Bollywood actor Mallika Sherawat locked herself up in a small cage at the Cannes Film Festival, to bring global attention to the Lock Me Up Campaign. She has been closely associated with ‘Free A Girl’ NGO and has raised strong support for women’s right and empowerment

Text Credits: Raveena Nair

As the internet is going gaga over the Bollywood celebs Deepika Padukone, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor’s look at Cannes Film Festival, but Mallika Sherawat is in news for a very noble reason. Mallika chose this international platform as an opportunity to spread awareness about Lock Me Up Campaign. It is an initiative by Free A Girl, an international organization that works along with many countries to rescue girls from forced prostitution.

Mallika Sherawat, who is a brand ambassador of this organization locked herself up in a 12×8 feet cage at the festival. This was a representation of the miserable condition at brothels in India, where the girls are kept for days without any aid.

“Every minute we don’t do something there is a woman suffering abuse “ @freeagirlindia #freeagirl #schoolforjustice #womensrights #supportgirls #stoprape #cannes pic.twitter.com/F8aegKBnum

— Mallika Sherawat (@mallikasherawat) May 15, 2018

About the initiative, Mallika says, “It is my ninth year at Cannes and the festival is one of the most cogent platforms to raise the issue of child prostitution not just in India but across the world. Being locked in a cage, I wanted to drive home the imagery of how young girls who are being trafficked are trapped in a small 12×8 foot room. These innocent victims have to live and survive without any aid. There is a woman suffering abuse every minute with no hope of any change. So I thought of doing my bit and raising awareness about an issue which needs to become extinct at the earliest.”

Image Source: nomadandvillager.com

As a girl, a woman, our struggle starts right from the womb. Yes, some of us are privileged. We didn’t have to fight for food or education. Our family has always taken precautions to ensure our safety, come what may. But definitely, the situation is not same across the country for all. We are aware of human trafficking and especially that of young girls for commercial sexual exploitation but the numbers can literally shock you. According to the India Country Report by the Government of India, there are about three million prostitutes in the country, of which an estimated 40 percent are children, as there is a growing demand for very young girls to be inducted into prostitution on account of customer preferences. These girls are made to dress and wear make-up to look older to cover up their young age.

Human trafficking is a global issue. Though culture and lifestyle differ from country to country. Poverty remains one of the main causes of this evil to take place, and many of them are taken away from their family by known relatives or people with an assurance of giving some money to their families and ultimately are sold to red light areas for cheap amount. With rapid globalization happening, migration between countries has become an easy task, which also facilitates trafficking.

School For Justice is an initiative by Free A Girl organization where the rescued girls are trained and educated, so that they can enroll into Bachelors in Law program with a special focus on commercial sexual exploitation cases. This gives them chance to fight for justice with a raging fire within them.

The first step to fight against any injustice is to spread awareness. It is really a pleasure and a pride both, to see what Mallika is doing to spread awareness in an international platform about something, that desperately needs to change.

RECYCLE. RE-USE. UP-CYCLE.

Plan@Earth is a Kochi based  NGO  working to make waste a resource.  Their aim is to work towards a waste-free future where utilization becomes the norm. Their core area of interests is – Recycling, Reusing, and Upcycling. Plan@Earth opens up with WtzupKochi and tells us more about how it all began and about their upcoming projects.

1. What influenced you to start this organization?-

Back in 2006 we did some Clean Ups in tourist sports with volunteers but found there was no “taker” for what is cleaned up,  again seeing the roads strewn with plastic garbage, we felt we need to get something going

2. What are the key indicators you use to measure your impact?

The number of houses, weights coming in, weights sorted, weights sent for recycling, weights sent for upcycling are few of the indicators that we use to determine the result.

3. Any specific NGOs that have influenced you to start Plan@Earth?-

Not sure about this

4. What makes you stand out from other NGOs?

We quantify and document everything we do and we have an entire operation for upcycling and recovery

5. In hindsight, what do you think of the people’s involvement in environmental initiatives and waste management? What have you learned in the process of engaging citizens?

Takes time, a community based social change takes a lot of time. It involves an unlearning first before the learning can happen, public prefers to blame authorities for whatever they generate as waste

6. What are your upcoming projects?

Mostly the upcycling project, we have an SMS reminder for households, we make the community responsible for waste its members generate, as part of the reduction strategy for plastic

7. Do you think middle-class awakening and voluntarism, which have played a major role in neighborhood waste management over the years, have died out?

Some residents do take responsibility and initiative and so far we have 24 independent residents associations that have the so-called “awakening”

8. How would you bring this activity to the attention of the society? For instance, you would want people to use cloth bags over plastic, but often, people forget about it and continue using plastic bags. How do you deal with such things?

Frankly speaking, such habits do not change overnight, even by force it won’t change, what is needed is the concern. In Kerala especially, what is lacking is the concern.

9. What are the hurdles you faced to enhance the habit of reusing and recycling?

Easy access to plastic, low cost of plastic, lack of concern

10. Does your organization have both employees and volunteers? What kind of support are you getting from the people of Kochi?

A few of them are employed, most of them are volunteers, at the grass root level- from door to door collection, sorting etc. We have SHG models. Public support from the people of Kochi? Oh yes, we get some “likes” on our FB page.

11. You are doing great in Kochi. Do you have any plans for expanding your business to other cities?

Not too keen on expanding, because, it takes too much of a toll on our energy and leaves us drained. It is an uphill struggle and since neither the state nor the central govt has no intention of funding such operations, we have no plans to expand.

12. Do you think people have started changing? How do you gain support from the community?

Yes, the change has definitely started but like I said it is a change that moves at snail’s pace.

13. Your NGO is also associated with social entrepreneurship like promoting or selling eco-friendly bags. Who is your target audience? How is the response? 

Our target audience is mostly college students and parents of school kids.The response is very heartening.

     14. What significant changes do you foresee in the near future?

 Not in the near future, but in the distant future people would accept that global warming, climate change, pollution, deforestation are all happening for real. But by then it could be too take. Okhi was enough writing on the wall, it’s almost like people are waiting for a major calamity before they actually realize that we ourselves are killing our marine life, polluting our oceans and the Delhi air pollution is not too distant from happening in Kochi.

Let us all try and contribute our little bit towards making this world a better place to live in.