Sydney, Australia,— SIMaid has launched its campaign aimed at supporting projects which rescue and rehabilitate young girls caught in sex trafficking operations in South Asia.
Sex trafficking is part of the wider “trafficking in persons” problem which enslaves about 27million people around the world, more than the population of Australia. Of these modern day slaves the UN estimates 79% of them are caught up in sexual trafficking. According to “Save the Children” at any one time across the world, around 1.8 million children are being abused through prostitution, child pornography and sex tourism.
Sex trafficking is being combated in three principle ways: providing relief and repatriation to the victims of trafficking; deterring and prosecuting those who engage in the business of trafficking; and deterring and prosecuting those who buy the services of the traffickers.
SIMaid is directly involved in providing resources to rescue and look after the victims of sex trafficking and is supporting two projects in South Asia which address this issue. One is located in Bangladesh and the other in India and each is supported by the local authorities in each area in which they are established. These are programs which aim to not only rescue but rehabilitate the child victims of sex trafficking.
Our project manager in India, Adam, tells a ‘typical’ story of Manju who was deceived into a ‘brothel, where eight to ten men paid to rape her each day, sometimes three men at one time. It was for girls like Manju that we set up our aftercare home to be a post-rescue ‘first stop’. Here, a team of nine women wait to provide sex trafficking survivors with trauma counseling, life skills & literacy training, nutritious food, medical checks, creative therapies such as art, music and sport and loving care. A gracious Hindu widow has rented us a home which is filled with light and beauty.’
About SIMAID
SIMaid is the relief and development arm of SIM Australia. SIMaid manages projects which help the poor and disadvantaged to live with wholeness and dignity. Projects are conducted in partnership with local churches, government and NGOs and include emergency relief, long term food security, health, education, agricultural and environmental aid, in Africa and Asia. To meet these needs, carefully structured projects are planned by people working with nationals amongst local communities. Each project is carefully monitored and supervised with progress publicised in the quarterly newsletter, Imagine.
