An investigative profile by Paro Pain.

When I call Ajeet Singh, he is busy. It’s late in the evening and he is still at work. “I have news,” he says. “We work in the Gazipur districts of Eastern Uttar Pradesh. A gang rape of a minor has happened and the police are not willing to file a complaint.”

For the founder and director of Guria, the human rights organization that works to rescue and rehabilitate women and underage victims of sex trafficking and abuse, this, unfortunately, isn’t new.

In April this year, Delhi steamed with outrage over the rape and torture of a five-year-old girl. This horrific incident, which followed the heinous December 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, caused intense protests outside the police headquarters in Delhi. But Singh is unmoved.

“Soon all this hullaballoo will die down and children will continue to be abused,” he says. His tone is pensive, but the next minute the fire is back: “I will protest outside the police chowki (station) for as long as it takes. I have done it before and I will do it again. They will simply have to register a formal report.”

Singh lives and works in and around Varanasi, one of India’s holiest cities. Notorious for its brothels, Varansai’s Shivdaspur area had children as young as 10 serving customers for prices as low as $20 until a few years ago. Today, thanks to Singh and his volunteers, the brothels that still operate have no children working.

Hailed as one of the oldest living cities in the world, Varanasi sits on the banks of the mighty Ganges River. The Ganges is famed for its waters, which believers say wash sins away. Parts of the stone banks serve as crematoriums. Here death is believed to bring salvation.

“I don’t know about the dead,” Singh says. “Let’s see what we can do for the living.”

The Ganges is famed for its waters, which believers say wash sins away. Parts of the stone banks serve as crematoriums. Here death is believed to bring salvation.

The dying and the living all merge here in a single spectrum of hope — those alive hope for redemption in the afterlife, while the dead are sent off with prayers that they have found it already.  The city is famed for its “Benarasi sarees” – the nine-yards-long wonders of silk, color and golden thread without which marriages and important celebrations in the country are nearly impossible. Those who come to perform last rites often manage to squeeze in a saree shopping session.

The advent of modernity can be seen in the many Internet cafés and malls that freckle the city. There are wide main roads that handle steady traffic, but the city’s real character is found in its interiors.  In Varanasi’s narrow lanes, humans and cycles jostle for space with cows; the bovine inhabitants always have the right of way. Near the river, every third person you bump into will probably be a priest offering to put in a word for your wellbeing with the universe, for a fee.

“I don’t know about the dead,” Singh says. “Let’s see what we can do for the living.”

Here, along with Hinduism, thrives the oldest profession in the world – prostitution. The many changes this profession has seen through the ages is fascinating. In the ancient times, these were women whose training in the arts of lovemaking, music and etiquette was celebrated. Vatsayan, the author of the famed Kama Sutra or “The Book of Love” is believed to have found his inspiration in them. They were an accepted part of society, playing important roles in the structure of life and keeping alive musical and artistic traditions. Youth was always valued, but age and experience had their own worth.

Now their stately homes that were once preserves of music and art have become small airless cubby-holes where sex is traded for money.

Bodies are bartered for cash round the clock, day after day. There is no finesse in these transactions. It takes more than luck and toughness to survive. The old here are usually the pimps, guards or servants.  Anyone whose body can bring in money is taken in. The young can work for longer before they break, so children are at special risk. The pressure of poverty makes many families sell their offspring. Often the poor, especially in the rural and hilly regions, are tricked into letting them go with traffickers posing as concerned people promising jobs.

Research has shown that most of these traffickers are usually a person the family trusts. With homosexuality practiced covertly in India, boys too are at risk as much as girls. The discovery of infections like AIDS has increased the price of the virgin because of the belief that sex with a virgin can cure diseases.

“I have seen cases where children of seven have been abused,” says Saoli Sinha, a social worker in Kolkata. “Children are vulnerable to sex abuse even in the homes of the well-educated and rich. But it’s this whole cold commercial aspect to the trade that is sickening.”

