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00:00Hello and welcome to ETV Bharat. My name is Nisar Dharma. Today we have with us a
00:04very special guest, a human trafficking activist and the founder of Impact and
00:09Dialogue Foundation who is now also a recipient of Ramoji Award of Excellence
00:14Ms. Pallavi Ghosh. Welcome Pallavi and congratulations. Thank you so much. Pallavi
00:20I was just going through the field of work that you have. It is a very unique
00:23field that you have chosen and at the same time it is something that is you
00:27know a little fraught with dangers. So beginning your journey as a human
00:32trafficking activist that too added at the age of 12. I mean how did you take
00:37this decision? It's not like I decided to be an activist at the age of 12. I saw
00:43something. I saw an incident and that kind of you know you can say that's so a
00:49seed inside me. So after that multiple incidents happened one after another. So
00:55it was a missing child who went missing from somewhere in West Bengal and the
01:00father was searching for this child and he kept coming to me all the time. I am
01:04basically Bengali but I am from Assam. So he was continuously coming to me and
01:09telling me and asking me where his child was. So honestly speaking that did not
01:13bother me. My only query was like a girl goes missing from a village which has just
01:19one entry and exit and how is it that nobody knows about it. So from 12 till
01:25the age of 19 multiple incidents happened one after another and those were
01:29incidents that happened organically. Nothing was planned and finally I got to
01:34know on my first year of graduation that one of the reasons of missing children is
01:40trafficking and that's when I decided that I want to work in trafficking and
01:44then after that one after another incidents happened I joined an
01:47organization I started working in trafficking. So yeah so that's how it is.
01:50So you were primarily based in Bengal or you moved and you know started working in
01:56other states as well. So I was born in Assam. I did my studies in Delhi but I got
02:02introduced to this whole thing of trafficking in Haryana and Rajasthan and
02:06then I started working. So I was working in destination. So in trafficking there is
02:10source transit and destination. So I started working in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and all.
02:13But finally I figured it out as a young activist that everyone was working in
02:18trafficking were working only in destinations. Okay. So there is no point
02:22like so if you want to end the crime then you have to go to the source from
02:26where it originates. So that's when I decided that you know I should go to the
02:30source. So that's how I started working in West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh. The
02:35first girl I rescued was from Guntur by the way. The first girl I rescued. So and
02:40then that's how I went to Northeast.
02:42Yeah talking about rescuing you know survivors or we won't call them victims. You have
02:49around 10,000 survivors whom you have rescued and impacted 75,000 women and
02:54girls. It is a very strong and emotionally strong atmosphere it would be. So how do you
03:00keep up with it and you know how do you maintain the temper and ensure that you
03:03know you keep on going and doing this work?
03:05To be very honest you have to work with police. So I get an information and then I
03:09have to go to the local police station. I have to convince them and then with them
03:13only I can go for rescue because we are not authorized because we are not law
03:17enforcement. So there are times I remember that you know it's mentally very
03:22traumatizing and exhausting. But like I remember my first rescue the girl had
03:28rescued. So I remember her mother traveling like 10 hours with the
03:33watermelon because she did not have anything to give me. And then after her
03:39deposition in front of in the in front of the court she told me something she
03:43was elder to me. I was younger to her but the statement that she told has stayed
03:48with me till now. She told in front of the magistrate you know my mother gave me
03:53birth but she is the mother who saved me. So I think I don't know like maybe
03:58because at a very early age I saw all this. So this and incidents like this has
04:03happened. There are people those who don't have anything but you know they
04:07travel all the way getting maybe a jaggery for me or maybe there is this girl who
04:13sends me cards in New Year with the flowers from a garden. So I think this all
04:19these things money somewhere can't buy and maybe because I was exposed to this
04:24at a very young age. So that is the reason that emotional sentimental thing
04:28always has been stayed. So that's how I keep it up. So that is how I kind of push
04:32myself you can say. The human connection. Yeah absolutely. I was also going through the
04:36work that you have. You talk about three Ps prevention, protection and
04:40prosecution and they seem to be central to your mission. You know your work
04:44revolves around them. So which of these in your experience you know it's the
04:48toughest one to achieve and why? The toughest is prosecution because you can
04:54say like thousands have rescued but there has been only seven convictions. The
05:00problem is that starting everybody thinks that rescue is easy but the main
05:06struggle starts post rescue. What happens I'll tell you about this girl only had
05:10rescued from Guntur. So it was such a strong case and we were convinced that
05:14there will be conviction. But what happened because of Indian judiciary
05:18unfortunately the case continued for 10 years and after a point of time the
05:23victims turned hostile. So everybody was like why the victims turned hostile. Now
05:27tell me something. Some some crime happened with me 10 years back. Every year I have
05:33been called to the court and I have been asked the same thing. So I'm reliving the
05:37trauma again and again and again. At some point they are like whatever
05:40happened happened. I want to let go of it. So that's the problem and then this is one
05:46of the main reasons you know prosecution is tough. But if you talk about
05:50prevention, prevention is equally tough because I work in Northeast now. So where
05:55when you don't have two square meals a day a lot of people tell me that they come by
06:01their own choice. They go by themselves. It's very easy to say for somebody who's
06:07staying in Bangalore, Delhi or Hyderabad because you don't have to worry about your
06:10second meal. The place where I work you will not believe people literally boil
06:15water. People literally boil leaves and the water they get from there with that
06:22they eat rice. So when there is so much and this is I am talking to you about
06:2720th century our country. When there is so much of poverty the moment you say that
06:32come let's go to Bangalore or Delhi you'll have a better life. People will go and
06:37that's how this trafficking thing has started you know increasing so much.
