Early Activism
It was important to me even as a child to recognize what is right and what is wrong. It was intolerable for me to see anyone in a disadvantaged position. That is the way I was. I think my birth itself was a providence because I don’t come from a family which has any human rights association. I come from a lower-middle class family where just economic survival itself is a big thing. For them it was just about surviving, allowing their families to survive. I was a different child, because in that kind of mostly humble background to be constantly thinking of others was something of a novelty. Even for my family.
As a child, I was naturally drawn to other children from poorer background then me. At the age of 8 I started teaching dance to children who are special, children with special needs, such as mentally challenged. By the age of 12 I was a hard-core activist with a literacy campaign under my belt, having started a small school for children in slums.
In the beginning my family and my parents were proud of me and extremely happy because I was a very popular child everybody loved. I was a kind of role model for other families. I was a high-achiever, I used to be very good in school, I used to be very active. For the first few years of my life I think my parents and my family was super proud of me, but I don’t think my siblings were because of the competition. Anywhere they’d go they were compared to me – why can’t you be more like Sunitha? Of course, things did change later.
Sunitha Krishnan in Armenia
The Gang-Rape that Changed Everything
I would not describe it as a drastic experience. I would rather describe it as a transformative experience because suddenly my life changed. I was pure and then I went down, in terms of becoming the most cursed human being and the most dishonored person. Everything I had been I was no longer. I saw another world, where my family cursed my existence and parents would tell their children not to talk to me because I would be a bad influence.
I think that was an extraordinary transformation because that’s when my eyes opened to the world of reality. That is when my gods were giving me signs of where I should be and who I should be with. I was accused of a crime I didn’t commit, I was blamed for something I had never done, I was shamed and made to feel guilty for something I was not responsible for. All that triggered an anger that drove me then and still drives me today.
In the last 27 years that anger has only grown because what was true then is still true today. I see it around me. I see women and children being sold into prostitution and sex slavery, raped and defiled and being blamed for what they are going through. It’s never like there is somebody who is doing it and is wrong, but “why did she go there, oh she is doing this because she wants an easy way out.” Every time it is about her and not about them doing it to her.
What the Future Holds
I am a human rights activist. I fight against human trafficking in India and I founded one the largest organization in the world called Prajwala. We are involved in a whole range of work from prevention to rescue, to rehabilitation, to reintegration and advocacy for issues related to human trafficking, especially issues relating to sex trafficking.
I think it was one of the most humbling moments for me to be recognized as a humanitarian by the Aurora Prize. Just a nomination is such an honor and it humbles me, especially knowing that it is in memory of Armenian Genocide victims. It is an extraordinary gesture of giving, an action that humbles me, inspires me and strengthens me – the fact that my name is even remotely connected to the Aurora Prize is so rejuvenating.
I have never looked into the future. I have lived for the moment. It is important for me at that moment to be doing what I am doing. I did not think then that I would be nominated for the Aurora Prize or that I’d be running a big organization like this. I did not plan for it and I did not strategically look into that, it has evolved as the demand in the situation evolved. What is more important for me is what I do now for the moment and ensure that I am reaching out.
Sunitha Krishnan at 2018 Aurora Trilogy
Living in Danger
The role, the mission, the work that I chose does not allow you to think of tomorrow because you could be killed today. What is important is to make the best of today because you could never be sure you’ll have a tomorrow at all. I have personally been assaulted 17 times, and every time that happens could be the last time. No matter how many days I live, no matter how many years I live, I want to live for this cause.
When you make a choice to get into a mission of this kind, you also make a choice to take on these professional hazards. When I made a choice to fight organized crime, I obviously made a choice to be threatened, beaten up and physically assaulted. If someone joins the army to fight for their nation they obviously take on the challenge of possibly getting killed. When people make the choice to be a humanitarian or a human rights activist, there are things that come with that. If you are fighting criminals and the mafia, they are not going to hug you and say that you are doing a good job.
