Mumbai

About the Ministry

Since January 2011, Rahab’s Rope has been working directly within red-light districts in the Mumbai area. Our target focus is to build loving relationships and trust with the women who have been victimized by the sex trade, as well as to form partnerships with other anti-trafficking organizations. Physical repercussions that women may face may include pregnancy, forced abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, infections, and AIDS. These ailments lead to an early mortality rate for thousands of prostituted women each year.

As Rahab’s Rope builds relationships and trust with the women, case files are built that aid in the process of rescue. Most of the women Rahab’s Rope works with were sold or tricked, as children, into the sex trade and have been mentally, spiritually, and physically broken. Most know nothing outside of bondage and have no idea that freedom is a real possibility. Rahab’s Rope’s ultimate goal is to have a safe and healthy plan in place for rescue.

The goal of partnerships with other organizations is not only to establish a unified effort but also to utilize the existing resources for excellent and effective rescue. Each week Rahab’s Rope provides a prayer and worship service for women that can come. Literacy, life skills, vocational and job training, and basic education are also taught. Medical camps are conducted. We provide daycare for several of the children we consider high risk. We offer tutoring classes to enroll children in school. We continually work through a legal process to provide identification and birth certificates for both the women and the children. In addition, our staff has developed relationships with several companies and work one by one to get women jobs. Our staff work tirelessly to get children in school.

According to a report issued by the US Department of State, more than 1.2 million children in India are caught up in human trafficking as child prostitutes (2010). Among the most vulnerable children to be trafficked are those that are undereducated and unskilled due to low socioeconomic conditions. Wherever privation and economic hardship prevail, there will be those destitute and desperate enough to enter the fraudulent employment schemes that are the most common intake systems in the world of trafficking. Therefore, where the poverty rate is the greatest, the dropout rates for children in primary schools is the highest; human trafficking prevails. All these stats escalate when a child is born into the red-light area.