New Delhi day 1
I arrived in New Delhi by cover of darkness, around midnight by the time I cleared customs. I was amazed at the hustle and bustle still going on at that time of night.
The first thing assault on my senses was the stench of raw sewage.
We boarded the bus the following morning to go to one of OTM’ s NGO partners Apne Ap Women Worldwide. More on that later.
New Delhi is like nothing like I have ever seen or experienced in my life, and it’s not as if i have led a sheltered life. I am a native New Yorker after all and consider myself to be somewhat, well, wordly… Not so much…If you can imagine a literal garbage dump with chunks of cement, trash, countless stray dogs, cows, pedestrians, carts, cars, buses, bicycles and people all sharing the same space at one time. Indian people are seemingly un phased by this. They go about their lives out in the open, on the sidewalk, people are bathing, shaving, brushing teeth, having their hair cut and every where you turn men urinating, and most painful. . Witnessing all of this from my western point of view, I interpret this as human suffering, and I am not so sure I am correct..
In spite of this lack of privacy and personal space, the Indian people are warm, welcoming and quick with a smile. They are seemingly a content people.
I am truly a stranger in a strange land. It is my nature to trust basic human nature as good, but I have been all too educated about this systemic dark and horrendous crime of sex trafficking, which is pervasive worldwide, but the worst here in India. I find that I am constantly at odds with my true nature vs what I have come to know. It is mentally and physically exhausting.
I do not know the female to male ratio in India, but from a visual, I would guess about 50/1
here in Delhi.
Many of these men are involved in some way with sex trafficking, be it the traffickers themselves, the pimps or the johns.
There are hoards of children begging on the streets here. They have been trafficked as well. They are not necessarily sexually exploited, but they are in debt bondage. Their captors will beat and abuse them if they do not return with their quota for the day.
I will depart this city, with pieces of my heart scattered all about.
Abolish 21st Century Slavery
nadinesevaindia 