Sunita Krishna “I have not chosen to be a victim, I have chosen to be a survivor” 11.06.2018

Co-founder of “Prjuvala” Sunita Krishna is one of three devotees from India this year for the Aurora Award. The group’s rape rights activist, however, later turned the pain into a source of strength and inspiration to save, rehabilitate, and reintegrate the society of victims of sexual trafficking and forced prostitution by creating an organization that has had a positive impact on the lives of more than 17,800 women and children. She was awarded awards by organizations that are struggling against gender inequality, sexual abuse and trafficking in India.

On the eve of the Aurora 2018 awards, Sunita Krishnan was interviewed by President and CEO of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans, as well as interviewed by Public Television of Armenia.

– You are working to save trafficked women, their children, I know you do not love the past, but I’ll ask you to tell a little about your heroic experience that you had years ago.

– I was able to do things for which many say they are heroic. I do not want to concentrate on group rape, but about what changed me, what happened after that incident. I saw the exclusion that I has not seen from my birthday to the age of fifteen, as before that I had been the best example of my community, and then I became an unqualified, worthless human being and realized that it was unfair.

– Your organization saves, reintegrates, protects interests, can you list several achievements that you have recorded?

 – I’ll mark three main achievements: we have managed to prevent tens of thousands of children from engaging in sex trafficking. It’s also important that today there are a lot of people beside me who tell the whole world, there is a child who is threatened by such violence, it seems to me that this network is of great importance.

For centuries people have been convinced that this is a necessary evil. This is something that you cannot deny, it is difficult to restore the dignity of those people; people have not tried to show that it is possible to save them from exploitation, to give new powers, to make leaders.

• Will you tell a few words about your reintegration program? People come in a difficult situation, how can you help them to stand up, to come back to their community?
• We need to understand who they are, with whom I work. A 20-year-old child living in a so-called public home, serves at least ten people a day, the most realistic number is 20-50. That is to say, in about five years, about 18,000 men are raping her every day, we save her five years later, and she comes to us in a state that she does not trust humanity anymore – the normal condition for her is to be exploited, we make it clear that it is normal that you are not exploited.

• How many women have you helped during these years?

• You know, I did not like this question, I do not consider it as an achievement, probably none of the people sitting here know what I did not do: when I go to Delhi or other cities, may I take a hundred girls and come, but when I look back I see six thousand. According to official data, more than three million women and children are in sexual slavery in India. I cannot change the whole world, but at least I change the lives of every one of these people, the inner world.

Full text in Armenian