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Safety from violence and abuse
“We help rescue and rehabilitation of girls at Prajwala who are trafficked and sold to brothels. More than 70 per cent of these girls have HIV. We treat and give them confidence and teach them life skills to be financially independent. No government support or sponsor for any of these initiatives is a major issue,” she says.
As part of their efforts towards sensitising parents and children about girl-child abuse, NGO Prajwala conducts awareness sessions around the city. Speaking to The Hans India, leading gynaecologist Dr Balamba shares, “We have adolescent clinics where we organise awareness sessions. Children are educated about good touch and bad touch and not to be worried in such situations but, inform their parents. Parents are educated about being more sensitive and vigilant and inform the teachers and police in such a situation.”
“We help rescue and rehabilitation of girls at Prajwala who are trafficked and sold to brothels. More than 70 per cent of these girls have HIV. We treat and give them confidence and teach them life skills to be financially independent. No government support or sponsor for any of these initiatives is a major issue,” she says.
Safety from violence and abuse forms a big part of their curriculum that is done in two stages. “The first step is training girls on recognising and reacting to abuse,” says the doctor.
“In this, campers learn about the different types of violence - physical, emotional, verbal and sexual. They also learn to recognize unsafe touch and how it is different from safe touch. Campers learn about different strategies to decrease the risk of abuse/violence, how to react to inappropriate touching/sexual behaviour, and enforce their right to be safe,” she adds.
“At this session, girls are also taught how to get away from unsafe situations, find their support systems and they get a list of emergency phone numbers,” she says. “The other element is that we train girls on learning about their rights pertaining to, among other things, safety from abuse. We tell them about the different levels of organizations or agencies that they can approach,” she concludes.
By Aneri Shah
