From the Shelter Home to San Diego’s

Rescued from commercial sexual exploitation and shifted into Govt. shelter home at the age of 17, Razia Khatoon (named changed to maintain confidentiality) had many reasons to be afraid. At first, working in the commercial sex industry seemed like a necessary step for Razia to help her family financially survive. However, over time, things began to take a turn for the bizarre, causing Razia to reconsider whether this work was truly worth it. However, she didn’t have long to decide; police eventually raided the brothel she worked in and placed her in the Govt. Shelter Home with the hopes of providing her rehabilitation.

During counselling sessions, Razia began to reveal her true story. As it turns out, she hailed from a remote village of Murshidabad which is one of the hotspots for human trafficking owing to a shared porous border of 2,217 kilometres with Bangladesh. She was cheated on by a trafficking agent, who bought and sold her for commercial sex work.

Eventually, as her time at the home came to a close, Razia was referred to Anudip Association for Diversity and Inclusion’s – Building Entrepreneurs to Stop Trafficking (BEST) program to continue in her journey of restoration. At Anudip, she was provided the right job skill training on Crowdsourced Task Contributors (CCTC) that helped her career soar to new heights—literally! This was the beginning of a new chapter of Razia’s life which was ripe with growth, healing, and empowerment. Equally important, at Anudip the sustained counselling sessions helped Razia to grow past her feelings of guilt and view life with positivity.

After being groomed for a career as a Data Transcriptionist, Razia successfully completed the first round of interviews for San Diego State University, one of the top public universities in San Diego.

Since beginning her remote job with San Diego, Razia has ceaselessly exhibited exceptional work performance. Currently, she is absorbing everything she can possibly learn about making herself more competitive than ever before for her job as a Data Transcriptionist. Razia is happy and content with her life today. She works on Information Technology Application and Google Character Recognition earning approximately USD 44.90 monthly.

“I take pride in my independence now. I am equally happy for my twenty-six other batch mates who too are also working in San Diego’s Data Transcription project post completion of their CCTC training from Anudip. We were entrapped, now we all are empowered.”— smiles Razia.