Meet, Shafiq Khan, Working Towards Uprooting Bride Trafficking In India’s Northern Belt

Women’s right are humanrights.

Thisideology the driving force for 33-year-old Shafiq Ur Rahman Khan, a young activist with asingular attention on bride trafficking. His organisation ‘Empower People’ startedwith a 300-kilometre long march against female foeticide and gender inequalityin Haryana 14 years ago.

As politicalactivist back in the years in the tribal belt, Khan witnessed that the politicalparties and civil society were mostly apathetic, with little attention towardshunger and diseases among villagers. This instigated him to tackle the causehimself.

When he initiatedan institution by the name of Career Development Centre (CDC), the primary focuswas to impart education consciousness among the youth. Providing education andfood to the marginalised children bore fruitful results.

Khan’sefforts have come a long way now.

Theorganisation’s work was recognised by the international community throughconferring of the prestigious Grinnell Prize by the Grinnell College. Khan wasawarded the 2019 Grinnell College Innovator for Social Justice Prize for hiswork fighting bride trafficking in India through his organisation.

“2019 was amomentous year,” Khan tells.

“This servedas a great boost for the entire team and survivor leaders. On ground, we havestarted enabling survivor leaders with technology to document their work. Wehad also planned for our survivor leaders to contest elections in Haryana, butit was not successful because of limitation of resources and polarisation ofcommunities.”

As anactivist who actively works on women empowerment, particularly in the field ofbride trafficking, Khan feels that such issues are deep-rooted and widespreadin the society. He thinks an activist or an organisation cannot makesignificant change in single life.

When askedhow he defines violence against women, Khan says restricting the liberty ofwomen in whichever sense is violence against them.

Bridetrafficking or bride buying is a widespread social issue in certain belts ofIndia. Women and girls, as young as 10, are sold by poor parents to richerfamilies who pay a certain sum for the girls.

Some womenmanage to escape, some are not as lucky. Across north-west India, thousands ofwomen are lost to their families and trapped in lives of sexual and domesticslavery as paros – meaning those whohave been purchased or sold.

In the statesof Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan, this has been a flourishing business forcenturies. There is no official government data on the numbers who have fallenvictim to trafficking rings, but it is believed that hundreds of thousands ofwomen and girls, mainly from Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand or Bihar, have beensold into marriage.

According tothe?2016 National Crime Records Bureau, 33,855 people were kidnapped orabducted for the purpose of marriage. Half were under the age of 18.

Manyactivists believe the scale of bride trafficking is still not understood.

Adoor-to-door survey by Empower People found 1,352 trafficked wives living withtheir buyers in 85 villages in north India in 2014.

“Things willgradually improve. When we compare with the past, I am happy that people are atleast realising their bondage. We had chosen two particular districts to createa module and we successfully developed it in the last 13 years. It is great tosee women who were living in bondage, now leading their respective communities.Now it is time for the government to go beyond its protectionist mechanism andlaw, and adopt some liberal ideas to give us enough opportunities to work withsurvivors of social crimes as well as slavery,” he says while adding that effortsare needed at grass-root level to eradicate such societal evils.

Vision 2020

2020 will bea crucial year for Khan’s organisation.

“Firstly, weare working on a plan to launch a company of survivors of bride trafficking.The company will market products made by survivors and it will be led bysurvivor leaders themselves,” says khan, while explaining the future course ofaction.

Secondly, thisyear, the organisation will put special emphasis on advocacy for bridetrafficking survivors who have been trafficked as minors and have no connectionor even memory of their native home.

Khan, whoseorganisation started with a 300-kilometre long march, plans to get back to thebasics when it comes to raising awareness.

The last butnot the least, ‘Empower People’ is planning a March Against Bride Traffickingin 2020, from Haryana to Kerala which will be called MABT2020.

Shafiq’swork is crucial. He believes that a problem created by the society can only beresolved by the society. “As an activist, we have a duty to bring all theinformation and some perspective in front of the society. We can only suggesthow this problem can be resolved. People can not only donate but alsoparticipate in our programs. They can buy our products, they can suggest someother ways and they can also join MABT2020,” he suggests.