NEW YORK: Ruchira Gupta, founder and president of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an NGO working against sex trafficking, was honored by the United Nations Association's New York Chapter at the "Spring Luncheon" in New York City, last week. The honor was in recognition of Gupta's unrelenting effort to end human trafficking; in particular the sexual exploitation of women and children. This is the second year the UNA-NY's "Spring Luncheon" has focused on human trafficking. It is the first year that the association has conferred an award. It has also decided to make the award an annual feature.
This year's theme is women fighting against human trafficking and is inspired by the UN's recent launch of the Voluntary Trust Fund for Victims of Trafficking. Under Gupta's leadership, Apne Aap has worked working tirelessly for the past 25 years to end human trafficking by empowering girls and women to resist and escape sex slavery. In 1992, while traveling in the hills of Nepal , Gupta discovered that poor girls were trafficked to Indian brothels from Nepal . She single-handedly began a campaign to publicize the trade by making a documentary 'Selling of the Innocents' with a Canadian broadcasting team. The film won an Emmy in 1997 for outstanding investigative journalism. Apne Aap started working in the slums of Mumbai and other cities by mobilizing and mentoring community-based groups of trafficked and vulnerable girls and women to empower each other. Today, the different centres of Apne Aap provide a safe space for girls and women. They also offer the opportunity to develop legal, education and livelihood training and skills that help these women resist traffickers. So far, Apne Aap has formed 146 groups and put 814 daughters of women in prostitution in school. Over the years, Gupta's work has garnered international recognition. In 2009, she won the Clinton Global Citizen Award for Commitment to Leadership in Civil Society at the Clinton Global Initiative's Annual Meeting and was chosen in 2010 to be part of "CGI Lead", a high-level group within the Clinton Global Initiative whose mission is to bring together a select group of accomplished young leaders to develop innovative solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. In 2007, she was given the coveted Abolitionist Award by the House of Lords of the United Kingdom. The organization is currently been leading a campaign in India to amend the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (IPTA) calling for the enforcement of stricter penalties against recruiters and clients. At its first-ever international meeting of survivors of the sex industry in New Delhi in April, survivors and activists from 25 countries of the Asia Pacific region met to discuss and publicize issue surrounding sex trafficking in Asia. The conference was organized along with the Coalition against Trafficking in Women Asia Pacific (CATW AP). Now in its ninth year, Apne Aap women Worldwide has reached over 10,000 girls and women, has put 800 at-risk children in school, and provides education, healthcare, legal protection, and economic empowerment to 2,500 women and girls by forming 150 self-empowerment groups. Apne Aap brings out its own newspaper, Red Light Despatch, which is written by women and girls in prostitution The Gandhian self-empowerment model of small groups of women rescuing each other has now been adopted in the Langa township of Cape Town , South Africa .
Through the work of the United Nations Association of New York and the over 175 community-based chapters around the country, UNA-USA creates a powerful national constituency for a United Nations that advances American interests in a global system.
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