Is education for girls an important means by which sex trafficking can diminish over the decades?
REGION: Pailin, Cambodia
Once a girl is broken and terrified, all hope squeezed out of her, force may no longer be necessary to control her.
This chapter focuses on educating girls as a means of cutting down on trafficking. Many a time the efforts of those who wish to empower the girl child have backfired. In 1993, Tom harkin issued a legislation that forbade imports produced by children under fourteen. Girls were fired, and most of them trafficked as someone ‘promises them a great job selling fruit in a distant city’. Although Frank Grijalva, principal of The Overlake School ( Washington ) which consisted of 450 students belonging to well off families, followed the idea generated in Bernard Krisher’s ‘ Rural School Project’ that targeted poverty in Cambodia. It encouraged families to keep girls in school as a method to counter sex trafficking. Girls Be Ambitious was an American Assistance program which granted families $10 for perfect attendance as a bribe in disguise. Grijalva got his students to sponsor a school in Pailin, a town on the Thai border and a prosperous trafficking route. In a place where males received 2.6 years of education and women only 1.7, a school was definitely a miracle. Children read and wrote and learned how to use the Internet. It also allowed rich children to be aware of the poverty issue a s tackle problems with maturity.
THE STORY
Kun Sokkea, a girl of thirteen, was the first to graduate from elementary school from her family, that lived in conditions where poverty thrived. There was no electricity and she didn’t even drink milk. But the middle school was distant and due to the harassing men on the streets she was reluctant to go. Overlake students gave her a bicycle which was taken away from an elder woman and sold. The distance and deadly risks forced Kun to drop out of school and the students realized the difficulty of routing poverty.
English Therapy Workshop: “Hamari Identity” Strength: 7 (Riya, Ranjita, Kabita, Rupa, Bipasha, Susmita and Sumitra) The Experience in my own words : Vasvi Kejriwal (16 yrs)
Hamaari Muskan; English; English workshop
Hamari Muskan works with children of prostituted women aged between 3 and 16 years in the red light area of Bowbazar (Central Kolkata).
Although they were in 5th or 6th grade, none of them could speak a sentence without a single grammatical error. Hence, I was in a dilemma. I didn’t know whether I should focus more on the creative writing or on the grammar. Since grammar is a vital tool when expressing oneself I thought out of 10-11 days I could easily devote 2 days to grammar. So, I tried to brush up their knowledge and revise once again. Since it was an ‘English Therapy’ Workshop it was necessary for me to add creative ingredients that stimulate their own original thinking skills and ideas. But the real task that impeded all of the aims of the workshop was the confidence to speak the language itself. All of the children weren’t able to open up and speak in English because they couldn’t part with Bengali throughout the workshop. But, I feel I really did stir up the confidence in them, which gave me a sense of pride, in its purest and cleanest form. Those girls who used to shy away from saying a single word when they entered my house on the first day, managed to confidently speak in front of a video camera and the rest of the class in English. Yes, I’m not saying they spoke the language impeccably. All I am saying is that I managed to drive and incite the courage within them. I feel I have at least placed them on the right path on which they have a long, long way to reach their destination. Each of them had exercise books and folders filled with colorful worksheets. This was the first time they had actually written their thoughts in English themselves and read it out, they told me. And I knew they all felt proud. Seven faces that had walked into my door, with blank expressions that innocently tried to conceal their fear and mental block for learning the language, had now become seven faces with joyous eyes, uplifted cheeks, well drawn out lips and smiling chests. That moment, as I sat beneath the perfectly warm winter sun, I felt a different sense of satisfaction. So complete and content. I realized how looking at each one of them made me feel ecstatic. I realized that making others lives better by just using my own energy as the instrument was the best thing that could ever have happened to me.
The girls had all showed eagerness to learn. Those ten days, that studio room, surrounded by glass, a doze of sunny warmth, an uproar of laughter here an there and seven pairs of curious and amazed eyes that stared at me along with the vulnerable and fearful voices of girls trying to speak an English word trapped the room with an aura of magical realism.
This chapter focuses on educating girls as a means of cutting down on trafficking. Many a time the efforts of those who wish to empower the girl child have backfired. In 1993, Tom harkin issued a legislation that forbade imports produced by children under fourteen. Girls were fired, and most of them trafficked as someone ‘promises them a great job selling fruit in a distant city’. Although Frank Grijalva, principal of The Overlake School ( Washington ) which consisted of 450 students belonging to well off families, followed the idea generated in Bernard Krisher’s ‘ Rural School Project’ that targeted poverty in Cambodia. It encouraged families to keep girls in school as a method to counter sex trafficking. Girls Be Ambitious was an American Assistance program which granted families $10 for perfect attendance as a bribe in disguise. Grijalva got his students to sponsor a school in Pailin, a town on the Thai border and a prosperous trafficking route. In a place where males received 2.6 years of education and women only 1.7, a school was definitely a miracle. Children read and wrote and learned how to use the Internet. It also allowed rich children to be aware of the poverty issue a s tackle problems with maturity.
Once in a Blue Sun 