10FreeDays - Our Daughter’s International

This time last year, with the help and support of amazing people in my life, I was able to raise $1,500 which is the approximate amount to fund the rescue, restore and transform 5 girls from human trafficking in Nepal through Our Daughters International (ODI).

There are many reasons why this work is important, but one thing that resonates with me is that when these young women interact with ODI, it is often the first time in their lives they realize and can begin to recognize that they have value in their own right as a human being.

I am well aware that this is not a unique situation - denied humanity is an experience all marginalized populations face. If I think about it, I struggle to function.

So here is one small way I'd like to try and make things a little better for at least 5 more girls.

If are willing and able to join me, you can contribute to my fundraiser here.

I will also be updating this page until August 10th with write ups from Our Daughter’s International on how rescued daughters are making an impact in their communities today and for generations to come.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.

Impact through Rescue

During our daughter's transformative journey from rescued victims to restored daughters, many develop the strong desire to rescue other Nepali girls who are vulnerable to human trafficking. As a result, the majority of our Border Counselors are restored daughters who have graduated from the program and are now working at one of the 10 border surveillance stations and two train depots at the Nepal/India border.

Having once been victims themselves, our Counselors are able to identify girls who may be vulnerable and approach them with kindness, compassion and understanding. They share their own stories while they counsel victims in the hopes of building trust - trust that would allow the victims to feel safe and disclose why they are traveling to India.

Skilled at detecting suspicious activity, the Counselors speak to girls and women traveling about the dangers of human-trafficking. They explain the deceit and manipulation used by traffickers who may be luring them, with the hopes of rescuing potential victims. From there, they will assess if travelers are at-risk of being trafficked, and whether they are able to return home or if they will join other daughters at the Safe Home to begin their own journey on the Freedom Pathway.

Every year, restored daughters who now serve as Border Counselors will help rescue 1,100 trafficking victims.

Impact in India

Unfortunately, not every potential trafficking victim is rescued by our border surveillance teams before crossing the open border between Nepal and India. Once they arrive in India, victims are quickly transported by their traffickers to brothels and forced into sexual exploitation or are held in hotels and groomed before being sent abroad to the Middle East, Europe, and beyond.

Through the efforts of our rescue and repatriation team in India, daughters who were once rescued are now giving back by passionately working to rescue other victims. The following is the story of Laxmi, a daughter who was rescued at the border after being at-risk of trafficking.

Laxmi lived a life of feeling unwanted and unloved. Her father was disappointed when she was born a female; in patriarchal culture, sons have more perceived value than daughters. As Laxmi grew older, she had a dream of becoming a police officer. She wanted to help protect others, but her father would not pay to send her for training, and instead arranged her marriage.

Struggling for years with her identity, Laxmi ran away from her new husband filled with anger and frustration. She decided to head towards India with the hopes that she could create a new life for herself... one that she wanted.

On the way to India, Laxmi was intercepted by our border counselors. She was angry with all their questions and just wanted to continue on her journey. Thankfully, they managed to convince her to sleep in the transit home for the night as it was getting late and dark - too dangerous for a woman traveling alone. The next morning, the counselors talked to Laxmi about coming to the Safe Home and Training Center to learn new skills that she could use when she returned home.

"It was the best offer I was ever made so I took it!"

Laxmi spent the next year being cared for and loved. "Oh, how I longed for this!" She was able to work hard on reconciling with her family and helping them understand why she was angry. After leaving the program, Laxmi returned to her husband where the two worked their way towards a happy, and loving marriage. They now share a son. Even Laxmi's father has had a change of heart and calls Laxmi "his son and daughter both!"

Several years later, Laxmi was offered an opportunity to be a part of the campaign to fight against human trafficking in India by our partners in Nepal.

"What more could I ask for than this? I wanted to repay their love and support. I started working to support girls and women during their rescue in India. Soon I was promoted as Assistant Rescue Officer and became one of the Trustees. I have been working to save the life of any girl like me by giving her counseling and transforming her life. Finally, my dream to become a police officer came true!"

Over 100 Nepali victims are rescued in India by Laxmi and her team every year.

Impact through Business

After victims are rescued at the border, they become our daughters at the Safe Home where they receive care and counseling. After their time at the Safe Home, they have the opportunity to join our Training Center which equips daughters with a vocational skill in the areas of food and hospitality, cosmetology, tailoring, and electrical wiring. These skills translate to home-based or store-front businesses operated by our daughters and they become role models to other girls and women in their communities.

