Hope for victims of India's sex-slave horror

[Guest guest]

Hope for victims of India's sex-slave horror

By Ronnie Polaneczky

Philadelphia Daily News

Daily News Columnist

I CAN BARELY listen to tales like those that Fitchett tells of the horrors

of the sex trade - the sexual enslavement of girls and women - in Mumbai, India.

But if Fitchett is strong enough not to look away from a human-rights atrocity

that needs international exposure, the least I can do is let her speak in this

column.

Fitchett, 48, is founder of the new, Philly-based U.S. chapter of Bombay Teen

Challenge, an Indian charity that attempts, among other things, to rescue young

prostitutes and their kids from misery in Mumbai.

It's estimated that between 75,000 and 100,000 teens and women work the streets

and brothels of that teeming city. Most were kidnapped and forced into the

trade, their families unable to find them or pay the ransom to rescue them.

" It's so horrible, " says Fitchett, 48, a former pediatric nurse who, while

visiting India with her husband, Curt, five years ago, met the people of Bombay

Teen Challenge. After a heartbreaking tour of Mumbai's red-light district, she

returned to Philly, compelled to raise awareness here to what's happening on the

other side of the world.

" The only way to end the problem is through international pressure, " she says.

" The Indian government will only act if they're embarrassed enough to act. "

Her stories are shocking.

One Indian girl was kept locked in a room for two years, servicing 40 men a day

until she was rescued by Bombay Teen Challenge. Other girls become pregnant and

have children - who sleep under the bed while their moms have sex above.

" When the children are rescued, they have to be taught to sleep on the bed, not

under it, " Fitchett says.

She learned that corrupt police and government officials are complicit in the

atrocities.

" Police will raid a brothel and take the young girls " - the most desirable to

clients - " and pretend to save them. But they rape them at the police station

and make the madam pay to get them back. The money becomes debt the girls have

to work off. "

Fitchett goes on, unable to stop.

" When I was in Mumbai last time, I met two girls on the street, they couldn't

have been older than 15 or 16. I later found out that they'd been sold to a

Saudi man - which means the government has to be helping, since the girls need

papers to leave the country.

" There are so many AIDS orphans. One little girl, she was five years old, would

sing to her brother, who was about two. She sang, 'Your mommy died, but I will

help you grow to be a man.' It was overwhelming.

" This is a man-made disaster, " she says emphatically. " It could end tomorrow if

enough people had the will to act. "

Yesterday in India, President Obama chided members of parliament, saying that if

India wishes to be taken seriously as a global power, its leaders must not

remain silent about rights abuses like those happening in neighboring Myanmar.

" Faced with gross violations of human rights, it is the responsibility of the

international community, especially leaders like the United States and India, to

condemn it, " he said.

And while those leaders hem and haw, people such as K.K. Devaraj, founder of

Bombay Teen Challenge, leap into the at-home fray, desperate to stop the abuse.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the day Devaraj and his wife committed to

relieve the suffering they saw in Mumbai (then known as Bombay). Since then,

they've established a home for AIDS orphans, a group residence for former

brothel workers, a day-care center and night shelter for their children,

schools, clinics and other outreach services to address the ugly fallout of the

sex trade.

" There is capacity for much more if we were able to raise funds for operations, "

says Ann Buwalda, a Washington, D.C., attorney and founder of the U.S. chapter

of Jubilee Campaign, a human-rights group that supports missions like Bombay

Teen Challenge. " The need is great. "

Speaking with her, and with Fitchett, I wonder: What is it that turns someone

from a compassionate observer of human suffering to an active player in its

eradication?

" I ask myself, 'Why was I blessed with being born here in America, and not in

the brothels, where I would be taken advantage of?' It was only luck, " says

Fitchett, who, after leaving nursing, became a successful human-resources

executive, and now lives in lovely Chester County.

" When we are given much, we have a responsibility to help. And once you're

aware, you can't turn back. "

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