It’s not as if the community is silent on issues of child rape and trafficking. Organizations have been created by and are staffed by former prostitutes. For example, according to their website, the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) “is a collectivization of 65,000 sex workers” that “functions as an exclusive forum of female, male and transgender sex workers in West Bengal, India.” They fight for the rights of others engaged in this profession. They are now called “sex workers” instead of prostitutes in politically correct parlance.

Here’s also where politically correct attitudes end.

The world of sex, especially sex that involves money is a murky one. Even when victims leave, the shadows follow.   They are shunned, even when they are no longer a part of the sex trade. It’s this shunning that Singh fights against. It’s Indian society’s apathy against this very vulnerable section that he wants to change.

He is not a sex trafficking lawyer, nor does he have any special training to rescue or rehabilitate victims. “Call me a mobilizer,” he says. “I mobilize resources to ensure that crimes of this kind don’t happen.” He takes a minute to think and then says, “Actually, I am just someone who cared to make a difference.”

His inspiration came at a cousin’s wedding. In India, women in prostitution are often paid to dance and entertain guests at weddings. “Everyone was having a good time,” Singh says. “I happened to notice (a) child asleep on a bundle a little distance away from the marquee.” Singh, then 18 and in college, managed to convince the mother (a sex worker), to let him educate and take care of this child. “She had two little girls and a boy, all between five to ten years of age,” he says. He took all three in. It wasn’t easy to persuade the mother and it took two years before she let him have a chance.

His parents were aghast. Their son was associating with prostitutes, a shunned community that lives on the fringes, allowed in only when their services are required.  But Singh persisted. After a year and a half the mother took away them away.

“I don’t know what happened to them,” he says. “But this taught me some important lessons. I understood that if I wanted to make a real difference, I would have to get more organized.”

That’s when he decided to set up Guria.

Guria, which means “doll” in Hindi, is an education and health center which provides legal support as well as livelihood backing to rescued victims of sex trafficking. In the absence of state protection, it also has a victim witness safety program.  Guria operates on the Indo-Nepal border and educates poor, rural communities vulnerable to trafficking. It is 24 years old this year.

Guria’s intervention in Shivdaspur in Varanasi that has ensured that children are no longer exploited here didn’t end with the rescue of the children. They also set up a small school there where the children could learn basic reading and math in preparation for either a mainstream school or a trade.

In 2010, the door to the center was broken and things inside were broken. Classes were disrupted for weeks. It took months to build it up again. It’s expensive to have to rebuild things but in this case they managed because of support from groups like the UN Rapporteurs, Frontline Defenders and the Asian Human Rights Commission. The UN Rapporteurs are a group of people working on behalf of the United Nations within the scope of “Special Procedures” mechanisms, who bear a specific mandate from the United Nations Human Rights Council, either a country mandate or a thematic mandate. “Rapporteur” is a French-derived word for an investigator who reports to a deliberative body.”

It is that kind of support, coupled with Singh and his team’s unflagging enthusiasm, that enables Guria to fight the numerous criminal cases it’s taking to the courts. At present, Guria oversees 175 criminal cases against 539 brothel-keepers. The center is also pursuing 58 paralegal cases. Singh is very proud of the nearly 220 bail applications for pimps they have managed to overturn. But this, insists Singh, isn’t really the most important part of Guria’s work. Their main aim is to ensure that under no circumstance do the children go back into the trade.

Over the years, Guria has managed to get some of the children into mainstream schools in Varanasi. “The schools weren’t willing but we managed to convince a few of them,” says Singh. “Parents of the other kids worry that they will be a bad influence.” Often they are teased or shunned by their classmates.

Because of the circumstances they come from, some of these children don’t learn effectively in conventional settings. Guria’s latest classroom is a boat that floats gently on the Ganges River, equipped with a small library, computers, television and a DVD player. The roomy, cool interiors of this boat aren’t fancy, but for the children who gather here, it’s just the kind of safe haven they need.

