18-year-old Tavishi* was scared at first. She’d been offered a job in a hotel in another country. The distance she’d have to travel from her village in Bangladesh was as far as New York City is from Miami. But when she realized that she’d be able to send money home to her family, she put aside her fear and leapt at the opportunity.
The train journey took several days. She was with one other girl, Yaatri,* who was also traveling from Bangladesh to work at the same hotel. From their window, they glimpsed rolling green hills, a patchwork land of farms, and mighty rivers speeding by.
When she finally arrived, Tavishi was disoriented. The people at the train station spoke a language she’d never heard. A woman met them at the noisy station and took them to the hotel where they’d be working. It was small and dingy. Tavishi and Yaatri exchanged glances. They didn’t understand why they would have been moved across the country to work at such a small establishment.
Then the woman locked the door behind them. Their disorientation turned to panic.
Thankfully, weeks before, our team in India received a tip that two young women would be arriving from Bangladesh with a known trafficker. Undercover, they reached out to the trafficker, asking to buy time with the newly arrived girls.
The trafficker bought the story. On the very same day Tavishi and Yaatri arrived, police raided the hotel. They arrested three traffickers — two men and one woman — and freed Tavishi and Yaatri before a life of abuse began. These two young women are now receiving aftercare support from the government and another nonprofit.
Thank you for giving generously so that Tavishi and Yaatri won’t be abused and exploited, and their traffickers will be met with justice!
*Names and images representative
