Bought, Sold & Trafficked- See The Survivor In A New Light

She may look like a regular teenager, but she is actually a fighter in disguise. Her defiance and strength can be seen in flashes when she lets her guard down. In this very special issue, as we endeavour to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, we got Payal Singh*, a survivor of human trafficking, to play muse to the pioneers of Indian couture, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla.

- Nikita Sawant

It was an ordinary afternoon until I met her. She walked in for the photoshoot, easy as you please, but you could see that she was quietly terrified. Accompanied by her two caretakers, also her confidants, this girl that I was supposed to interview was putting on a brave face. Her petite frame was dressed in jeans and a hoodie, her hair cut short, her manner waif-like and reticent. Nineteen-year-old Payal Singh didn’t look a day over 16.

It seemed incomprehensible to me that this teenager had survived years of abuse and mental anguish.

According to a recent report by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, 19,223 Indian women and children were trafficked in 2016, compared to 15,448 in 2015. Officials in the ministry say the actual number could be higher as many victims were still not registering cases with the police. While speaking to our muse, I discovered that she was sold into the sex trade by her own family. But her winning smile told me that in the end, her spirit had won the battle.

A self-proclaimed tomboy, Singh timidly confessed to not being too keen on fashion. “Ever since I was little, my mother would dress me up in boyish clothes, so I got used to it.” Then she says more enthusiastically, “I also like to fight,” and I couldn’t help but smile at her innocuous, but loaded, remark.

Of trust and deception

It took quite some time for Singh to open up and trust me, and I figured that’s how she must be around new people—always on autopilot, always wary. And who could blame her? After the first two shots, I brought her aside to try to talk to her, and when the initial nervousness faded, she asked me if she could tell me something. “I was around seven or eight years old when my parents passed away. I had to go live with my aunt. She wasn’t a nice person,” she recalls.