06:42Exploiting the the factors. Yeah yeah absolutely. I understand it might be
06:48difficult for you to recall or it would be a difficult experience. Could you you
06:52know talk to us about one of the rescue operations or a survivor story that stayed
06:57with you or that is sort of a motivation for you always whenever you feel like you
07:01know I should take a step back or you know it's too dangerous or something like
07:05that. There are hundreds of stories but this particular story because this is the
07:08youngest child I had rescued it was a four-month-old baby and this was a case
07:12of 2013 I remember I so I went as a decoy with crime branch so this child was to be
07:20sold in Middle East and of course I do I I my appearance doesn't look like you know
07:25someone from the Middle East so I went as the maidservant of the person who's going
07:31and we had like 10 lakh counterfeit currencies and I went as a decoy and I
07:37rescued the child it was a four-month child and so there was a big trafficking
07:42racket going in the NCR Delhi NCR and there was this compounder who has who had you
07:50know told everybody that he's a doctor he and the midwife as nurse they were running
07:55this business that child stayed with me for two days and then this was 2013 and till now
08:03I'm going for witness in this case till now the child is now 12 years old a family has
08:10adopted her sad part is that the child's mother had trafficked her and everybody was against the
08:17the mother asking that why the mother trafficked her but when I heard the story of the mother in
08:24one way I also realized that she was also a victim of the system because the father used to you know
08:30sexually exploit the mother every day so what the mother decided the mother this was the third child
08:35that the mother was selling so the mother stole that she was selling this child because she did
08:40not want to see what will happen to the child so this was her way of not knowing so this case still
08:45I'm going so this case remained with me and this has actually motivated me a lot because I have
08:51seen a child from four months to now you know 12 13 years so this is something that has stayed with me
08:55and then there are other survivors also there are multiple other stories also that has remained with
09:00me there is another woman I had rescued from who was 56 year old woman she was rescued from Haryana it
09:06was such a sad story because she was going to be married to a young man who was younger than her son
09:13because she looked short and that that guy was intellectually disabled the entire village had
09:20bought her by selling a cow and a land and I rescued that women she was a 56 year old lady but she looked
09:25like you know people thought that so these two cases I can recollect now there are hundreds of
09:29stories like this in the delhi ncr was the family also from delhi ncr I mean yeah they were also from
09:36delhi ncr we actually the case is still in investigation but we are not able to the conviction has not yet
09:42happened because someone or the other is missing the witness doesn't come and you know our unfortunately
09:47our Indian judiciary is always dependent on witnesses so that's the thing we understand that traffic is
09:53not something new you know it has been happening several decades ago we could say it happened in the
09:58past century as well but now with the with the age of internet and technology do you think it has
10:03impacted trafficking in in what ways yeah absolutely you will not believe it earlier it was so easy for
10:09us to find the traffickers now it is impossible it has kind of become impossible because with Aadhaar
10:17card with one Aadhaar card you can get eight to ten sim sim cards like if you have one ID cards you
10:23can get and after making one call they just you know what you call they break the sim and they throw
10:27away that's the reason I tell everybody that you know whenever you go to photo stat your Aadhaar cards
10:33or your passports please make sure wherever you are giving your document trash it I'll just tell you a
10:37recent incident like a couple of months back what happened there were four engineering students
10:41they had actually found somebody on the Uttarakhand Road a girl had made a call and you know under the
10:50common intention these four guys were nabbed because when we were telling the calls their phone number
10:55had come so you don't know who gets trapped when so with internet it has become more risky and also with
11:01dark web because dark web may you can and then with satellite system like for example maybe you are in
11:05Hyderabad but you are showing that you are somewhere in Afghanistan or maybe you are in somewhere in
11:09Middle East and this with social media apps I'll just tell you an incident what happened there was
11:14this like two years two years back no 20 2024 January I get a call from my very good friend in US that her
11:22friends sister's daughter was missing from somewhere in East India I cannot disclose the details of the
11:29the case and the child's parents were civil servants the child went missing so they called
11:35me now I am I am not some CID officer or some CBI I just told them start scouting or social media they
11:42started scouting or social media they were not able to find anything but after doing a lot of hunting
11:48because there was a lot of pressure from the government civil service service they found that the girl was
11:53chatting with somebody in discord discord is an app like slack and all and then I we have never done
11:59a rescue like this we literally where you know opening people's faces from blankets and then we
12:04rescued the girl after the girl was rescued when she was asked like what is the thing that you are
12:09missing because generally trafficking with the poverty or she told something which remained with me she was
