posted February 25, 2009 07:29 AM              

Not to mention the rest of the world that keeps poiting to such stories using every bit of leverage to judge us, our scoiety and culture for allowing such abuse of free -will.

quote:

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When A R Rahman walked up to receive the golden Oscar statuette, her

eyes misted over. Preeti Mukherjee knows exactly how it feels.
Four years ago, she
was on the same stage at Los Angeles’ Kodak Theatre, where she, too, had hugged the statuette and cried tears of joy. She hasn’t missed a single awards ceremony since. On Monday, she woke up in the wee hours to catch the live telecast — before starting the day’s grind at Sonagachhi.

Preeti, who goes by the name Puja in Asia’s largest red light district, had got sucked into the sex trade just a year after her brush with the Oscars.

In 2005, Preeti was part of the Oscar-winning documentary Born Into Brothels, directed by Zana Briski. The child cast of nine had cheered so loud that it still rings in her ears. And she still remembers the warmth of the hug Zana gave her as the award was announced.

“It seems like a fairy tale now. I still see it in my dreams. I get goosebumps when I remember the heart-stopping moment when the award was announced. All of us kept screaming with joy. Zana aunty made sure we, too, went along to collect the statuette. My head was swimming, there were so many eyes on us, the deafening applause, so many cameras flashing...” Preeti recalls.

In 2002, when not yet into her teens, Briski and Ross Kauffman chose her in the cast of nine to teach them photography and get a close-up view of their world and that of their mothers. The film was completed in 2004 and went on to win about 20 international awards, capped by the Oscar.

When the film was nominated, the directors flew the kids to Los Angeles. Life was happy for some time and the directors tried their best to rehabilitate the kids. Preeti, who was in high school, and the rest got an offer to stay back in the US and study. Some did. She backed out.

“Aunty (Zana) gave a lot of money by cheque to my mother and asked her to release me, but she was unwilling. I am a girl and an only child and my mother wouldn’t let go. Call it family pressure if you will. It’s quite simple, really,” Preeti said, with a dismissive shrug and a short laugh. “So, you see me here.”

{{ Awesome, it is family to short sell your own daughter into whoredom ?? }}

Abhijit, one of the kids in the film, now studies in New York University. Another girl goes to school there. Preeti is in touch with both of them. Two others are studying at Future Hope, run by a charitable trust. One has got married while another girl, who was with an internationally funded NGO, has disappeared.

Dressed in jeans and a trendy shirt, Preeti could pass for any other collegegoer, until the whiff of smoke and alcohol in her breath hits you. And you look at her eyes — beautiful, aggressive and defiant.

“At this age, I have a flat in Salt Lake, a laptop, costly phones and plenty of money. What do I lack?” she looks you square in the eye. “Zana aunty and I are in touch by email. She was upset that I, too, had joined the trade like my mother, something she wanted to save me from. But this trade has really paid off for me.” A sign of her ‘prosperity’ — she has hired rooms in Prem Kamal, one of the most expensive Sonagachhi buildings.

{{ Ahh, what a great way to upward mobility - then why do us human right activists scream at our govt. for better enforcement and why do international activists condemn us as a Patriarchy when it is these girls who eventually decide they CHOSE such means to a better life ??? }}

Mother Rakhi lives in the opposite building. Preeti pays for her living expenses. Rakhi says she wanted a “normal” life for Preeti. She still has a fading photo of Preeti with the Oscar statuette stuck on a wall. “That is all I have left of her..,” she says, tears in her eyes.

There is no clear answer as to how and why Preeti became a sex worker. Police records say she was rescued from a racket while a minor, sent to a juvenile home from where she was handed to her mother by the state child welfare committee.

Police say she’s now part of a major sex racket that involves extremely powerful people, who will never let her escape into a sunnier world. Behind the I-care-a-damn stare, you can see a fleeting longing in her eyes — a longing for freedom.

---

The first time i conducted my Emotional freedom workshopo with a group of teen girls rescued from a brothel i came back home wanting to bang my head on a wall.

The negativity these girls are exposed to and come to assimilate as normal is unbelievable.

They actually managed to get the centre's Psychiatrist who was qualified to help THEM suicidal.

And i was depressed for weeks and it takes an hour evertime i come back from another workshop to focus on my real emotional set-point that is positive.

Whatever western human rights activists might call us when pointing to the high rates of trafficking and screaming Women's oppression - the fact is that 90 % of the perpetrators who land these girls into prostitution are women.

Girls trust women - neighbours,relatives and friends when they promise them a job in a big city. then find themselves getting drugged in a brothel so they get raped 50 times a day for good business.

And they turn into the girl above who come to love what their profession is doing to them and help bring other girls into the cesspool.

And the Cycle never stops

posted February 25, 2009 05:02 PM            

2 pimps personally tried to talk me into joining his stable, painting himself as a fatherly protector and the glamorous lifestyle. When that failed, one of them sent 2 of his goons (well, one was just a driver) to kidnap me forcibly. That same one later had one of his males give my best friend a joint with something other than pot in it and managed to lead her away after she became too disoriented to resist. At no time did he ever use a female as far as I know of, and none were used in an attempt to ensnare me or anyone else I know.

For the most part, the few females involved will just try to say it's a cool lifestyle or pretend their pimp isn't that bad (as he will torment them hellishly if they don't). The more dangerous ones are those that become so brainwashed and addicted to hard drugs that she will do whatever he says, including in aiding & abetting him out of a sick sense of love (not that she'll share in the profits, other than what her pimp gives her). He doesn't pay her, she's his mind controlled slave. The guy that came after me & got my best friend didn't have a single female who worked with him, not even in the brainwashed way. He WOULD pay bounties for girls, but it was guys (including police) that collected, not females (I never heard of a single one anyway).

