Guria India Blog

On March 26th, Guria rescued 8 enslaved labourers from a brick kiln in Jaunpur district of Uttar Pradesh!

Following Guria’s latest Public Interest Litigation, the High Court issued a notice PERSONALLY to the Principal Secretary of Uttar Pradesh, asking him to file an affidavit explaining whether or not a victim compensation fund had been created! Guria had presented findings before the court that in all districts of Uttar Pradesh, NO victims of human trafficking are receiving ANY compensation… even though Rule 7 of the POCSO act says that a compensation fund MUST be created and dispersed to victims of human trafficking! We are one step closer to getting trafficking laws to actually be enforced.

On March 19th, Guria rescued 20 bonded laborers from a b rick kiln in Azarmgarh district of Uttar Pradesh.  This takes our total of rescued people in 2015 to 274! The rescue operation made the newspaper:

March 18th  was an amazing day. 43 schools around the globe simultaneously put on art exhibits in 13 different countries!  The FREEDOM NOW Global Art Exchange & Exhibit was truly a worldwide movement of awareness, creativity, and solidarity.  And the exhibit at Guria was a massive success! The walls of our education center in the Varanasi red light area were FILLED with art. In the early afternoon, Guria was filled with children milling about, looking at the art—our children, children from nearby schools, children from foreign countries whose schools were also participating thousands of miles away. When the visitors left, our children videochatted with students across the globe in Senegal, Africa at SOS Dakar! The children asked each other questions, sang songs, and swapped some dance moves! Art really does have the power to transcend borders, and children really do have the power to change the world. Look out...

Only two days before the FREEDOM NOW Global Art Exchange & Exhibit on March 18th! The whole team is staying late at the office to get all the paintings ready. It’s 11:20 pm and we are laughing and working our butts off! MARCH 18TH IS GOING TO BE A GLOBAL EVENT OF ART, AWARENESS, AND SOLIDARITY! Students from 45 schools in Angola, Brazil, China, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Japan, Montenegro, Romania, Senegal, South Africa, Switzerland, and the United States, have all learned about human trafficking, created art, shared that art with each other, and will hold art exhibits in their schools on March 18th containing student art about human trafficking from around the world! Check out www.freedomnowcampaign.org  to learn more and see all the art!

BREAKING NEWS: On March 13th, Guria rescued 26 bonded labourers from slavery in a brick kiln in Jaunpur district! Also, if anyone has information about instances of human trafficking and slavery, please let us know if we can be of any help.

Guria rescued 53 PEOPLE from SLAVERY in a brick kiln in Varanasi on March 11th.  Guria hosted them at our office to recover before they could return home, and here are some pictures of them cooking! (We cannot show their faces.) We have an ambitious goal to rescue 1000 victims of human trafficking in 2015. So far this year we have rescued 253! However, we are running into a financial crisis . Daily, new people (escaped bonded labourers, family members of the ensl aved, etc) are arriving at Guria asking for rescue operations! We are not the sort of organization that will turn down these people, so the team is working around the clock and we are in *serious* need of donations to fund our growing number of rescue operations. Please visit  https://www.justgiving.com/guriauk  to give whatever you can--your money is truly saving victims of modern-day slavery!

Guria held a massive rally in Varanasi with over 15,000 women in attendance from Varanasi, Jaunpur, Ghazipur, Mau, and Azamghar. The rally was focused on child trafficking, child prostitution, and rape. Hundreds of rescued victims came with their families, and shared their stories with the crowd. The survivors talked about the terrible exploitation they endured at the hands of traffickers, brothel keepers, and brick kiln owners. They also shar ed the struggles and humiliation they faced trying to get help from police and the administration. The survivors also spoke out against unsafe migration and shared with fellow women the necessary precautions to take to prevent trafficking. We will never be silent about the police misconduct that allows women, children, and men, to be enslaved. During the rally we also discusses Guria’s report 100 Cases of Human Trafficking, Child Prostitution, and Rape, which you can read here:  https://docs.google.com/…/1g0gxKodI3- CcZS...

On Friday 27th February, Guria rescued 37 bonded laborers—including 16 children and one pregnant woman—from a brick kiln in the Allahabad District of Uttar Pradesh state. These enslaved people were migrant workers from states surrounding Uttar Pradesh who were entrapped by the brick kiln owner, were forced to do grueling labor without pay, and were not allowed to leave. As more and more rescued survivors of human trafficking reach their home villages, word is  spreading about Guria throughout rural communities all over Northern India. More and more people show up at Guria’s doorstep every week, telling stories of their family and loved ones who are trapped in all forms of slavery—including sex slavery. They are from far away, bravely leaving their home villages to reach the Guria office and ask for help to rescue their families from slavery. Many of these people have been trying to get someone to help their enslaved families for years, but as no one listens to them or believes ...

Guria was prominently featured in Piers Moore Ede’s new book: Kaleidoscope City – A Year in Varanasi. Quote from Piers: “there is a chapter in there about Guria which many people are telling me is the most powerful part of the book.” Piers Moore Ede is from the U.K. and spent a year in Varanasi while detailing his life-changing experiences. Congratulations Piers, and look out for his book in bookstores near you!

Get ready for March 18th, 2015. PRESENTING… The FREEDOM NOW Global Art Exchange & Exhibit! Guria is orchestrating a worldwide day of art and awareness on March 18th with hundreds of students around the world, from schools in countries including Indonesia, Brazil, China, Japan, Peru, Angola, South Africa, Switzerland, Montenegro, the United States, and India! JOIN US! So many of us would love to help fight human trafficking but DON’T KNOW HOW…Here’s an easy, fun, and MEANINGFUL way to get involved! Participation for a school is simple: 1) Educate students about human trafficking 2) Create art about human trafficking 3) Exchange art with other students on Guria’s exchange website 4) Put on a student art exhibit in their respective community that contains a mix of student art from all over the world! March 18th—A GLOBAL PHENOMENON! Guria intern Chase Hommeyer was recently featured on CNN’s homepage, and she is working with other CNN featurees ...