Priti Patkar’s Prerana Is Helping and Educating Children Of Sex Workers

Priti Patkar is a name that Indians take with pride. India is a country with bizarre prostitution laws, which places a lot of vulnerable women under wrong spot. A lot of women have lost their right and life to the red light areas but no more, today India have Priti Patkar and she is working hard to pull up the self-esteem of sex workers in the country.

Who is Priti Patkar?

Priti Patkar is commonly known as Priti Tai in the red light areas of Mumbai and nearby places. Priti is a social worker and she works for the welfare of sex workers in and around Mumbai. Priti Patkar was born in Mumbai to a family where the head of the family worked as a Government Servant while the Mother ran a Daycare Program; from their Priti went onto become a Gold Medalist at Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Priti Patkar later married to a social worker Pravin Patkar but that was not the end. She decided to start working for women in need and what she has done since is remarkable and very much appreciable.

How did Priti Patkar become the Priti Tai?

It’s been 28 years now that Priti Patkar raised her voice against human trafficking and the exploitation of women in red light areas. She fought with mafias, government and sahukars to ensure that every women and child is protected and is leveraged with a new life.

The efforts she made led to Prerana in 1986; since then Police of state and government has accredited her for breakthroughs and milestones when it comes to protecting women and children from human trafficking.

What milestones have Priti Patkar achieved as a social worker?

Priti Tai has always tried to be present at the scene where there is a potential human trafficking. She has worked hard with local people, spy and made sure that she is kept updated with everything happening in her Mumbai.

Here is a list of events and incidents where she has helped police and the government with major breakthrough and milestone accomplishments:

• World’s first ever Night Care Shelter in the middle of a red light area in Mumbai
• She worked hard and finally established an institute for Placement Program
• First ever education program for children living in red light areas
• First ever network of Anti Trafficking Organizations. It was the first of its type in the world.
• Awards and Achievements  : preranaantitrafficking.org/success/awards.htm

What made Priti Tai work so hard?

Priti was moved by the emotional pain that these kids and mothers were growing through; Priti has gone on record and have said it many a times that she is disheartened with the fact that women were ill treated while their kids where forced to do things that were outrageous and humiliating.

There are accounts of talks she shared with these sex workers that are really profound and moving. These accounts and stories are bad enough to put our whole culture and society to shame but they are still out there.

Some of the dirty secrets of the red light areas are:

• Kids of these sex workers are bound to sleep under the bed while their mother pleasures her customers.
• These kids are bound to do errands of their mother’s customer. Customers often make run for cigarettes and other stuffs.
• Sex workers had to sell their male child to people with no child while the female children were taken away for training purpose.
• The fact that celebrities visited these places during festivals were actually showing there concern but were did anything for them.

Priti Tai is a woman of substance; she has shown that she can do great things in life with extreme passion and dedication. Hundreds of people from prestigious colleges have joined her and are now helping her in building an Anti Trafficking network that cuts out the root of all the evil.

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What lies in the future of these kids?

Priti Tai has helped hundreds of kid acquire a better life. She has now decided to secure these kids from the network of human trafficking and then leverage them with the requisite education and train them to be an important part of the developing society.

There lie huge benefits in teaching these kids and turning them into the leaders of tomorrow. They will understand how it feels to be under that bed hence they will never promote such stuffs. They will work for the welfare of kids and also for the betterment of the sex workers.