APNE AAP WOMEN WORLDWIDE

Our vision is to create a world in which no girl or woman is bought or sold. Our mission is to end sex-trafficking. Our Goal is to break the cycle of inter-generational prostitution by making sure: 1. Every vulnerable child in a red-light area, born in a brothel or from a nomadic groups labeled as a criminal tribe is in school.
2. Every woman victimised by sex-trafficking finds and exit pathway to freedom with food, livelihood, housing and bank linkages.
3. Equip young adults with skills, tools and knowledge to be able stand up to traffickers. We want them to know they have a self worth defending.

We are inspired by the twin Gandhian principles of : Ahimsa (non-violence) - Resisting violence to the self and to the other. Antodaya (upliftment of the last woman/girl) - Antodaya's last person is the prostituted girl or woman.

We break the cycle of inter-generational prostitution by educating the most vulnerable girls from nomadic groups trapped in inter-generational prostitution and red-light areas.

We enroll women to form a Mandala (circle), bring them to our community centre, start a classroom for their children and train them to gain the ten assets of:
a) a safe space, b) education, c) self-confidence, d) political knowledge, e) government IDs, f) government welfare like food, housing and health care, g) legal support, h) savings and loans, i) income-generating skills and the j) friends in the big Apne Aap Mandala ( self-action circle).

Each step reduces vulnerability and creates an exit pathway out of prostitution.

Based on learnings and insights from survivors we prepare tools, white papers and reccommendations for governments, foundations and international bodies like the United Nations and the US govt's Trafficking in Persons office. With their help we create better laws and policies and get the tools and knowledge out to young people in America and worldwide.

We have been in operation since 2001. Our work has directly helped more than twenty thousand women and girls exit prostitution sytems and millions more through the laws and policies that we contributed to. We testified in Indian Parliament for the passage of the Indian trafficking law and in US Senate for the passage of the Trafficking Victim Protection Act. We spoke 42 times in the UN, representing survivor voices and contributed to the establishment of a Trafficking Fund for Survivors and in the passage of the UN Protocol.

During Covid we addressed the most basic needs of the vulnerable population of food, medicine and continued online education. We distributed more than 15 million meals to over 500,000 women and children in red-light areas across India and ensure that children got computers and wi-fi connection to study. We also contribuuted to highlight the vulnerability of children to UNWomen and OSCE by working on a survey with reccommendations for helping children and women transition out of a Covid world.

We were able to do this because we have decades of knowledge and experience and a committed staff doing the grassroots work in India and the policy work in US. We have established a number of partnerships and collaborations over the years that add to our capacity to share and scale up our work.

Based on our track record in impacting individual lives of the most marginalized and vulnerable girls, as well as mentoring more than 200 students to understand and combating human trafficking, we feel we can do more .

During Covid we addressed the most basic needs of the vulnerable population of food, medicine and continued online education. We distributed more than 15 million meals to over 500,000 women and children in red-light areas across India and ensure that children got computers and wi-fi connection to study. We also contribuuted to highlight the vulnerability of children to UN Women and OSCE by working on a survey with reccommendations for helping children and women transition out of a Covid world.

Our organization has helped more than 20,000 women and their family members exit systems of prostitution, educated more than a thousand children through school and college, and put over a 100 traffickers in jail. We have also been instrumental in the passage of Section 370 I.P.C India's first anti-trafficking law, as well as the first life imprisonment of a trafficker. Our 10 Asset approach is being replicated and scaled up by others.

We also contributed to the passage of the UN Protocol, the US law against Trafficking and the establishment of the Trafficking Fund for Survivors.
Our progress is easily measured girl by girl and law by law.