At this evening school, the students are given snacks for coming in. Varanasi has special milk sweets (the famed malai peda) that people from all over the country come to buy. This, with a fruit or some bread, ensures regular attendance. The school also prevents the children who live near the river, especially the children of the boatmen who live close by, from being exploited.   “Earlier they would run around begging and would be easy prey for tourists,” he says.  Tourism in India has a dark side. Tourists often visit the country to exploit this easy availability of children.

Vaishali is an eager young learner here. She didn’t want to study but was curious about the school. But after awhile she was hooked. “It’s okay to ask as many questions as you like,” she says. “Also we get sweets at the end of class.” The main aim is to ensure that children learn the basic skills of reading and writing.

Those who aren’t inspired by books or numbers are taught songs and painting. They are encouraged to follow their interests. Asha, 17, was kidnapped on her way to school and rescued by Guria. When she didn’t return home, her worried parents went to the police. The police didn’t help. Guria’s volunteers, with their extensive connections in the brothels of Varanasi and its surrounding areas, managed to find out where she was being held. After her rescue, Asha was traumatized and didn’t want to study anymore. She found solace tending animals and today makes a living wage for herself managing a few goats and chickens.

It costs about Rs 6000 (120 dollars) a month to maintain this school. Guria tries as much as possible to raise funds from individuals rather than corporations. “It’s easier to maintain our freedom when philanthropic organizations and people fund us,” says Singh.

A big believer in the power of the common citizens’ abilities, Singh’s biggest rescue to date involved his volunteers and people of the Meerganj area in the city of Allahabad. In 2009, Singh got news that a large number of children were being forced into the trade in an infamous red light area in the city. He immediately alerted the police.

“I knew they would be slow to respond,” says Singh. “The Superintendent of Police actually said that their vehicles needed oil before they could move. So we approached the city magistrate, got the requisite permissions, and with my volunteers and parents of the children suspected to be there, went to meet the brothel operators.” The owners refused to admit that the children were there. But some of the volunteers who used to work in the area had their contacts who helped them find the children. Seventy children were rescued in that operation.

Despite the operation’s success, Singh can’t forget the “the desperation of the utterly helpless families whom the police coldly ignored.” Singh’s experience has shown him that the police often slow arrests and action to give pimps the time to get away or hide the children. The tactics of the International Justice Mission (IJM), an organization that rescues victims of violence, sexual exploitation and slavery, show that Singh’s apprehension is not unfounded. During a raid in Kolkata, IJM told the police the location at the last minute to prevent any tip offs to the pimps.

Singh, dressed in blue jeans and with his portly figure and wide smile, makes an unlikely hero. He has neither cape nor bulging biceps, but to volunteers like Pawan Kumar Yadav, he is an inspiring catalyst for change.

Yadav was only 20 when he joined Singh. “Singh told me that the time to do good is now,” he recalls. “It’s not after I finish my studies, not after I have settled my family but now.” Yadav is a volunteer teacher on the boat school.

In the seven years since he joined Guria, he has also conducted many raids with Singh. “Planning each operation takes time and tenacity,” he says. “In the Meerganj rescue, for example, some of the parents who had suspected that their children might have been trafficked, asked us to intervene.”

This was confirmed by their informers in the brothels. Most of the volunteers are familiar with these areas as they go in to teach or talk to the people here.” Secret cameras sewn onto clothes and microphones hidden in bags and pockets help gather evidence that is crucial when the case comes up in court.

As in the Shivdaspur case, Singh often goes in posing as a customer. It takes a while to build a rapport with the pimps who have to trust him enough to show him their prize wares.

Once the news is verified, the team swings into action. Sometimes things get dangerous. “People make money off children here,” says Yadav. “They won’t let their business go so easily. In Meerganj, they pulled out guns and threatened to shoot us like dogs.”

The children are often hidden in underground holes with no windows or air vents.  The IJM says in one raid they conducted in Mumbai, two minors were hidden in a false ceiling and rescued in the nick of time; the two teenagers were dangerously dehydrated.

