2010-04-09T08:29:00.000-07:00

Súil Eile in association with Pragati presents

‘After you bought me’:

An exhibition of photographs and text by young tribal women exploring

the causes and effects of human trafficking

“’Trafficking in persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.”

Vienna Protocol of the UN Crimes Commission, October 2000

‘Visual knowledge…provides one of our primary means of comprehending the experience of other people. Unlike the knowledge communicated by words, what we show in images has no transparency or volition – it is a different knowledge, stubborn and opaque, but with a capacity for the finest detail’

(MacDougall 2006:5-6).

These photographs were taken by nine young tribal women in Orissa, east India, over a period of three weeks in winter 2008/9 as part of a participatory photography project. The project aimed to raise awareness of issues surrounding the trafficking of tribal women from rural to urban areas in India. The project was the result of a collaboration between the Irish based Súil Eile project and Orissa based NGO PRAGATI.

Orissa, in the east of India, is the poorest state on the sub-continent. It has a population of almost 40 million of which 23% are adivasi, the indigenous, tribal, sub-populations of India. It has the second lowest life expectancy of women in the country and one of the highest incidences of trafficking. The district of Sundargarh in the north west of the state has a tribal population of 55%, mainly from the Oram, Kuriya and Khond tribes. The tribal peoples from this region are traditionally nomadic forest-dwelling communities who have, for the most part, been displaced by deforestation and hydro-electric and industrial development, leaving them dependent on subsistence agriculture and daily wage work when available. The consequent disintegration of traditional cultural practices, coupled with the lack of land rights has led to a situation of dire poverty and food insecurity and the breaking down of social and community safety nets.

With the increasing wealth of urban centres in India and the consequent need for cheap expendable labour to feed this growth, often in the form of women and children, tribal people are vulnerable to exploitation and human trafficking. It is estimated that about 25,000 girls have been trafficked from this district alone to more developed urban areas, both within Orissa and in other states.

Trafficking in this area usually occurs through the activities of ‘work agencies’. District agents, or dolal, encourage young girls directly, or through their families, to take up employment in the cities. They are promised good wages, money for their families and luxury urban living for their labours. However the girls are typically sent to work in situations where they experience neglect, are often unpaid and can end up in situations of domestic slavery. Repetitive physical and psychological abuse is common.

The relationship to the dolal is complex. Positive experiences of migration to urban areas bring much needed income to families back home. Rural tribal villages are restrictive for young people, and particularly women, both economically and culturally. There is no work available, no security and no way of becoming independent and fulfilling one’s basic needs. Migration to more affluent urban areas is an obvious option. However, without any education or skills and no experience of urban life, as well as no money to start off with, travelling alone in search of work is basically impossible. Agents linked to urban placement offices take full advantage of this situation and step in to ‘help’. To add to the complexity of the situation, agents have recently come not from outside, but from within the communities themselves, cashing in on the niche in the market. Young tribal women are for the most part impoverished and illiterate and often speak only tribal languages and are therefore easily exploitable, physically and mentally as well as financially. Trafficking is a big business in India, with agents pocketing a large proportion of the girls’ wages, often leaving her with little or nothing.

It is estimated that about 90% of trafficked girls are sexually exploited. Rape, torture and abuse are regularly used as demoralisation techniques. A large proportion of the girls from this area are simply reported as missing. Those who are eventually able to return home often have difficulty reintegrating into village life. They are often unable to speak about the reality of their experiences outside of the immediate family, and in many cases even within the family, for fear of their reputation being tarnished. Many return with unwanted pregnancies or carrying the HIV virus. Knowledge of sexual relations often leads to not being accepted by the community and being deemed unsuitable for marriage. On returning home, the factors which caused them to leave usually remain unchanged, leaving them vulnerable to retrafficking.

Súil Eile, in collaboration with PRAGATI, worked with a group of nine young women between the ages of 14 and 24 in Alapaka village in the Sundargarh district over a period of three weeks in December and January 2008/9. The aim of the project was to create awareness of the issue of trafficking in this region, both locally and internationally, and to work towards its prevention. The women came from villages around the Sundargarh District, chosen due to their experiences of trafficking and their subsequent involvement in the PRAGATI programme. None of the women had used a camera before. Through dialogue, visual awareness and photography, the women discussed, explored and documented issues faced by women in tribal communities in this region, as well as their own perspectives and experiences around human trafficking. As part of this work, each young woman spent time with an older woman, staying in her home, discussing the issues she faces and documenting these with the camera. While guidance was given around themes and topics, as each photographer’s own confidence, visual awareness and style developed, she began to tell stories, her own and those of others, in different ways.

The images were edited by the participant-photographers and a selection of these was exhibited in Alapaka village at the end of the project. The women also wrote and performed a drama about trafficking. The event was attended by around 150 people from the village and surrounding area and sparked off dialogue around the issues of trafficking and migration.

It is hoped that the images in this exhibition may help to create a platform for discussion around the issue of human trafficking and the many, often hidden, forms in which it occurs. The images chosen seek not only to highlight the issue of human trafficking, but also to begin to illustrate the complexity of this issue, its causes and effects woven into the cultural, social and economic tapestry of these rural communities, and the ‘culture of silence’ which envelops particularly the lives of women. The images also seek to reflect the project itself – the broader processes which occurred through working on a collaborative creative project and the developing visual and verbal expression of the nine participant-photographers.

The possibility of using photography as a means of generating income emerged during the project. A PRAGATI staff member (who also acted as translator for the programme) was trained in the photographic methodology, as well as the use of the cameras and software. A photography cooperative has since been established in the PRAGATI centre at Alapaka using cameras donated by the project and a printer funded by PRAGATI. Four of the women are now working and generating income as photographers in their own villages.

Zoë O’Reilly and Aidan Corcoran, Project facilitators, Súil Eile

The project was funded by the Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund

This exhibition was funded by NUIM Department of Geography

All captions were translated from the original Oriya by Mamata Manjani Das (PRAGATI Education Officer)

2010-02-27T09:29:00.000-08:00

Súil Eile are pleased to invite you to attend
‘After you bought me’:
An exhibition of photographs and text by young tribal women exploring the causes and effects of human trafficking

Copyright: Khira/Súil Eile/Pragati

Coinciding with International Women’s Day 2010, Súil Eile presents an exhibition of photographs taken by young tribal women during a participatory photographic project in Orissa, east India in December 2008 and January 2009. Rural Orissa, along with other areas in the ‘tribal belt’, is an area with a high number of cases of human trafficking. The images and stories explore perspectives and experiences of the women around human trafficking and issues faced by women in tribal communities in this region. The images are the result of a collaboration between the Irish based Súil Eile project and Indian NGO Pragati. The photographers are all women who have experienced trafficking and labour abuse. The material produced was initially used to create awareness of trafficking in the local villages as well as to help counter the stigma experienced by victims of trafficking on returning to their own communities.

Running from: March 8 - March 31 2010
Venue: Irish Aid Volunteering and Information Centre
27-31 Upper O’Connell Street
Dublin 1
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 1am-5pm, Thurs late until 8pm. Sat 10am-3pm