Shanti is a daughter who is one of these role models and has impacted her community by starting a tailoring business, saving many villagers the long journey to the nearest town with a tailor. She also leads a community group that is empowering other women.

Shanti is from a remote village called Rolpa. Her parents were farmers and didn't have the resources to send Shanti to school. Instead, she worked as a laborer earning a very small income. Shanti received an offer to go India for a better job, likely the ploy of a trafficker, and as she arrived at the border, she was intercepted by our Border Counselors. Understanding that she needed a safer way to earn a living, Shanti accepted an offer to learn job skills at our Training Center. There, she became an exceptional tailor while also learning how to start and run a business.

After graduating from the training program, Shanti returned to her hometown and discovered the nearest tailoring shop was a two-hour walk from her village.

Having gained the confidence to apply the skills that she learned at the Training Center, Shanti began offering to sew clothing for some members of the community. When others from her village saw the quality of her work, they too started coming to Shanti to get their clothing sewn! They even began bringing their children to have her sew their school uniforms.

Starting out with only one pedal machine in a small room, Shanti's business grew so quickly that she had to eventually rent space to begin her own tailoring shop!

She also started a community group of other women where she is teaching them to sew. They are also working together to raise awareness about gender-based violence and human-trafficking in their community.

Impact through Community Groups

As our daughters leave the Training Center and return to their communities, they not only establish micro-businesses, but they also begin conducting anti-trafficking awareness sessions and inspire the formation of women’s empowerment groups. These groups pool precious earned money together to form savings programs, which allow women in the group to take out loans and begin their own micro-business.

Over 5,700 women belong to community groups across Nepal.

Pratima is the epitome of a daughter turned leader making a major impact in her community. She runs a business, lobbied to protect vulnerable girls in her village, and leads one of the largest women-empowerment groups in Nepal!

Pratima lived in a community, Padampur, with no direct access to water. On her three-hour return trip from getting water from a river, she was sexually abused by truck drivers using that same route. Confiding in her friends, she learned that many other girls also experienced this same abuse. Seeking refuge and hope, she sought out our partners and came to the Safe Home where she was restored as our daughter.

When Pratima returned home, she knew she wanted to protect other vulnerable girls from the abuse and exploitation she experienced. She rallied her community to purchase water tanks so that girls from the village would not have to make the dangerous journey to get water. In partnership with Our Daughters International, water tanks were purchased and installed. Today they provide running water to over 200 families!

Pratima also established a small women's empowerment group in her village. Over time, this group has grown to over 1,000 members and now operates a lending cooperative enabling many women to start their own businesses. One rug manufacturing business started by a member employs over 60 women in the village alone!

Pratima also owns her own tailoring business and recently helped open a tutoring center for high school girls in the community. The goal is to provide excellence in education that will help them earn high marks and prepare for college.

Impact through Storytelling

Survivors of human trafficking in Nepal are not only debilitated by trauma, but also by shame. Culturally, it is believed that victims are to blame for any incurred abuse assuming they must have done something to bring it upon themselves. Consequently, many of our daughters feel the need to hide their past in order to protect their reputation.

Our partners in Nepal work hard to shatter that fallacy, insisting that victims are never to blame for their abuse and that an important part of healing is using their story as a powerful tool to help others.

Nisha leads the way for our daughters as they find their voices and learn to share their story. She believes using her story is a powerful tool to save vulnerable lives from human-trafficking.

Nisha was visiting her sister in the city and one night they went out with friends. Unbeknownst to Nisha, drugs were slipped in her drink that made her unconscious. When she woke up, she realized she had been sold to a brothel in India where she endured physical and sexual abuse every day for three years.

Nisha suffered from immense trauma and shame when she arrived at the Safe Home. Her journey to freedom was hard-fought, but with time and dedicated counseling, Nisha learned that sharing her story empowered her and was a potent weapon against traffickers.

She now works on staff as a professional storyteller, traveling to schools throughout Nepal. She shares her story with girls to educate them on the dangers of trafficking and encourages them to stay in school, knowing education is a key to breaking the cycle of poverty and mitigating vulnerability.

With the goal of reaching more vulnerable girls and women, Nisha is leveraging the power of social media to share her story and gaining many followers. She has been interviewed by local news stations to educate viewers on the risks of trafficking. She is also learning to speak English through our ESL program with the goal of traveling internationally to share her story and advocate for legal reform.

Impact through Leadership

The goal of our partners in Nepal is to become a daughter-led movement, meaning most, or all staffing roles in the organization will be occupied by restored daughters who have become leaders.

