending any of her programmes to preserve her own safety.

And that brings me to the last, but by no means least of her achievements. She has, by her work, shone a spotlight on how women can be mistreated, abused and exploited. And I have fresh in my mind experience of another place where I witnessed - Afghanistan.

There I saw for instance, women who had been forced into prostitution on the streets because the Taliban refused to allow them to go to work to earn money to feed their families. At this in a society where the Taliban's own laws have made prostitution an offence along with adultery, where you can be executed publicly in the football stadium. And I should say, because it is so topical today, that in the light of today's news of the fall of Kabul, I do hope that things will get a little bit better for the beleaguered women of Afghanistan. But I would also beg the world not to turn their eyes against a place where many of the same people who have taken over the capital, a few years ago themselves were carrying out systematic human rights abuses, and particularly abuses against women. Please, please don't forget.

But, in countries like Afghanistan, and to a lesser degree in Bangladesh, where the way that local laws are implemented is grossly inadequate to protect women, its actually to individuals that we have to turn. Especially to people like Salima to whom no obstacle seems too high, no problem too complex, no individual too desperate to help. So I would just like to say how privileged I am to invite Salima to accept her award."