Battling against the evil of child prostitution in India in general and Mumbai in particular is a mission for Mrs Shiela Kriplani, head of the Ladies’ Wing of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber in Mumbai. It is an organisation with over 1,700 members, many of whom are businesswomen, professionals, entrepreneurs and managers.
Helping young Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) and taking care of their children when they die prematurely due to AIDS and other diseases in twenty shelters in and around Mumbai is a task that demands much time and a great deal of attention from Mrs Kriplani and her friends and colleagues.
Asked as to how much time she devotes to the Bombay Teen Challenges (BTC), the NGO that she helps run, Kripalani says: “I do not know how much time. It all depends on what is happening at a given point of time. But, sometimes, I feel guilty of not working full time, and not being able to spare the kind of attention and time needed for such a noble social cause.”
The BTC, in collaboration with the Home Foundation, has built 20 homes to shelter orphaned children, many of whose mothers were victims of human trafficking and died of AIDS.
BTC houses nearly 350 people in all its facilities. An average of 250-275 patients visit its clinics every month. It has staff of 126 and nearly 30 volunteers. Apart from taking care of children of prostitutes and other deprived children and women, BTC also feeds around 400 people at its facilities. In addition, its mobile feeding programme feeds 120 destitutes daily.
Since her organisation has raised its voice against induction of young and adoloscent girls into prostitution through her NGO, Kriplani has discovered a bitter truth: More than one million children are sold, brought and forced into prostitution.
Shabana was born in the hell of Kamatipura, the notorious red light district of Mumbai, where young girls are tortured and forced to satisfy the pleasures of men. An estimated one lakh prostitutes live in this cramped, infamous area. Each one of them services men 365 days a year, averaging six customers a day at Rs 100 each.
Shabana is one of two children born to a young prostitute. Suddenly, their mother became ill, and died of AIDS. Shabana and her little brother were promptly thrown out of the brothel the moment their mother died, and were left to fend for themselves. Her brother Pir Mohammad was just two years old, and HIV positive too. That was six years ago.
Says a beaming Kriplani: “Today, Pir is a healthy boy, who receives proper medical care. Shabana is a pretty young girl now. She has become a role model for other children, who are following her footsteps.”
Shabana is barely nine years old and yet she finds ways and means to help poor children. “It is just something that comes naturally to her. When a child is brought to the shelter where she lives, Shabana runs to the car and picks up the child and does her best to make the child feel at home,” Kriplani says as she narrates the girl’s heart-rending story.
She adds: “There are a lot of young women from Nepal. Most of these young girls are brought forcibly from villages to Mumbai. Depending on their talent and interest, we train them in various fields like jewellery-making, tailoring, and pickle-making, among others.”
A proud Kriplani declares: “We have also collected money through running schools which is spent on treating children suffering from cancer at the Tata Cancer Research Hospital in Mumbai. This year alone, we collected three crores of rupees through schools. This brilliant idea for raising money was that of a gentleman called Terry Fox. He died at an early age, but we keep his spirit alive by raising funds to help cancer-afflicted children.”
Lending a helping hand to Kriplani in her efforts are a group of eminent women of Mumbai, such as Mrs Avanti Birla, Mrs Sabira Merchant, Mrs Aarti Singh, Mrs Puja Billimoria, Sangita Kilachand, and Mrs Kanan Koticha.
Kriplani points out that she is not looking for rewards for her work. “I don’t need any awards,” she admits candidly. “The satisfaction of helping people at the bottom of our society is a reward in itself!”
By Santosh Mehta
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