Karuna is a restored daughter who has filled various leadership roles in the organization. Her story from victim to survivor to daughter to leader is truly inspiring.

Karuna was tragically taken advantage of by a friend in her village she called Auntie when she was young. She was one of six siblings and shouldered the burden of keeping them alive as her parents were violent and struggled with substance abuse. Auntie would listen to her woes and one day invited her to attend a wedding with her in India. They picked out new clothing together, and on the way to what Karuna thought was going to be the best day of her life, she was drugged and sold into sex slavery.

For six months, Karuna endured endless abuse. One day she saw an opportunity to run, and she made it! As Karuna approached the border, she was met by a team of Border Counselors who listened to her with love and offered her hope.

Against all odds, Karuna wrestled with the trauma that threatened to debilitate her, learning many coping skills, and traveled the arduous journey to her freedom. She is now a restored daughter and has filled various leadership roles within our partner's organization.

Karuna first became a Border Counselor at the Krishnanagar border station. She was integral in rescuing hundreds of victims. She was later promoted to the Director of our partner's rescue operations, meeting with government agencies and advocating for our daughters. Karuna is most recently the Coordinator for our Safe Home, orchestrating the care and counseling of rescued daughters, while also studying to obtain her BSW, Bachelor of Social Work.

Karuna recently received the distinguished Darnell Award for Social Justice, an award which recognizes international leaders working to end caste-based inequities. Congratulations Karuna!

Impact on Patriarchal Culture

Teaching our daughters vocational skills is a key component of our strategy to create independence and sustainability as our daughters return to their communities. Part of their success when teaching them skills is identifying areas of economic opportunity to support that independence and sustainability.

One of the new vocational trainings provided at the Training Center is electrical wiring. This occupation is typically comprised of male tradesmen. Four of our daughters decided to challenge the gender stereotype and participate in the first cohort of electrical training. Puja is one of those daughters.

Puja has always been determined to make her way in life. While growing up, Puja's family was not able to afford her education. However, she was so determined to help meet her family's financial needs that she convinced her parents to let her go to India to study cosmetology. While crossing into India, our Border Counselors counseled Puja and invited her to study at the Training Center to avoid the dangers that could potentially await her in India as a young female traveling alone. Puja accepted their offer.

Since then, Puja has chosen to participate in the first class of our partner's new electrical training program. For six months, five hours per day, the girls learn skills in basic house wiring and appliance repair. Historically, this line of work was primarily needed in the commercialized cities, but with recent development, families in the remote villages now have fans, refrigeration, televisions, and radios that need constant repair, therefore creating a market for our daughters when they return home.

In order to gain field hours, Puja and the other three trainees have been assisting electricians as they wire the new Safe Home being built for incoming daughters who have been rescued at the border. It's amazing that they are able to use their new skill to create a beautiful space for their fellow sisters!

"In the beginning I used to think that learning this skill was awkward and difficult. I had never seen women doing any electrical work. It's usually a man's job but I had always been interested in learning it. It's something different and not expected of me. Now that I'm here I've realized that this isn't a hard skill at all. I am enjoying learning the skill and I'm very excited because I would be the first woman in my village with this skill. I can't wait to complete my training and return home so I can start my business and support my family and my community. "

Impact through Elegantees

Our Daughters International partners with Elegantees, a New York City fashion brand for women. This fair-trade relationship provides impact in Nepal by employing over 20 restored daughters and paying them a fair wage as they create patterns and sew the clothing for Elegantees at the Kingdom Hope Garment Factory.

Born into a poor farming family, Muna was expected to forgo her education and instead work to support her five younger siblings. She was just 13 when she left home and started a manual labor job at a brick factory. Muna was forced into working long hours with very little compensation and was abused physically and verbally on a daily basis. One day, she met a man who told her about a lucrative job opportunity in India. Thinking about the financial security for her family, Muna made the decision to journey to India.

When she got to India, Muna realized she had been deceived and sold to a brothel. She was forced to serve more than 20 men per day. They abused and assaulted her if she didn’t comply. After spending almost three years in the brothel, Muna was rescued by our partners and made the arduous journey back to Nepal and into intensive care at our Safe Home.

Over time, Muna decided to pursue her skill training in tailoring to secure a job to support her family. She was dedicated to her training and a very determined student. She learned to use advanced machines for sewing garments.

After graduating from the Training Center, Muna joined the Kingdom Hope Garment Factory where she is now a seamstress. She earns a fair monthly wage with benefits including health insurance. She supports her family and is saving money for her own future. Her story is woven into each piece of Elegantees clothing she produces. She is an inspiration to us all.