Sunitha Krishnan - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Sunitha Krishnan, born in 1972, is an Indian social activist and chief functionary and co-founder of Prajwala

Prajwala

Prajwala is an non-governmental organization in Hyderabad, India, opposed to forced prostitution and sex trafficking. It works to prevent a second generation of sex workers by educating brothel children for careers in carpentry, welding, printing and stationery work, wooden and steel furniture...

, an institution that assists trafficked women and girls in finding shelter. The organization also helps pay for the education of five thousand children infected with HIV/AIDS in Hyderabad. Prajwala’s “second-generation” prevention program operates in 17 transition centers and has served thousands of children of prostituted mothers. The NGO’s strategy is to remove women from brothels by giving their children education and career opportunities. Krishnan and her staff train survivors in carpentry, welding, printing, masonry and housekeeping.

Early life

Born in Bangalore, she did her Ph.D. (Social Work), MSW (Psychiatric Social Work) and B.Sc. (Environmental Science).

Career

Sunitha Krishnan works in the areas of as anti-human trafficking

Human trafficking

Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...

, psychiatric rehabilitation

Psychiatric rehabilitation

Psychiatric rehabilitation, also known as psychosocial rehabilitation, and usually simplified to psych rehab, is the process of restoration of community functioning and well-being of an individual who has a psychiatric disability...

and social policy

Social policy

Social policy primarily refers to guidelines, principles, legislation and activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare. Thus, social policy is that part of public policy that has to do with social issues...

. She was invited to speak at TEDIndia 2009 at Infosys Campus, Mysore.

"She brought the house down in Mysore today.(TED Video) And by that, I mean that she broke hearts and moved people to action. The audience listened painfully to some of the stories of the more than 3,200 girls she has rescued, girls who had endured unimaginable torture and yet, somehow, nevertheless found the will to heal and thrive. She spoke of the need for everyone to overcome silence about the phenomenon of human trafficking, the modern form of slavery, and for us not only to offer our love and compassion to its victims, but to be willing to accept them in our communities. She admitted that rescuing girls is never a very safe business, sharing that she can no longer hear out of her right ear, and that she has been beaten up during interventions more than a dozen times. Her strong voice and powerful body language ensured that no one could claim to have misunderstood her points." — The Shambhala Sun Report, TED 2009

Awards and honours

Global Leadership Award, 2011
Vanitha Women of the Year 2009
Real Hero Award, 2008, awarded by Reliance Industries Limited and CNN-IBN network. "IBN 7 & CNN-IBN salute the 'real heroes' of our nation"
Perdita Houston International Award for Human Rights, 2007, awarded by United Nations Association of the National Capital, Washington, DC
Stree Shakti Puraskar, Government of India Women's Day awards announced, The Hindu

Quotes

"Each minute counts. Sometimes, we get information about minor girls, some as young as three, and by the time, we marshal the man power and police protection to mount a rescue operation, it would be too late to prevent the child from being sold into the flesh trade."
"I have never let obstacles of any kind stop me from helping people from less privileged strata of society; something I used to do as a school student. In those days, I used to teach children in my neighbourhood. But, in my teens, when I was living with my parents Raju Krishnan and Nalini Krishnan in Bangalore, my attention turned towards women who were sexually exploited."
"I have this deep-rooted belief that my life is a providence by itself, and God has brought me in this world to do what I'm doing, and God will allow me to stay in this world so long as he believes that my mission is not done, and therefore I do believe that the day God believes that my work is done, I'll be killed or I'll die naturally, or whichever way that is possible."
"There's so much desensitization that has happened, so much normalization of exploitation that has happened, so much internalization of trauma that has happened."

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.