“Some people come into our lives as a blessing. Some come into your life as a lesson"
- Mother Tereza
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Geeta had the happiness of meeting her own Mother Teresa. But before this meeting that changed her whole life she was a 9-year-old girl forced to dress provocatively, paint excessively and have sex with at least 60 men a day!
"I was really sad and upset with everything happening in my life", she has declared herself to the American CNN. The daughter of farmers from Nepal, Geeta, now 35, was sold into the brothel by a member of her extended family. This man told her mother and father that he would take her to work in a clothing factory in Nepal.
"In the brothel where I was... many customers came every day. The owner verbally abused us and if we didn't do what she wanted she would hit us with cables, ropes and hot forks", she has told herself. At the age of 14, she was saved by the intervention of a police officer and taken to the safe house of Anuradha Koirala.
The 70-year-old woman and her team, Maiti Nepal, have been giving for the past 26 years huge struggle for rescue and reintegration of trafficked women in Nepal. "These are poor areas with high rates of illiteracy. If a relative or friend comes along and offers a girl a job, it's usually her parents who encourage her to follow them, not realizing what's really going on." comments Koirala in another Guardian article.
For Mother Teresa of Nepal, as the aforementioned is more commonly known, it all started with her personal history of abuse at the hands of her ex-husband. "Every day, I ate wood. And then I had three miscarriages that I believe were due to the bumps. It was very difficult for me, because then I didn't know where to turn and who to talk to," he previously revealed to CNN.
This experience combined with the conversations she had with women she saw on the street begging for a few rupees, led her to start teaching them lessons around issues of racial violence and empowerment. To each of her first eight schoolgirls she gave 1,000 rupees from her income, so that they could escape from begging and become street vendors. By collecting a small percentage of their earnings, she was able to provide security and a financial lifeline to other women in need.
In 1993 he founded the non-profit organization Maiti Nepal, through which for the last 26 years she has been supporting women and children who have been victims of exploitation. Today her organization cares for more than 1,000 children, in three shelters where girls who live in conditions of high risk of being trafficked are promoted. Maiti Nepal also counts 11 shelters for girls rescued from sexual slavery, two care centers for women and children with HIV/AIDS and a school.
In her 70s, Koirala continues to fight against sex trafficking with every available means. That is, it carries out awareness campaigns, empowerment and education programs aimed at both children and adult women. Since its inception, the organization is estimated to have saved over 18,000 girls.
"When I see how much they are in pain - physically as well as mentally - it disturbs me so much that I cannot look away. It gives me the strength to fight to eradicate this crime" declares this unique woman, a model of courage and perseverance, who in 2010 received the award from the American network CNN "Heroine of the Year".
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Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/29/cnnheroes.koirala.nepal/
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