STOP is a social movement that started in 1997, under the aegis of R.B.C Trust. It promotes a human rights based approach that focuses specifically on combating human trafficking in children and women. Out strategies are both curative and preventive in that we seek to counter violence against women and children through various empowerment programmes at the community level. These include holistic programmes including social awareness, legal advocacy, witness protection, health services, educational facilities, livelihoods skills training and formation of self-help groups for income generation and community vigilance. STOP is the founder of the Delhi Chapter of ATSEC, the Coalition of Organizations combating Human Trafficking. We provide long term legal aid to trafficked persons, facilitating their process of rescue, repatriation (on a case-by-case basis), and eventual rehabilitation. The geographic scope of STOP’s work, and indeed the nature of cross-border trafficking,entails that STOP works with partners in Nepal and Bangladesh to prevent cross border trafficking and better understand transit routes used by human traffickers. STOP’s work has worked with over 3000 children and women during the course of its anti-trafficking, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation missions. The rescue and reintegration of over 700 child survivors has been the long term agenda of STOP's program staff and many dedicated volunteers. Our Delhi-based “AASHRAY Family Home” is home to over 60-70 children at any given time around the year. Dedicated and trained staff at the home facilitate the provision of formal education, vocational training, creative skills, counselling (trauma, psychological and long-term) and medical services. STOP’s community outreach in many settlements (which include urban slums and other at-risk areas for human trafficking) has helped in creating an informal vigilance system within the communities themselves. We work closely with socially under-privileged and migrant communities living in the semi-urban centers and rely on their community outreach to gather and process information critical to rescue and recovery efforts.
