Empowering Women With Confidence and Choice
For exploited women in the RLA, we accelerate the freedom process by empowering them with confidence and skills for sustainable employment.
* Nita hails from the city of Kolkata. She comes from an economically backward family. Her father is an auto driver, and she was forced to start working on a farm at the tender age of 8, to support the finances of her family. Nita was good friends with a family friend named Rani, who Nita’s father treated as his own daughter.
Years later, Rani left the city of Kolkata for Mumbai in search of a well-paying job. Being successful in getting a financially viable job, Rani convinced Nita to join her to work in the housekeeping industry. So in 2000, aged 15, Nita left for Mumbai in search of better financial prospects.
Rani brought Nita directly into the red-light area of Grant Road in Mumbai. Nita observed the women standing on the road and understood that she had been betrayed by Rani and sold into prostitution. Nita attempted to run away from the brothel. However, she was unsuccessful. She would spend hours crying helplessly. She was plagued with guilt and shame. Ashamed, she was unable to contact her family. A few weeks later she made up her mind to attend to customers. She felt that her life was useless and decided to give into working in the red light area as a sex worker.
In the year 2002, a customer married Nita. Together, they have two daughters. At present, Nita’s daughters are studying in a shelter home. As the years passed by, her so-called husband became an alcoholic and would inflict violent bouts of physical abuse on her. The physical abuse was unbearable on account of which Nita left him.
The Savera team met Nita during an outreach on Grant Road red light area. The team built a good relationship with her and she showed an interest in learning tailoring. She started coming regularly to the Savera centre to receive training in tailoring. She was also given counselling, and trained in basic life skills which gave her the confidence to walk away from sex work. She has completed her Savera training. She was very focused on her training. For the past 15 years, Nita has been a sex worker. She has now left prostitution and is freed from sexual slavery.
Nita is now employed at Somerset since April 2022 and is very happy with her new journey in life. She has big dreams for both her daughters. They are being educated in an english medium school. She wants to work and save money for their higher education as well as build a house in her native place so she can retire in her hometown. Nita is of calm nature. She is hardworking and always focused on her work. She is grateful to Savera for the initial help, training and valuable guidance that she was provided.
*pseudonym to protect her identity
Values
- All humans should be treated with respect, dignity, and value.
- No one is the property of another, nor to be exploited by another. Liberty is an inherit human right that should be fought for on behalf of those deprived of it.
- Through healthy relationships marked by trust, skills and confidence gained through specific training and equipping, and by providing opportunities for a better future, they experience the liberating power of choice.
- We help to transition women into employment, primarily in Somerset Exports, so that they have retirement savings, health care, and earn a living wage for sustained freedom.
What We Do
- Establish healthy relationships with women in the RLA.
- Create and develop an environment of holistic care in the Training Center.
- Direct and facilitate on-going specific skill and trade development programs that lead to sustained freedom.
Methods
- We have a daily presence in the brothels with an objective, measurable process by which we invite the women into a deeper level of trusting relationship by showing who we are, what we do, and what we say (being, doing, saying).
- We asses a woman’s specific needs, then implement plans that progressively build toward meeting her physical, social, emotional, and spiritual needs.
- We develop and implement 6 training modules, each lasting 1 month long. We financially incentivize finishing each module with a view to the next. Each module increases in difficulty and specificity so that upon completion of all 6 modules a Trainee can step into Somerset Exports as a trained employee receiving benefits and sustained employment.