Trade Aid UK is helping the charity, 'Children On The Edge,' specifically, to fund a new initiative, now in its third year, in Bihar State, India. Partnering with local organisation, Tatvasi Samaj Nyas (TSN), Children on the Edge has established two education and skills training centres in the heart of two of Bihar’s most prominent 'red light' areas.
These centres are both places of schooling as well as life lines to the children being raised in these sprawling communities. In view of the rising scale of the problem of cross-border trafficking between Nepal and India, and the human rights abuses it spawns, Children on the Edge has initiated this programme to address the problem of trafficking on Bihar’s front lines.
Surrounded by dozens of brothels, the centres offer children living in these communities a chance of receiving an education that they would otherwise have no means of achieving. Each centre is open six days a week and provides classes in reading, writing, hygiene, and social studies to over 30 children at each location.
The centres also pay special attention to creative activities, such as art, singing/dance, and games as these can be critical outlets for children living in situations of duress. Vitally, the centres also serve as places of safety and security for children who would otherwise face the harsh realities of the sexual exploitation and abuse around them alone.
Teachers work with the students to identify situations of potential abuse as well as emphasising the rights and life possibilities that each child possess. The aim of the programme is to not only to provide these children with security and support, but also to pave the way for them to find a life beyond the confines of the red light district.
Additionally, each centre hosts a sewing skills programme which provides preparatory job training to 15 adolescent girls at each site. The goal of this programme is to not only to equip young women with a skill by which they can support themselves, but also provide a practical means for them to leave the red light area where they live. Without this type of training, the girls report that the overwhelming expectation upon them is to work in the sex trade by age 18 or sometimes younger. For this reason, the sewing skills programme provides a critical way out of prostitution for 30 women each year.
Future plans are to build the capacity of each Centre to move beyond skills training to provide lessons to children ages 5-16 in subjects like reading, writing, maths, and hygiene. In addition the, plan is to offer a more intensive training programme for teachers in 2018/19. This will address the challenge of developing lessons for multiple age groups and learning abilities and to connect programme staff from the Centres with other COTE partners in Bihar who are finding great success in their education work with marginalised children.
The India/Nepal border is one of the largest corridors for human trafficking in the world. While the international community pays little notice, the problem has reached endemic proportions with an estimate of nearly 200,000 Nepalis having already been trafficked into India. The vast majority of these victims are women and children who are subjected to forced labour, prostitution, and sexual abuse.
The porous, 400 mile long border between southern Nepal and Bihar, India’s poorest state, is an ideal environment for traffickers to operate within. Each year, an estimated 7,000-10,000 women and children are trafficked through Bihar, many ending up in de facto slavery in Bihar itself. With nearly a quarter of those trafficked below the age of 16, the situation is particularly grave for children.