Eighteen-year-old Swapna’s name means “dream” and it was a dream come true for her when she was rescued at the age of nine by the local city policy during an operation against traffickers who were forcing children to beg. She was a part of three hundred rescued children throughout the city of Bengaluru, India. When Swapna was a baby, she was kidnapped and was placed into a begging syndicate that forced young children like her to beg for money. All attempts to trace or find her birth family yielded no results and thus she was placed in a residential school to receive an education. Swapna never attended school during her first nine years of life, but nine years after her rescue, she is preparing to take her Grade 10 exam.
She is a strong advocate against child beggary and human trafficking and stated that “When I grow up I want to be a social worker so I can fight on behalf of children being forced to beg and rescue them.”
Exploitation of children covers many types of trafficking that includes child labor, prostitution, pornography, begging, mafia-controlled begging, drug peddling, and organ transplants. Child Impact International’s “Operation Child Rescue” fund directly impacts those who are trafficked, exploited, and abandoned.
Join the fight at https://childimpact.org/support/operation-child-rescue/
