#62/100 in #100extraordinarywomen
She had grown up in tea gardens where her father was an employee and had as a child witnessed many children going missing from tea gardens. These incidences created awareness of human trafficking racket rampant in Darjeeling. Her close association with social activists at college gave her the foundation for becoming a full-time social activist in future. She studied at the Darjeeling Government College, and a senior there told her how he had met a woman by the name of Anuradha Koirala, who was a huge anti-sex trafficking activist in Nepal. She remembered Anuradha mentioning once that she often rescued girls from the Bengal area, but because they were from another country, she was limited in how she could help them. While in college itself and inspired by Anuradha Koirala, she decided to take action, and started an organization called Kanchanjunga Uddhar Kendra in 2004 with the help of friends and family. Word spread quickly throughout the community about what they were doing an many more parents started to come to Rangu reporting their children were going missing.
The determination is fine, but every activity demands financial stability. Rangu worked out a model of dairy farming to fund her activities. For which she borrowed savings of her parents and also took 1 lakh INR as the bank loan. Through this diary, she managed to sustain her missions needs. But later on, she was so busy with her social activist role that she couldn’t concentrate on farming. So she sold off all the cows and invested that money for this social cause. In this process, she had to cross several obstacles, face life threats, ignore the offer of bribes in the form of a huge sum of money to stop her fight against these mafias. Also on many occasions, she had to spend lots of money from her pocket to rescue these victims.
First Rescue operation from Rangu was a small girl who was hired by a tout as a maid and sent to Delhi. When the parents of the girl couldn’t know whereabouts of their daughter for nearly one year, they approached Rangu to trace her. Rangu successfully traced the girl and she was in a locality near Rohini area of Delhi in such a pathetic condition that she was made to sleep with a dog in its kennel and had to work marathon hours without any breaks. This gave confidence to Rangu to take up more such cases and save children from such mafias. Another rescue operation she often recalls is of 2005, where she went to Pune in search of two missing girls from Darjeeling and succeeded in nailing down a brothel despite no proper backup. She had an expectation of saving two girls but for her surprise, there were six girls pleading to get them out of that hell. This success she rates as her best effort.
A lot of their information came from tips, and with the help of local police and various organizations, Rangu and her team were able to rescue some of the victims caught in this trade. However, one of the most frustrating aspects of her work since beginning 12 years ago is that they have had no understanding or help from the local government, which means they rely on donations and even use their own money to keep this important mission going. Rangu says her organization is not only focused on helping the victims re-integrate into life after being rescued, but also spreading awareness in order to prevent it from happening to others.
“Once the children are rescued we keep them with us till all the legal formalities are completed, and till the child is given proper counseling. So we stay with a case till the missing children are properly repatriated with their family. Once a child is rescued from somewhere, that child is at her/his most vulnerable stage… by the time we have rescued them, their self-esteem, their will to live is already lost. So these children and youths need all the help and support that they can get,” she said.
Their efforts, despite the lack of financial help from the government, has not been without success. “In the past 11 years, Kanchanjunga Uddhar Kendra has rescued over 600 children from brothels of Pune, Mumbai, Bihar, Kolkata, Siliguri, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Haryana, and also child traffickers and bonded labour situations from almost all the north Indian states. Though some of the children we have rescued have been male, almost 95% of the children we rescue are female. Just goes on to show how vulnerable our girls are,” she said.
She has received death threats, pressure to drop her cases in court and even physical abuse from traffickers who she is actively working against every day, but counts her faith in God as a reason for not giving up despite the danger. “I was threatened by goons and mafia on several occasions and even lured with handsome sums of money, but my aim and vision is to free women from their bondage. It would be unwise for me to say that I do not fear for my safety, however, I believe that since God showed which path to walk on, God will take care of my safety as well. Having said that [I get] threats on an almost every day basis,” she said, but also adds this is not the biggest threat to her work, the indifference and ignorance from the government is.
Rangu has already saved more than 8000 children and grown up girls from these rackets and ended their lives as sex slaves. Till date, she has saved over 20,000 children and girls (under 18 years of age) from getting trafficked along the Nepal border and different parts of North East India. These girls and children are usually trafficked from North Bengal, Assam, Sikkim, and Nepal to get them sold for mainly as sex slaves or bonded labors. She has always told that fighting for the cause of children and women gives her immense satisfaction. She often recalls one particular rescue operation of 2005, where she went to Pune in search of two missing girls from Darjeeling and succeeded in nailing down a brothel despite no proper backup. She had an expectation of saving two girls but for her surprise, there were six girls pleading to get them out of that hell. This success she rates as her best effort.
Obviously, it requires a lot of courage to become an activist against crime like trafficking, and Rangu Souriya has exhibited that by overcoming various obstacles. Rightly she has been recognized with numerous awards; she has nearly 20 awards of recognition from various organizations. Prominent among them are Godfrey Phillips Social Bravery Award (The year 2011) and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry’s Women Achievers’ Award (The year 2009). She has received Prestigious 100 Women Awards given by President of India for the year 2016.
When asked how she feels about being a woman in her line of work, Rangu says she is proud and believes her feminine perspective enables her to sympathize with the victims of this grave injustice. “As history is our witness, there is nothing that woman cannot do… we can do what any man does, and in a better way… I think the inner interest, courage, bravery and sense of responsibility towards my society is perhaps because I am a woman. To be honest, I am thankful that I am a Woman,” she said.
Source: Google search.
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