Satya Prakash

2022 IVLP Impact Award Project: First Responders’ Campaign against Human Trafficking in Gautambudh Nagar, Uttar PradeshIndia

Satya Prakash holds a master of philosophy degree in sociology from the Delhi School of Economics. He has specialized in social and behavioral research at the University of Miami and is now a visiting fellow at the Faculty of Social Science, at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands.

Prakash has advocated for children's rights and combatted human trafficking for more than a decade. As a practitioner, researcher and facilitator, he has designed programs on preventing trafficking in source states such as Jharkhand, Assam and Manipur. His interventions have been recognized as models to emulate at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Through his work with his NGO FXB India Suraksha, he has rescued over 600 women and children from human trafficking and forced labor, reached over 30,000 children and community members to reduce their vulnerability to trafficking and trained over 10,000 law enforcement personnel on the human trafficking framework and children's rights in India.

Prakash has conducted ground research and written extensively on topics commissioned by the UNODC, UNDP, Harvard University and others. He is currently an expert panelist at the state-run Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, the Child Resource Center and others. He also serves as a panel member of the committee for formulating Indian Standards for leveraging Human Capital in Brick Kiln under the Social Responsibility Selection Committee constituted by the Bureau of Indian Standards under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution, Government of India. Prakash also serves as a member of the Research Advisory Group of the National Resource Center on Child Labor at the V.V. Giri National Labor Institute, an autonomous body of the Ministry of Labor and Employment of India.

IVLP Impact Award Project: First Responders’ Campaign against Human Trafficking in Gautam Budh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh

The project was implemented in four locations in the Gautam Budh Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh, Mamura in Sector 59, Garhi Chaukhandi in Sector 71, Basai in Sector 70 and JJ Colony in Sector 16. It reached 89 young men and women between the ages of 18 and 35-years-old. These locations were selected considering their diverse social group composition, migrant population, and various vulnerabilities related to child marriage, substance abuse, child labor, prostitution and school-dropouts. These young men and women were selected based on their status of employment, status as a student and marriage status. The overall group was inclusive of local and migrant community demographic backgrounds to ensure a balance and diversity.

The overall goal of the project was to train young leaders to act as first responders to combat human trafficking in their communities. This was achieved by:

-Generating awareness among youth on the various aspects of human trafficking.
-Selecting a group of 89 young leaders to be trained on the three paradigms of human trafficking: prevention, protection and prosecution.
-Equipping the 89 young leaders with the necessary skills to identify the vulnerabilities associated with human trafficking in their respective communities.
-Creating a resource pool and support group of young leaders in the form of first responder clubs among the 89 trainees.

These groups of trained leaders acted as outreach partners, assisted in information dissemination and organized campaigns against human trafficking in the greater community. In fact, through this project, four responder youth clubs were created and connected to anti-human trafficking stakeholders, and two missing children due to trafficking were identified and reunited with their families.

IVLP Exchange Experience

Satya was a participant in the IVLP Project Combatting Trafficking in Persons, organized by the U.S. Department of State and Cultural Vistas.

Satya's exchange experience led to the development of his IVLP Impact Award Project: "The program was curated judiciously keeping every aspect of the anti-trafficking discourse that is relevant to my domain of work. It was a true delight to learn from all the experts about the measures undertaken in the context of the US in the area of prevention, protection, and prosecution which has been a true value add."

U.S. Communities Visited Virtually

Washington, DC; Des Moines, IA; Boston, MA; Jackson, MS; Charlotte, NC; San Antonio, TX

Country: India

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