Upliftment from poverty to prevent sex trafficking

Dear Global Givers,

Here’s an update from our campaign ‘Upliftment from poverty to prevent sex trafficking’ where iPartner India’s project Rakshan is providing alternate livelihood options to families to prevent them from sending their young daughters to engage in commercial sex work. In this community, they still continue with an age-old practice of pushing young girls into inter-generational sex work.

Rakshan is an intervention program of iPartner India to provide safe spaces for children in Rajasthan’s Tonk district. It uses a holistic model approach to increase the educational levels and improve the health conditions of girls and boys while also providing rural women and men with alternative livelihood opportunities. The project is designed to create nodal points of collaboration, action, and engagement between families, communities, and the legal, administrative, economic, and socio-cultural environment.

Our past interventions in these communities have shown that by providing a pair of goats, families have found an alternate livelihood to supplement their family income. This puts less pressure on their daughters to become commercial sex workers and allows them to go to school. Since the start of this intervention, our team on the ground has also found that there has been an increase in nutritional intake as these families have now a steady income to provide for their families.

Over the past two years, iPartner India has distributed 16 pairs of goats to resource-poor families through the support of offline donors. During a series of interviews with these families as a follow-up, our team observed that there is a steady increase in their income. Average earnings from selling goat milk per family are INR 750/month ($9). One of the beneficiaries has been able to save up to INR 2,000 ($24) which was earlier spent on purchasing milk.

During this period, a 3-day training was organized with the Central Sheep and Wool Research Institute (CSWRI) to build the capacities of the families that rear goats. The training focused on how to rear healthy goats and ways to upscale their units. Now all beneficiaries take due care of the goats as per the guidelines shared during the training.

This year, iPartner India aims to add 10 more families through this campaign. Families of the 10 most vulnerable girls have been shortlisted and they will receive one pair of goats each in the coming months. Since the rearing of goats demands minimum investments in terms of caring for the livestock, these units will give maximum returns on investments over a period of time.

Thank you, Global Givers, for your continued support over the years. We strongly believe that together through this campaign, we will bring about changes in the community by allowing vulnerable girls to pursue education and break away from the bondage of being tied to traditional norms.

With deep gratitude,
Team iPartner India