Amnesty International sponsors teach-in on sex slavery

Amnesty International will be holding a teach-in on Feb 25 to educate Blazers about sex slavery. Expert sex-trafficking activist and Emmy award-winning journalist Ruchira Gupta will be speaking.

Gupta's interest in the topic of sex slavery began when she went to Nepal to create a documentary about forced sexual practices. "[Gupta] noticed there were no women between the ages of 15 and 45 so she started to ask around. People said everyone went to work in Bombay," says Aditi Bhaskar, president of Amnesty International.

When Gupta traveled to Bombay, she found a "red light district"; another word for a prostitute neighborhood. According to Bhaskar, Gupta discovered most women in the ‘business' were "taken from their villages and told they're getting a nice job but [instead] were forced to service men; as many as 20 a day."

Bhaskar says that often these women are kept in "cage-like rooms and beaten if they disobey the men in charge." The women's children are forced to grow up under the bed while their mother is offering her services to men.

Gupta befriended the women working at the brothels and learned their stories. Some women from poor families were sold into sex slavery by their fathers in order to make money to care for the remaining children in the family. With this information, she created the Emmy winning documentary, "The Selling of Innocence."

Gupta founded the organization "Apne Aap," which is Hindi for "on your own." Bhaskar says the organization started with 20 women and has now grown to over 200 members. Apne Aap helps women find places to bath, sleep and live. It also provides literacy classes for many women. The organization tries to help prevent the women's children from falling into the cycle of sex slavery.

Apne Aap also teaches the use of condoms and other contraceptives to the women working at the brothels. HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases are widespread in these countries, as information about contraceptives is not widely known. Apne Aap also accompanies women to hospitals. Usually prostitutes and sex slaves are turned down at local hospitals because they are "too dirty"; however, with the help of the Apne Aap workers the women are offered care.

"Masculine classes" are provided for the men who are involved in sex trading; those men who control the sex slaves and prostitutes, and manage the brothels. The classes teach the men how to get out of their current jobs and embrace the other opportunities available in the world. Bhaskar says that these men have a very distorted view of sex, which Apne Aap hopes to amend. "They think sex and violence is the same thing," Bhaskar says.

The teach-in will be held on Feb 25 in Room 264 at 3 pm.

To find out more about Amnesty International click here.