ON THEIR OWN TERMS

A collective trafficking launched by a sex survivor is helping thousands of others learn about their rights and carve a better life

- SONALI ACHARJEE

In 2015, when 15-year-old Piu Mondol was rescued from a sex trafficking racket in West Bengal, the usual refuge for survivors was a shelter home, where, if one was lucky, some NGO would come along and help them cope with life. However, for most, things rarely changed. There was no one to hear them, no one to offer solace, and, after a childhood spent grappling with betrayal, no one to trust.

Mondol knew these realities all too well. “Nobody knows better what survivors need than survivors themselves,” she says. And so, Mondol, along with a few other survivors, started the Indian Leadership Forum Against Trafficking (ILFAT) in 2015. Located in Bengal’s Sunderbans district, the collective—the only one by survivors and for survivors in India—today has a 5,000 member-strong team. “To have somebody say to you when you have been rescued, ‘I know what you’ve gone through, I have gone through the same myself and this is how you can find support and recover,’ is an important part of recovery,” says Mondol.