A fifteen-member team from cross-border anti-human trafficking programme ‘Swaraksha’ participated in exposure and learning visit at Ashray South Vihar Welfare Society, Ranchi Jharkhand to build the capacity of the Partners staff working at Grass root level with the community and the stakeholders to combat human trafficking from 12-14 March 2019.

Ashray South Vihar Welfare Society is working in the field of Rural and Social Development sector for the past 15 years. The work of Ashray has been acknowledged by the World Bank and the UN (FAO) and also the organization has received many awards for its outstanding work. The thematic area of work for the organization is Combat Human Trafficking and Livelihood Promotion.

The visit comprised of learning proper rescue methods, technical aspects involved in rescue, repartition, reintegration, rehabilitation, community resilience, and shelter home mechanism.

Soumi Dutta, COO of Ashray introduced her organization and its work in the state. She shared that Ashray is working to mitigate the problem of human trafficking and it has been selected by the WORLD BANK to initiate an innovative project for combatting human trafficking from Jharkhand.

President of Ashray, Mantosh Kumar shared about their challenges in the field on the cases where they need the Govt. Support. He said that the organization has been able to achieve desirable projections in its effort to combat Human Trafficking & Livelihood Promotion through entrepreneurship development.

The team visited Indupiri Village at Khunti to witness the community maturity tool implementation on community resilience development. They have also seen the survivor follow up done through the female groups at the individual beneficiary family visit. The Group Interaction with the Women gave a deeper insight into the actual access of Govt. Schemes & their awareness of Human trafficking.

Trafficking is a cause of poverty & lack of awareness & also the deeper infatuation for city among youths, which is still hazardous to their life who get allure & fall prey of Human trafficking. Ashray’s intervention in this village was to create awareness among women to make them alert against Human trafficking and changes are seen among them. Group also did the Community Mapping & Resource meeting with the village folks to know how the villages are safe.

Swaraksha team was involved in a group exercise for repatriation & reintegration on real cases to understand the gap & success. The feedback on the group exercise helps to get key learning on the reintegration process with a concrete existing plan of Rehabilitation for any victim for her wellbeing.

All the Participants shared their learnings in brief and shared how they will Implement them. The visit was meaningful to get a different perspective of human trafficking in the different part of the country.