Antislavery Usable Past

Anita C

2002 (Narrative date)

The Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that on any given day there were nearly 8 million people living in modern slavery in India. The GSI 2018 reports an emerging trend in northeast India where organised trafficking syndicates operate along the open and unmanned international borders, duping or coercing young girls seeking employment outside their local area in to forced sexual exploitation. Many women and girls are lured with the promise of a good job but then forced in to sex work, with a 'conditioning' period involving violence, threats, debt bondage and rape.

Anita was 13 years old when she was sold in to a brothel in Barsial. After escaping the brothel and disappearing, Anita was found by her sister Monika who took her to Sonagatchi (India’s largest red-light district). Monika forced Anita to work for her for 3 years.

I come from a village in Bagerhat. We are three sisters and have no brothers. I am the youngest. My father is a carpenter and has no land. At the age of 13, I was sold in a brothel in Barisal by the niece of the woman who sold my sister Monika to Sonagatchi. Monika came to visit the village soon afterwards and heard that I had disappeared. She looked for me and she found me. A shalish was held. The matbors said that I had become spoiled and I could not stay in the village. So, my sister took me to Sonagatchi. For 3 years, I worked for her as a tsukri. Then I quarreled with her because she was keeping all my income. I left and I worked as an adiya. Then I had a babu and set up independently.

[…]

My sister, she goes home. She is well off. She has TV, refrigerator. She laughs and she is happy. But how could I visit? How could I go empty-handed? How could I make them happy with my problems?

Narrative located in the report ‘Beyond Boundaries: A Critical Look at Women Labour Migration and the Trafficking Within’ by Thérèse Blanchet provided courtesy of The Child Protection Hub

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VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: rightslab@nottingham.ac.uk. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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