Triveni Acharya has rescued, rehabilitated 10,000 survivors of sex slavery In 1993, journalist Triveni Acharya was sent to Kamathipura, to cover a Raksha Bandhan-special event where commercial sex workers were to tie rakhis to a Bollywood actor. Little did she know then that a routine reporting task would give her life a new mission. Manya Singh, Miss India 2020 Runner-up | Curiosity led her into a brothel, where she came across 10-year-old girls being held against their will before she was chased away by a pimp and his goons.
Shaken to the core, she described the incident to her husband Balkrishna Acharya. The couple set out to rescue one girl, but ended up rescuing 15 more. As most of these girls were from Nepal, the duo travelled there to drop them off, where they got in touch with Maiti Nepal, a non-profit that rehabilitates trafficked women.
The girls are given education and skill training to make them independent | After working as volunteers for Maiti Nepal and accompanying police teams during raids to rescue girls, in 2000, the couple established Rescue Foundation. So far, the organisation has rescued 7,000 girls and rehabilitated around 10,000, trafficked from India and abroad. The youngest girl to be rescued was as young as seven years old.
“We have been able to achieve this with collaborations with the police, a network of informers and volunteers,”says Acharya, the president and the CEO of the foundation. Their mission is to end child trafficking and rescue an.