(Trigger Warning: Sexual abuse/assault/trauma) ‘’I never thought I would be able to escape this place… I wondered if I would ever see my mother’s face again,’’ says 16-year-old Aamal* a trafficking survivor. After months of being trapped in a red-light…
Savi, 14, her sister Sonali, 17 and their friend Rashmi, 17 were in a bus bound for Motihari, 450 km from Siliguri, West Bengal. It was Savi’s first trip outside the state and the girls were excited about it. Savi’s…
“I want to grow up to be a Civil Servant and serve my community at a level that I can’t do now,” asserts Sudha, a sponsored child of World Vision in Delhi, India. This bubbling 14-year-old is already leading change…
Priya left home when she was 13 years old to escape the fate that often befell children living in the red-light areas. Her mother, Priyanka, sent her away to live with an old friend of hers. Eight years later, Priya…
“I’m not afraid now, I can give it back to anyone” says Pranitha*, smiling, seated upright on a chair at home, her hands folded. She points to a portrait of an elderly man hanging on the wall across from her…
Savi,14, her sister Sonali, 17 and their friend Rashmi, 17 were in a bus bound for Motihari, 450 km from Siliguri, West Bengal. It was Savi’s first trip outside the state and the girls were excited about it. Savi’s parents…
With her palm tightly holding onto the handlebar, one feet on the brake and the other on the clutch, 18-year-old Tania takes off on her brother’s motor-bike to buy some stuff for home. She may be on her monthly period,…
Reshmi is a 15-year-old, timid and calm girl studying in the 9th grade from a community in Dumka, Jharkhand. When she turned 15, her parents wanted to get her married at the earliest. Even though Reshmi was eager to continue her studies, she was under constant pressure from her parents and relatives who kept looking for prospective grooms. Then one day her parents found a suitable…
“Every day I would wake up at three in the morning and study until six. I then finished all the household chores and got ready for school. I walked to my school, which was three kilometers away. After school, I…
Thumpa didi grabs my arm and herds me down an alley and through a crowd of men. I am wary, but certainly curious. The air is heavy with the smell of alcohol fused with incense, sweat and sewage. The lanes…