Scream from the shadows

Miriam Chandy Menacherry documents an ensemble of incredible women determined to turn the tables on traffickers along one of the most thriving cross border trafficking routes in the subcontinent, writes Radhika D Shyam

Miriam Chandy Menacherry

Miriam Chandy Menacherry is a documentary filmmaker based in Mumbai who has won many national and international awards. Her filmography includes — Back to the Floor for BBC World, Stuntmen of Bollywood and Robot Jockey for National Geographic, Mee Koli, The Rat Race, and A Light Burns for Discovery Channel and Doordarshan and Lyari Notes.

Her forthcoming documentary From the Shadows travels down the black hole of daily disappearances of girls in the Indian subcontinent. ‘Manned’ by an all-women crew and five years in the making, it has been chosen for seven international forums.

What inspired you to make ‘From the Shadows’?

From the Shadows began with me spotting artworks of girlish shadows tagged #missing by photographer and artist Leena Kejriwal who worked in 24 Parganas in West Bengal. This led to a long and difficult journey of documenting an ensemble of incredible women determined to turn the tables on traffickers along one of the most thriving cross border trafficking routes in the subcontinent.

Tell us more about the artist Leena Kejriwal and activist Hasina Kharbhih who have trekked the rocky path to spread awareness and help victims.

To an average person, the issue of child sex trafficking is a distant reality. Yet in a single image on a wall, Leena manages to disrupt this illusion and bring the message home that a girl goes missing every 8 minutes! I believe in the power of art and therefore have approached the film through this lens. The world needs imaginative solutions to what are entrenched problems.

Hasina Kharbhih is an indigenous, visionary leader; extremely creative and comprehensive in her method. Her ‘Impulse model’ of a collaborative approach to end trafficking, should be seriously considered as India tables the anti-trafficking bill in Parliament. She works in the most vulnerable regions with porous international borders. She empowers the
populace — creating livelihood projects through tribal artisanal weaves and craftsmanship, to build sustainable communities in flood-prone areas where they are preyed upon by traffickers when they migrate in search of employment. She trains the armies in India, Nepal and Myanmar to collaborate and detect trafficking cases. She has successfully fought cases against trafficking kingpins and got them convicted.

Gender discrimination thrives in all aspects of life. How bad is the girl-boy ratio of missing children?

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) indicates that a disproportionately higher number of girls go missing and most of these for sexual exploitation. The ratio and numbers vary every year but shockingly the numbers have soared during 2020-2021, to 200 per day with 71% being girls and the child helpline ringing incessantly through the pandemic despite lockdowns. A well-oiled nexus continues to prey on vulnerable populations operating a thriving business in buying and selling children despite movement restrictions. These are reported cases of missing children while countless go unreported!

Human trafficking is a worldwide racket that rakes in a lot of money with conviction rates as low as 2% in India. Dare we be hopeful?

We have a strong impact agenda for our film. We will identify the right festival circuit for the film to travel internationally and broadcast widely. Members of the police force want to screen the film as part of training and sensitisation programmes in their academy. Transparency International said they will use the film in webinars to discuss systemic corruption. I hope the film stirs up a dialogue so that more areas of trafficking are heard and addressed. It is not enough to ‘rescue’ a girl after she is trafficked; it is as important to find ways to prosecute and get convictions. Survivors deserve to be rehabilitated and reintegrated into our society with dignity and livelihood options. Each of us has to realise that systemic change is the way to break the trafficking nexus and this begins in our homes, communities and neighbourhood.

While dealing with such sensitive issues where the victims are children, where and how do you draw the line?

We do not shoot children but only tell stories of survivors who have lived through the ordeal as children and want to share their fight for justice to help others. Ella is one such survivor who gave her testimony against a kingpin despite 400 other witnesses turning hostile and fleeing back to Bangladesh and Nepal. She braved death threats and bribes. Backed by Hasina Kharbhih she won the case and got the kingpin behind bars, resulting in most of GB Road (red light area) in Delhi being shut.

Ella has come out of the shadows, fought stigma and helps mentor other survivors to reclaim their position in society.

Such inspiring stories raise hopes as they challenge the status quo by seeing themselves as ‘warriors’ rather than ‘victims’ fighting for attitudinal change and a societal shift.