I think the real challenge to me is not the threats I get because that I expect. The real challenge is the community and their attitude, the way they reject victims. I don’t mind getting killed by the mafia, but I feel bad that a child I have rescued, that girl I have rescued from a world of slavery gets rejected by society – just because she was in that hell. That is difficult for me and everyday it becomes a challenge for me to cope.
Victim-Blaming Has to Stop
Everywhere in the world it’s the same: victims of sex crimes and sex slavery are constantly blamed for the crime they have not committed, and the society – not just the Indian society, but the global community – sees women as somebody you can buy and sell, as a commodity, as a sex object. When it comes to sex slavery and sex trafficking, people don’t like to think of it as organized crime. They don’t think that people are conspiring and spotting socially and economically vulnerably people to trap them and take them into a world of exploitation.
If we want change, we need to engage with our men and boys. Sex slavery and sex trafficking is not about women – it is about the attitude of men. If there is a three-year-old child getting sold to a brothel in India, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos or anywhere else in the world, it means that somebody wants to buy a three-year-old for sex. That demand is something we need to start addressing. We need to start looking at how we bring up our sons, how are we’re bringing up the men in our society. To me that is where the answer lies. It is not so much about the governments, it must start in the families.
2018 Aurora Humanitarians Tomás González Castillo, Sunitha Krishnan and Kyaw Hla Aung
Rebuilding Shattered Lives
This doesn’t happen overnight. It requires a lot of skills, a whole lot of strategies and a whole lot of things happening in a therapeutic environment. It starts with removing the person from the world of exploitation, bringing them into a safe space and then slowly helping that person to see how she was exploited, because most of the time that person believes that it was all her fault. People start normalizing the experience of being exploited, believing that they “asked for it”.
The journey of being a survivor is a lifelong one, it’s not about a few days. I am a survivor, and every day I survive. It takes a lifetime to process and absolve the multiple layers of experiences that you were subjected to when you were exploited. It can’t be done in a day. That is why it is so important to prevent this, because once it is done, there is so much damage that needs to be healed and undone. That’s what we do in Prajwala, and I can’t say that we are 100% successful. We are just about 85% successful, and it breaks my heart to know that I fail in 15% of the cases.
What It Takes to Fight for Others
Goodwill is not the only thing that can help you here. Goodwill and a passion for something like this is a starting point, but what helps you is a set of skills, not just a feeling of “oh, I’m overwhelmed with this and I want to do something.” One of the skills you need to be equipped with is to understand the absolute brutality of humanity. Seeing it every day, hearing it, experiencing it, you need to have the skill to cope with that. You must have a lot of passion, empathy, patience, perseverance, tenacity but all that must be combined with professionalism.
One minute you will be dealing with a three-year-old child and the other you will be dealing with a thirty-year-old woman. The woman may spit in your face and tell you “I don’t need you, I don’t need your compassion, I don’t need your empathy, I hate you!” You need to learn to deal with that rejection and hostility. There are things that will make you look at the world around you in horror and ask yourself how a human being can do that. So, to deal with this and to keep your humanity, that is a skill people need to do with what we are doing.
Keeping Your Faith in Humanity
I’m blessed because I’ve met some amazing men in my life. My father is an amazing man who gave me the freedom to do what I wanted when I was young. Prajwala co-founder, late Brother Jose Vetticatil, was an amazing man. My husband Rajesh Touchriver, a filmmaker, is one of the most real men I have met. I meet amazing men who restore my faith in humanity and I have come to realize that not all men are abusers.
There are wonderful men, that is why the real men of the world need to speak up, to stand up and say that not all men are abusive, that it does not give us power to subjugate a woman or a child, it does not make us feel manly to abuse a person.
A Vow to Raise Awareness
Every year I walk barefoot for three months for the thousands of young victims who have been freed from slavery and as a reminder about the millions who are still in slavery. I walk barefoot across the world when I travel. It is also a way for me to connect with Mother Earth and get her strength inside of me, and a time of reflection upon what I have done and what I need to do.
It is a time of rejuvenation. I get all the strength for the next nine months that I need to work. These three months are my recharge time.