For the past nine years, Singh has been working in a Bedia village populated by tribes involved in traditional family-based prostitution. This is perhaps one of the hardest projects he has ever led. “How do you protect children from their own mothers?” he asks.

Some of the children rescued are as young as 11. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), based in Delhi, says that nearly 1.2 million children are believed to be involved in prostitution in India.  “Traffickers make between 50,000 (approximately $1000) and 1 lakh rupees ($2000) when they sell a victim into a brothel. Pimps and madams make a minimum of Rs 120 ($3) on a girl per customer, with the prices for high-end call girls topping the spectrum at Rs 8,000 ($140) to Rs 100,000 ($2000) per customer,” says Michelle Mendonca, Legal Director at the IJM Mumbai Field Office.

In the various rescue missions they have conducted, IJM staff has witnessed firsthand how torturous conditions inside low-end Mumbai brothels can be. It’s a scenario that is unfortunately common in similar brothels throughout the country. “Women have told police that brothel keepers let customers rape them up to 25 times a day, held them captive in locked rooms, denied them food and medical treatment and forced victims to undergo abortions,” says IJM social worker Sheela Alfanso.

The children rescued are often so used to answering to “whore” “bitch” and “dog” that they don’t come when called by their real names.

Singh’s team also has six women who are an integral part of these missions.  They ensure that the frightened children feel comforted and safe. “Sometimes all they want to know is that they will soon be home,” said one.

It isn’t illegal to have sex for money in India, but trafficking and pimping, especially of children younger than 18, certainly is.

On paper, laws to protect the vulnerable against abuse and trafficking are strong. As a member to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, India is a part of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.  India has also signed the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Yet the country’s child trafficking statistics are shocking—the National Crime Records Bureau says a child goes missing every eight minutes.  The U.S. State Department has labeled India a child-trafficking hub, along with Bangladesh and Nepal.

“The problem is weak implementation,” says Singh. “Police personnel aren’t trained to spot victims. Even if victims are rescued they are sent to government managed safe homes where they are open to further exploitation.” Recent cases underline Singh’s concerns. In February, a seven-year-old was found to have been abused for “quite some time” after an examination in a government institution.  A Human Rights Watch Report has underlined that, “The sexual abuse of children left in the care of institutions is disturbingly common.”

For the past nine years, Singh has been working in a Bedia Village populated by tribes involved in traditional family-based prostitution. This is perhaps one of the hardest projects he has ever led. “How do you protect children from their own mothers?” he asks.

Cases like this take an emotional toll on Singh, and in such moments he is glad that he has the support of Manju, his wife.  Manju met Singh when she came to intern at Guria. Today she looks after the many projects the organization leads.

Until recently, Singh’s parents and the rest of his extended family ostracized him. His many awards, including being declared the CNN Hero in 2011, has helped his family reconcile.

“Everyone admires revolutionaries,” he says. “But none wants them born in their homes.”

As he walks into the center in Shivdaspur, the children leave their books and come running. He wrestles some to the ground while others take the chance to climb on his shoulders.  Where does he find his strength?  This question makes him ponder. He takes his time before he says, “Its stoicism, actually.” He doesn’t know how long he can continue his work. It’s a subject he doesn’t waste energy on. “It’s my religion now,” he says. “As long as I can stand, I will follow the cases through. It’s the least we can do for our children.”

PAROMITA PAIN was 22 when she joined The Hindu, one of India’s most respected broadsheets. Human rights and social developments are her passions. She has written for a wide variety of publication like Women’s eNews, WSJ.Com, Women’s Feature Service and The Women’s International Perspective. A 2012 graduate of the Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Southern California, she is now a PhD scholar at The University of Texas at Austin, examining how citizen’s journalism empowers women in developing countries. A feminist and an LGBT activist, Paromita enjoys a long loud laugh when not haunted by the specter of an unfinished PhD.