Embers Staff Bipen and Supriya Rescue 12-Year-Old Girl From Trafficking

Our Embers staff faithfully do regular outreach to the poor and displaced in the slums and red-light areas in Mumbai.  This summer, Bipen - Sahasee Embers** Operations Assistant - met an incapacitated mother and her two children on the streets of Turbhe red-light area in Navi Mumbai. The mother was in a critical condition.  While our Embers team looked after two children – Saira*, a 12-year-old girl, and Kian*, an 8-year-old boy – Bipen rushed their mother to a hospital where the doctor found signs of cancer, HIV, and tuberculosis, and informed Bipen she only had 2 or 3 days left to live.  Bipen stayed with her overnight at the hospital, and the next day, a man arrived, claiming to be the woman’s husband.  The man told Bipen he wanted the children back.  Bipen refused, but the man would not relent.

After the second night in the hospital, the woman passed away.  The man came again to demand Bipen to hand over the children as he had already been paid to take Saira to a brothel.  On the same day, strangers started incessantly contacting Bipen, pressuring him to hand over Saira to be sold.  Saira and Kian begged Bipen, “Please don’t take us to him.”

Bipen found a safe place for the children to be sheltered, and our Embers team helped register the children with the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), a government agency that began to search for the children’s relatives.  Our staff admitted Saira, who fell ill, into a hospital, where Supriya, Sahasee Embers Social Worker, stayed by her side to protect her.

Saira tested positive for HIV and tuberculosis, just like her mother.  Our Embers team cared for Saira with love during her tests and treatment, taking shifts overnight at the hospital to ensure Saira did not feel alone.  Saira gradually recovered, and after 10 days, she was discharged from the hospital.  The CWC was able to locate Saira’s grandparents, and now Saira and her little brother Kian are safely living with their grandparents.  They video call Bipen and Supriya regularly and tell them how they are doing, often sharing what a joy it is to know that they are safe out of their potential traffickers’ hands.  “We praise God’s name that through Embers, we could save these two children’s lives,” says Bipen.

Thanks to our faithful staff and generous donors, Saira and Kian are safe.  Their story is one of many in which Embers was able to intervene and protect vulnerable children from being trafficked - but they will not be the last.  Will you continue to help us defend children like Saira from those who seek to take advantage of their vulnerability, and children like Kian who, without intervention, would be orphaned and wandering the streets?

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* Pseudonym.

** Sahasee Embers is Embers International’s program providing shelter, daycare, food, education, health checkups, vocational training, and legal aid to women and children in the red-light area of Navi Mumbai.