12:14like my parents are very rich but my parents don't give me time they've given me smartwatch they've
12:19given me tablets and everything they know they don't have time for me they're so busy with their
12:22office and all and then we had to tell the father that do you spend time with him the father was like
12:27yeah I spend time with you with her I drop her to school so I think parents think that you know
12:32putting their children in IB schools and giving everything yeah that is the reason now trafficking has
12:38increased to the you know elite society also so pala sa tha ki like you know trafficking is only with
12:44people who are poor but now people from the what you call the middle-class society from the elite
12:50they are also into trafficking even if they are not in trafficking they are into this cyber entire
12:55thing they are into recently somebody told me that she was allowing her child play with all these games
13:01and then suddenly she somebody told her the child the child's photo was in a porn channel and then they
13:08figured it out the child was playing with all those phone and with the camera the child's photos
13:13clicked so with internet it has become much more and there is no limit you can't control because
13:19all your data is out so this is a big problem and there is no way to you know control this how do you
13:26control it it's quite scary now if we come back to the impact and dialogue foundation now since it's so
13:34fluid you know you have to understand the situation and then there is internet and you know there are so
13:39many factors involved how do you make sure that the training part you know in in impact and dialogue
13:46foundation how do you provide skill training and counseling and what how does that transform you
13:51know when you talk to witnesses or you talk to the survivors how does your training impacted the overall
13:58world so what we do is that we have this I have realized one thing that you know prevention is better
14:02than cure so what we do we so there are three safe spaces that we have one in Meghalaya one in Assam
14:08and one in Bengal what we do we train the girls so we have three categories of girls one is girls those
14:17who want don't want to do the conventional education so we give them a one year of training and then we send
14:23them back to the village where they can like it's like a more of a ripple effect thing like I am trafficked now
14:30this is my experience now my village will know that no more girls get traffic this is one category of
14:35girls second category of girls is like we have memorandum of understanding with different organizations
14:41who teach the girls like maybe they want to do something like this certification course and third
14:47is the category of girls who want to do conventional education because everybody say like sabko but
14:51you know honestly speaking not everybody wants to study so these are the three categories and what we
14:55do we don't go to the village like our objective so that is the primary reason we don't want to open
15:01a branch of the organization everywhere I was very clear since the beginning honestly speaking I did not
15:06even want to open an organization because I was like there are so many NGOs why to open an organization
15:12the reason to open the NGO was during corona I had got cases of children who were corona positive and
15:19declared dead on investigation we found out that there was a huge organ trafficking racket that was
15:24going on so that's the reason the organization was started but then we were lucky NGO will come rescue
15:30you and go no it should not be like that the community should be you know empowered enough so
15:35that's the reason we our focus is on empowering the community and it has helped us a lot because you
15:40know when the community is empowered when they know that they are accountable for their children then they
15:45can go a long way in prevention so that's how we are kind of taking a village like I have it now we
15:51recently had a graduation ceremony in one of the village in Lanka which is in Northwest India Hojai
15:55district what we do is that we take one didi would train the didi under the didi we keep ten other
16:01girls tell the girls teach the girls and then they go to ten other so that's the approach and that has
16:06really helped so this is how we are trying to you know train the girls mobilize the girl tell them
16:12has local panchayats also being a you know local panchayats yes because you have to we have created
16:17this thing known as village response committees we won't call it village vigilant committees because
16:23we don't want to be stalking anybody where you should know that if your child has gone to Hyderabad
16:28is the child calling you or how much of money is the child getting is the child being exploited so
16:35you have to make that village responsible NGO will come NGO will make police that's not like that you have
16:40to make and that will happen when you keep making them believe that if they are a part of the
16:46ecosystem what happens with NGOs mostly NGOs go do the work come back we do a we do a regular mapping
16:53like today we are doing this work after three months what's happening did it impact how many cases were
16:58registered in the police station how many child marriages are stopped how many people have actually
17:02gone in question and that is the reason we have not been able to impact that much because it's to and
17:07fro to and fro so that's how we try to manage and it has really helped aren't you worried about your
17:14personal safety I mean that's one of the reason I don't stay in Delhi anymore like I was just telling
17:19I was just telling the team that you know I I it is thanks to ETV it is because of ETV only I came
