A shadow of a girl on a wall and the word ‘#missing’ led to a film that turned out to be a powerful documentary about the trafficking nexus operating in India and how artists, survivors and activists are working together to create awareness about the fact that a girl goes missing every eight minutes.
The film directed by Miriam Chandy Menacherry — From The Shadows: #missingirls — was screened at the American Center, Kolkata, on May 15.
The film highlights the struggle of women survivors of trafficking and their long fight for acceptance in society.
Film director Miriam Chandy Menacherry at the screening. Soumyajit Dey
“I’m thankful to all who came here on a Monday morning. We have activists, filmmakers, and students. This film started for me in this city, in Kolkata, when I saw a shadow of a girl on the wall which said #missing. As I went to different cities that shadow kept appearing with the same message and it felt like the shadow was talking to me. It led me on a six-year-long journey to discover the stories behind the shadow,” Miriam said.
The documentary which took six years to film highlights several insights about trafficking, activism, art, awareness and rehabilitation. Focusing on Kolkata, Meghalaya, Assam and Sunderbans, it traces the stories of some trafficking survivors. It deals with subjects like mental trauma, societal stigma rejection, child marriage, acceptance, fear especially of acid attacks and more. It also shows how the youth is aware of the occurrences and takes individual steps in making the community more vigilant by ways like society mapping.
Film director Sudeshna Roy at the event. Soumyajit Dey
Sudeshna Roy, Indian filmmaker who attended the film screening responded to it, “One of the things which I want to point out is there was a mixture of positive and negative. The positive is very important because that keeps your spirit up. If you are always negative then nothing will ever happen.”
The film screening was followed by a question-and-answer session among artist Leena Kejriwal, anti-trafficking activist Hasina Kharbhih and Miriam with the audience present. From talking about the challenges encountered to opening up about the rehabilitation processes and the current education system for creating awareness, the discussion touched upon several crucial topics.
Kejriwal stressed: “There is a vacuum in the education system and parenting. It’s about more systematic learning and awareness being imbibed in the education system. There needs to be more of real life, life skills which are not there in our system. I think we need more of that in the education system. Also, it’s becoming an urgent requirement in this technological world. Today every bit of trafficking is cyber enabled.”
Hasina mentioned about rehabilitation saying: “For rehabilitation, the Impulse Model is a model that we have curated. Every girl has her own passion and aspiration, the model looks in terms of partnering of many rehabilitation programmes and also participated in many other organisations that run these skill education programmes, to give them a scope of engagement. We have to go beyond the schemes of the government and try out innovations.”
Members of the audience take part in the question-and-answer session after the screening. Soumyajit Dey
The US consulate general Kolkata has been actively involved in spreading the message of anti-trafficking through trans-national awareness programmes, conferences, partnerships and more.
Juan Clar, acting director of the American Center, said: “We were glad to see the screening of this anti-trafficking film in Kolkata. For us at the US Consulate General Kolkata, we have been working with civil society partners and state governments for more than 10 years to create constituencies, build coalitions, and achieve results in the fight against human trafficking in east and northeast India. We are doing our bit and we should continue to work together to end human trafficking.”