Aimed at rehabilitating crisis-stricken survivors of human trafficking, women and girls who have faced the stigma of sex trade and travails of bonded labor, discrimination and social taboo, Anudip’s pioneering BEST (Building Entrepreneurs to Stop Trafficking) initiative readies students for viable and respectable professions. The BEST program counsels, mentors and skills groups of women and girls rescued after being trafficked (sometimes multiple times) in Murshidabad district of West Bengal to become digitally literate and develop entrepreneurial proficiencies for crowdsourced tasks in the gig economy.

WHY MURSHIDABAD?

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that West Bengal ranks among the 8 Indian states that supply the most trafficked women and girls owing to a shared porous border of 2,217 kilometers with Bangladesh, and thus often serves as a transit location for thousands of Bangladeshi women who are trafficked into India each year. Sex trafficking is known to be particularly prevalent in Murshidabad district of West Bengal, due to its close vicinity to the Bangladesh border. Often attributed to the lack of available economic opportunities in the region, migration is common leaving families vulnerable to trafficking. The district has a population of 7.1 million, with a 70% Muslim population, and an average literacy rate of 67.53%.

OUR APPROACH:

The BEST program offers three-months training following which it set the students up with online work to generate income. By employing technology as a skill-force, Anudip directs disadvantaged women and girls join the national mainstream and get a secure and dignified life through entrepreneurship and IT skills training.

So far, we have enrolled 31 at-risk girls and women, placed 11 of them in one of the leading digital data companies and 10 are involved in Crowd sourced Contributors’ training program, as a part of the gig economy.