Full Circle
View full 2023 Trip Report and images here>
Information on Red Light Areas
Baking & Hospitality Report
What a month! From day one, we have had such adventures and experiences. From sari clad puja pandal hopping, prepping and serving multiple lunches for 25 American guests, prepping and serving food for 100 guests at the inauguration ceremony for the HFC training center and sending the ladies on a three day Baking Adventure; it … Read more
Field Report – Spring 2022
I have just returned from a 3 week trip to India and Nepal. This was my first chance to visit India in over two years! It was a heart-opening experience that inspired many new ideas and insights. This past year has been a time of tremendous change and growth for HFC. We are all feeling … Read more
How common is HIV/AIDS in India’s Red Light Areas?
How common is HIV/AIDS in India’s Red Light Areas? by Sarah Symons, Founder & Director, and Richa Gupta, Research Fellow One survivor who inspired the founding of Her Future was Anita, who I met at a shelter in Nepal in 2004. Anita had been trafficked from Nepal to India at age 12, soon after the death of her father. … Read more
How to Move Forward When All Seems Lost
How to Move Forward When All Seems Lost Last month, I visited our projects in India and Nepal for three weeks. As always, I was awestruck by the courage and resilience of survivors. Here are just a few of the remarkable women and children I got to spend time with… SARITA: At the age of 14, … Read more
Why India and Nepal
Why India and Nepal? The latest report from the UN estimates that there are over 40 million slaves in the world today. 40% of the world’s slavery is concentrated in South Asia. This same region has the highest rates of child labor, child marriage and other severe problems affecting women and girls. Why India? India is caught between the developed and … Read more
A Day in the Life…Growing up in Calcutta Red Light Area
A Day in the Life…Growing up in Calcutta Red Light Area JUST FOR A MOMENT, IMAGINE AN HOUR IN THE LIFE OF ANI, A GIRL GROWING UP IN A RED LIGHT DISTRICT OF CALCUTTA… It’s late on a winter’s afternoon and dusk is settling in. You are ten years old, and at the time when … Read more
Otherizing
Otherizing It troubles me that so many posters and campaigns about sex trafficking in the US depict a slender white girl with long, straight, blonde hair. The reality is that 77% of victims in human trafficking incidents reported in the U.S. are people of color. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Report). Of course, people of each and … Read more
Learn to Trust
Learning to Trust Fifteen of us sat in a circle on the cool marble floor, drawing birds and flowers. The girls ranged in age from Jasminda, a tiny seven-year-old with uncanny artistic abilities, to Rishi, a clever 20 year old who just started at college and probably should have been studying, but couldn’t resist joining … Read more