Phil@Stop the Traffik

We were in a building site in Mumbai, squatted down, talking with a thin, defeated looking Indian man called Balraam. It was hot and dusty and we were tired from the day at the drop-in centre we worked in as part of Oasis India. Traffic thundered past as the city headed home. Behind Balraam was his home, a make-shift shack in amongst the construction. Ajay, my colleague, an amazing, tireless worker for justice, was doing the talking. There was a lot at stake, and as usual this brought out the best in Ajay.
Balraam's son Bipin had been coming to the drop-in centre we were running. He was small and thin too, but the was no defeat in his eyes. When you looked at him you saw him almost daring the world to try to stop him. Bipin, like his family were from Orissa and spoke Oriya. Bipin also spoke some Hindi and it was in Hindi that he was learning to read and write. The centre we ran was just a gap between buildings with a tin roof rammed on top, for which we paid way to much rent to a grasping landlady. Everyday children packed into that space to learn to read and write, play, wash, get clothes and food. We also prepared them for school and tried to get them places there. As soon as Bipin started to read, you could see that he had something special. He was ravenous to learn, and he picked up everything the staff of the Asha Deep centre taught him.
Then came the bad news. The construction work at a nearby site was over. Balraam and his wife Sarojini (hers is another amazing story) had to move on. Moving job meant literally pitching tent in a new site. This was a major blow to Bipin. How could he learn to read now? Before we knew it, he had threatened his parents that if they moved, he would run away and sleep outside the Asha Deep centre. The parents were shocked and angry. We agreed to pick him up and take him to the centre where ever they were in the city, and we would also return him home.
This arrangement went on for a while, very successfully. Bipin was brilliant. He had to be in school. Eventually we managed to get a sponsor so he could go to boarding school. At that point his father said no. This was too much, the boy was needed at home. Soon, he would have to work. Bipin could see his chance for a better future slipping away.
So, it was a tense meeting, when we sat together in the rubble.
It was at that very moment that Ajay said something that I will never forget. He asked Balraam a question; "What do you do?"
A simple question. Balraam replied "You can see, I am a construction worker"
"Where do you live?"
"I live here, you can see it!" Balraam said, sweeping his hand around, looking at Ajay as if he was stupid. Ajay wasn't finished though;
"And what did your father do?", he asked.
There was a pause, "He was a construction worker"
"And did he live the same way as you?"
"Yes"
"And his father?"
There was a longer pause. "He also worker on the building sites"
"And did he live like you do in a shack?"
"Yes"
Balraam wasn't insulted as I feared he would be, he was instead beginning to see, and could guess what Ajay would say next.
"Don't you understand, brother, that if you stop Bipin from learning, he also will live and work as you do, and so will his son. Do you like living this way? Is this what you want for your son?"
Balraam looked at his feet. We waited; this was his son, and something new was difficult for the man to accept. Eventually though, he agreed, that the best thing, the only thing to break the cycle of oppresion and abuse that their family had suffered for generations, was to let the boy go to school.
Bipin went to school. The only place available (that we could afford) was in a Marathi language school, the state language of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital. He took the place, learned the language and before long was top of the class. He has thrived in school and his life is revolutionized. Balraam can be proud of the decision he took that day in the fumes of traffic and the clatter of the building site.
This also has a lot to do with Stop the Traffik. Education changed Bipin's life and it also made him a lot less vulnerable to being trafficked. It is a long-term investment in a person, but if we can ensure that children from poor families are educated, given vocational training and are mentored as they try to find a job, then they are much less likely to be trafficked. What was true in the life of a boy like Bipin is doubly true for girls. Education is vital, if we really are going to Stop the Traffik.