And good reason for it to be almost all guys, too: females are considered money to a pimp so females would collect such bounties at their own risk (unless they're particularly old or otherwise considered without value--I suppose a police woman would also be fairly safe, too). This also means that a female typically has to find a guy to take her score to a fence, too, or the fence will take her to sell along with whatever she brings him.

posted February 25, 2009 05:36 PM            

What makes you think everyone else thinks women are perfect and incapable of being 'bad'? Of course they are, they're people! You're not tipping the scales here - you're just bashing. There's no balance in these posts - it's just consistent about how terrible women in particular can be. What kind of a fairytale world do you think people live in, where they all think other people are incapable of doing anything wrong simply because of gender?

If all of us were brainwashed to think that all women were great and strong and can do no wrong, then maybe some of your arguments would demonstrate a different side - but you've gone well past maintaining any kind of balance. If anything, your posts make it seem like you don't like your own gender at all! And as a women, I really don't go around strutting and talking about how important I am because I am a WOMAN dammit and a FEMINIST (that's just insecure silliness)....but you're putting people in a corner and basically just alienating them. And for what? What is your point?
What is the point of all this? It's horrible that people can be this way to each other, period.

posted February 26, 2009 01:59 AM              

quote:

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United Nations Discovers Most Human Traffic Perpetrators are Women
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,491904,00.html

UNITED NATIONS — Surprisingly, the perpetrators behind human trafficking around the world are often women, the U.N. reported Thursday.

Women are the majority of traffickers in almost a third of the 155 nations the U.N. surveyed. They accounted for more than 60 percent of the human trafficking convictions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

For many, human trafficking is a world they had been pulled into themselves.

"Women commit crimes against women, and in many cases the victims become the perpetrators," Antonio Maria Costa, director of the Vienna-based U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said in an interview. "They become the matrons of the business and they make money. It's like a drug addiction."

Most of the world's nations reported some form of "modern slavery" last year involving mainly the sex trade or forced labor.

---

And when i said 90 % it was from personal experience from the contact i have had with the girls asssigned to me in 3 centres numbering to say about 350.

Sunshine - you are the LAST person to talk about getting facts right.

ROFL

I didnt say what i said to paint women in a bad light - it was to rant at the fact that women do the worst possible things to another women - when they are trusted with well being.

I was not talking about pimps but female relatives, neighbours and employment brokers who are pimps in disguise - most girls think they are getting jobs when they transported illegally or legally - they get sold and raped.

ALL brothels in Asia are run by women with brute aid from goons on hire.

The torture meted out on the girls by the women incharge is to be seen to be believed - but then again they are only doing what was done to them.

And they have the advantage of knowing how to make another girl crack up.

Surprisingly enough how does that add up in Titwit math ?

Some women being called perpetrators = VDI calling ALL women BAD ???

As for balance - i was only reporting - not intellectualising . Of course its not balanced . So here...

MOST of the individuals working to save girls from trafficking are women.
-

posted February 26, 2009 06:07 AM              

This was not meant as a rant to pull women down.It was ti vent my dismay at how the girls who are trapped in the quagmire dont even realise it - which makes all efforts by activists like me futile.

It was about my disillusionment with the whole deal - and the fact that where we hope mothers,aunts and friends will help the purpose of women's emancipation in our country the reality so far is a joke on the reverse.

I was ranting at the child who had not only accpeted her situation but defended it.

How do you save someone who doesnt want to b saved ?

I have encountered similar girls who want to escape form the prison of rehb and go back to being prostitutes - so they do drugs and alcohol - that they get hooked into during attempts to get them to release their inhibitions and have sex with the clients.

I am not " selling anything here " - if thats what you are think - on your head be it.

posted February 26, 2009 09:11 AM            

quote:

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ALL brothels in Asia are run by women with brute aid from goons on hire

---

posted February 26, 2009 09:22 AM            

quote:

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How do you save someone who doesnt want to b saved ?

---

You leave them alone and stop being so patronising and superior. You can feel compassion for someone but don't imagine that you know best.

posted February 26, 2009 02:55 PM            

"The Modern Memory Area of
Mind holds memory from conception
to the present. If the Critical Area (critical area being the conscious logical part) of
Mind accepts information, it becomes
a “known” in the Modern Memory.
A “known” is something that has
been learned or experienced before;
you understand it and are comfortable with it. A “known” can be a negative
or a positive. Motivation comes
from “knowns” in Modern Memory.
These positive and negative “knowns”
create your lifescript.".

posted February 26, 2009 03:36 PM              

the statstics of course are unsubstantiated, over dramatized and perhaps a wee bit biased.

posted February 26, 2009 04:48 PM            

quote:

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ALL brothels in Asia are run by women with brute aid from goons on hire.

---

I somehow missed this one on the first read.

Question: why haven't the men muscled their way into this profession? It's profitable, and they rule all the other crimes. So why not rule prostitution as well, just as they do elsewhere?

posted February 26, 2009 10:04 PM            

venus this situation is just like the one where we were talking about charity being bad for your karma (or the recipients) - which i personally think is a cop out for people who don't want to give to "scum";

but there is a difference between giving and FORCING someone to TAKE your gift. one is called generosity, and may be good for the receiver who may be here to learn how to receive...the other is INTERFERENCE with the recipients karma.

you can teach a man to fish but that doesn't mean he will.

not to say you shouldn't keep trying, but detach from the outcome a little. some will take your extended hand and some will walk away. their choice, but you did what you could...