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Kanchan (name changed) is currently pursuing his Bachelor of Law degree from Bhopal University. Back home, her mother is still a sex worker.
“She has always been involved in work, but she does not want her daughters to face these problems. She has always encouraged me to pursue education.” India’s best.
Kanchan and her mother belong to the Bediya community, which is sub-grouped with nomadic and nomadic Indian tribes. In many families within the community in Madhya Pradesh, it is quite normal for a girl to engage in sex work when she reaches puberty – the profession is a family business as well as a tradition. Meanwhile, their brothers start working as pimps and bring them clients.
Girls, who often become breadwinners for their families, have been victims of institutionalized sex work for a long time. Meanwhile, the ensuing stigma isolates children from other communities, denying them their basic right to education.
Kanchan says, “Because of the work people of my community do, they face a lot of problems. Even after a lot of exploitation, the girls are vulnerable to child marriage. Most of our women make several rounds of government offices, and because they are unaware of their rights, they are discriminated against because of their work.” I want to become a lawyer so I can help my community and make a difference.”
As a student, Kanchan would have been asked for her caste and her father’s name at school. And she adds, “I would like to tell them that in our society we do not mention the father’s name.” Almost eight years ago, Kanchan left her village and moved to Bhopal in hopes of a better future. Next year, she plans to bring her younger sister to Bhopal.
Kanchan is among the 5,000 children of Bediya community who manage to build a different future for themselves. Thanks to the efforts of IPS Officer Veerendra Mishra, children, teens and young adults from 60 villages in six districts can transcend the stigma attached to their castes to pursue education, thus fulfilling their dreams – some want to become police officers, some sub-inspectors, some doctors, engineers, IAS officers and lawyers, to name a few .
‘Children suffer the most’
Currently, we have 26 children in colleges and 37 students in Bhopal schools. Wherever we work, we have made sure that almost all children are involved,” says Mishra India’s best. The nonprofit receives financial support from children’s rights organizations such as CRY (Children’s Rights and You).
What people think of as “traditional engagement in sex work,” Mishra calls “community-based sexual exploitation.” “These children are the ones who suffer the most, because they started sex work from a young age traditionally and fairly, and their level of education was poor.”
Launching his organization Samvedna, the 53-year-old started his business with 13 children. So far, he has covered areas like Bhopal, Rajgarh, Raisen, Guna, Vidisha and Sagar.
loop break
“Our idea is to create opportunity. When you create opportunity, you generate hope, and when you generate hope, everyone starts pushing their limits. They have to help themselves. We are just facilitators,” explains Mishra, who founded Samvedna in 2005 to combat caste-based commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking. people in the state.
In 2010, he brought 13 Bidiya children from Rajgarh district to Bhopal for their education. We enrolled them in schools. We’ve picked them up from pre-school, helped them get higher education and find jobs. We have identified these children’s strengths and thus helped them shape their future, he says.
Currently appointed as Assistant Inspector General of Police – AIG for Madhya Pradesh State Industrial Security Force in Bhopal, IPS Officer has previously worked with Ministry of Youth Affairs and Ministry of Social Justice.
It was while working in Narsinghgarh in Rajgarh district that he came to know the Bedia community. “Most of the adults here never left the village to explore other opportunities. Exploitation is normal for them. We’re trying to break that normalization. We don’t believe in stigmas and we don’t go to them to preach what they’ve traditionally been doing is wrong. We’ve told them different livelihood options,” he says.
“Sometimes, they don’t have specific biological parents because their fathers were agents. Their brothers are pimps while their mothers are sex workers. The whole ecosystem supports this tradition. We try to reach out to every stakeholder in the community so that they understand the importance of education. None of their children have passed an exam.” Grade 10. This was not fair to these children, he adds.
As children face discrimination at the village level, they register themselves as children of other communities. In order to provide a better environment, the team convinced parents to send their children to nearby schools in Bhopal.
It was a paradigm shift in their thinking process. For up to four years, I struggled to convince them. Even though the older generation is still in the sex business, we are trying to help the newer generation get out of that cycle,” says the Prison Service official.
For Veerendra, the work has been a life-changing experience. “Maybe it made me a better person. I learned a lot from these kids. And I’m as passionate about them as I am about my kids. I’m not doing this as a police officer, I’m doing it as an individual.”
He believes that every citizen should ensure that children from these communities get a better education and a good life free from discrimination.
We fight for basic rights, but no one values basic duties. Every citizen of this country should ensure that these children get equality, because we are the ones who bring about the inequality and discrimination,” he says.
Edited by Divya Sethu. All photos: Samvedna
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