The South 24 Parganas district has the second highest number of trafficking cases in West Bengal. Due to the climatic conditions, especially the severe cyclones during the rainy season and increasing salinization of the agricultural land, unemployment and poverty are constantly rising. The per capita income of South 24 Parganas is considerably below the national average. Due to these factors and the remoteness of the project area, the inhabitants of South 24 Parganas are particularly vulnerable to becoming victims of human trafficking.
Our local partner organisation Kolkata Sanved (Bengali for "empathy") was officially founded in 2004 by a social worker and four survivors of human trafficking. The original focus of the organisation was on the use of dance and movement therapy for the rehabilitation of survivors of gender-based violence. Now Kolkata Sanved also offers programmes for children and young people at risk to strengthen and promote their self-confidence and social participation.
Strengthening women's participation and empowerment
In the project with our partner organisation Kolkata Sanved, we use dance and movement therapy to free victims of sexual abuse and human trafficking from their traumas. In this way, they learn to re-establish a new relationship with themselves and the surrounding social world. The focus is also on girls who live in low-income families and who are at increased risk of human trafficking. Through therapy, participants are encouraged to gain control over their bodies and emotions, to express their opinions and exercise their rights. By strengthening these skills, participants are encouraged to actively and independently develop mechanisms to protect themselves from human trafficking. Part of the project is therefore also to sensitise young people to involve members of the community in education programmes to prevent human trafficking. In this way, a total of at least 320 community members will be reached. Thematic network groups continue to provide a platform for exchange with stakeholders and members of the government to discuss their concerns and possible preventive measures.
April supplement 2023
The project was successfully completed at the end of 2022. A total of 111 adolescent girls participated in the sessions of the well-being clubs initiated by the project. The well-being clubs provide a safe space for adolescent girls to share ideas about prevention of trafficking, gender-based violence, and child marriage. In all four well-being clubs, the members developed posters with awareness-raising messages and placed them in strategic locations in the communities, reaching approximately 700 community members. By acquiring knowledge on human trafficking, the community is now able to respond to the risks of human trafficking. Several actions to address child marriages in the project communities also took place at the initiative of the members of the well-being clubs.
Projectinfo
| Project | Sampoornata Well-being Club: a pilot model initiative to create trafficking resilient communities using DMT |
|---|---|
| Place/Region | The project's primary working area is the South 24 Parganas district of the Indian state of West Bengal. The administrative unit Kakdwip (subdivision) with the two subunits Kakdwip and Sagar (block) was selected for direct project implementation. Sev |
| Partner | Kolkata Sanved |
| Target group | The direct target group of the project includes young, adolescent girls who are considered particularly at risk of becoming victims of trafficking in human beings. Due to the contact and cooperation with the young adolescent women, the stakeholders ( |
| Activities |
|
| Duration | 2020 - 2022 |
| Budget | 130.756 Euro |
| Sponsor | BMZ Sozialstrukturförderung |
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