Journalist and anti-sex trafficking activist Ruchira Gupta discusses her efforts to help girls and women get out of the sex trade in India and also addresses the increasing relevance of feminism in the country.
Gupta co-wrote a book with feminist movement icon Gloria Steinem, As If Women Matter, which is a collection of essays on feminist topics including on dealing with sex trafficking.
She explains that she was contacted several years ago by Steinem before she came to India and requested a meeting. Gupta ended up taking the feminist icon on a tour of slums in Delhi, and she wasn’t sure at first how Steinem’s visit would go, but this quickly changed.
“Of course Gloria being the organizer, the activist that she is, she immediately connected with the women,” she said.
I thought the women would go back home, because we were meeting on the street. But they just stayed, because Gloria started speaking about coming to India 50 years ago to run away from a marriage that she did not want to be in.
“And she spoke about abortion and the women connected about how they had kept their abortions secret, and how having friends made them change who they were and how they connected with the world. So Gloria’s truth connected with their truth – it was one of the most important moments in my life.”
Gupta said Steinem’s writings on a variety of feminist topics are more relevant in India today than ever before, due to outrage over the 2012 gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in Delhi, and subsequent changes in the law regarding women that occurred after widespread protests.
Watch the full episode to also hear Gupta explain what prompted her to make her documentary on sex trafficking, The Selling of Innocents.
Comments