17:25generally I stopped giving interviews the reason is that one I I don't go for any interviews I had gone
17:32for there was a rescue that I did in noida and I went for a podcast as to give awareness information
17:38and that podcast went viral like 10 crore people saw it and then that entire informatory podcast was made
17:47as a sensational wheels okay so and I was hounded for a year like literally I can't go anywhere flight
17:55people are because my voice is also not like a typical woman's voice so flight may people are identifying
18:01me cannot place my identifying me so I am worried about my safety definitely but then I don't I
18:07follow certain protocols and I try to keep my life as discrete as as discrete as possible yeah I think
18:14that should be the way to go now this moment that you are here and you know you have been awarded with
18:21Ramoji Award of Excellence what does it mean to you and you know for your work to be very honest I was
18:27not expecting that what first of all ETV how did you get to know about it so the thing is that ETV has
18:34been following my work for a long time I think ETV and and not because I'm sitting here I would not
18:41flatter I don't flatter anybody but ETV has genuinely covered my work in the most honest way I remember
18:48editing one of the stories yeah most honest way because there are so many people who have interviewed me
18:53either it's an exaggeration or it is too much of something which I don't even know so then when
18:59I got this message initially I was like I was there was this message that there's a good news for you
19:03I thought that maybe another story will be I was in Northeast I remember and then next morning I was given
19:09calls from everywhere Guwahati everyone was calling me and then when they say that they will give me the
19:14award I was initially I was like I did not know how to work well like on what context and then they
19:20said that they saw the award and everything I think more than the award it's like it is to understand
19:26because my field is something no people don't want to talk about I'm being very honest in Bangalore
19:32nobody wants to talk about I sit with all the investors they are like we love your work but you know
19:37please don't tell us we get triggered I'm talking to you about people who are investors they're like they
19:41will be like please don't tell us it's too triggering I still remember I was sitting with a very big
19:46investor and he was telling me yes so I took him to Bombay with me and there was this place known as
19:51Kurla where he was telling me that there's no child labor don't worry so I made him go with me to this
19:58place where there was a small boy who was stitching shirt K buttons and that boy was getting five rupees
20:05five rupees five rupees I think for four buttons he was getting 20 rupees and this man was standing
20:12with me and this man was asking that boy okay milta hai kya itna and that boy was from Bihar that boy
20:17was like piece rupee hi milta hai and then that man looked at me so the problem is that people think
20:23that and now we don't even talk about trafficking we're talking about modern slavery out here people think
20:28that you know if I maintain this you know ostrich approach we will not be able to see it but it's
20:34still happening it's happening in Bangalore it's happening in Hyderabad I still remember going
20:39to this village where I see girls plucking this chili red chili and getting 50 rupees for plucking
20:46chilis 500 red chilis so nobody talks about it because we are not we are not bothered so I think more than
20:54getting the word it's also important to understand that people should know about this issue so that
20:59is what is the most important I feel so for that reason I am really grateful
21:05finally what would be your message to the the young Indians I know the field is something that as you
21:11said people want to stay away from it even though it is happening in the society but there are people
21:15like yourself they would be more who would want to work in this field so what would be your message how
21:20do they start or where do they start I think the first thing is that please be very sure that you want
21:26to work in this because many people started with me but they left because it's quite triggering one
21:33second is that initially my extended family members and everybody was really angry with me like such a bright
21:42student what nonsense she's doing I still remember but 10 years down the line it has 180 degree angle changed now
21:48everybody is like you know she was our student she's my relative so I think if you really want to work
21:53in this sector you have to understand there is there is no shortcut to success there is no shortcut you have to be
21:59consistent determined and there is this whole thing of sincerity and dedication important I was just
22:07telling lucky money who accompanied me that you know up near the China if your intent is good universe will conspire
22:15believe me when I started five years back I still remember I faced so much of issues even now I'm
22:21shaped even now I'm facing I constantly have issues with funding and support because nobody wants to
22:28support survivors because the red light areas are rescue air brothels are rescue air but somewhere from
22:34something happens and I get the support so that I think if your intent is good the universe will conspire so I think that is
22:38very important whatever you do you should know that you are up are your intentions good so I think that's important if your intentions are good then some somebody from somewhere will definitely help you I think that's very important
22:53we wish you all the best for your work thank you thank you for joining with us and congratulations once again thank you so much thank you
22:59thank you
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