Meena is an orphan girl, who was trafficked and sold at Pune at the age of 13. She was beaten and tortured like all other trafficked women and made to become dependant on alcohol and tobacco. A few years later she was moved to a Red light area in Mumbai where we work. She was always found drunk. In the morning after waking up, her first ritual was to get drunk. She was ruining her life.
After much patience, love and care, she decided to move to our Rehab Home. When she came she was wasted on alcohol to the extent that her liver was damaged. We immediately hospitalized her and took a couple of months of treatment, care & much over a lakh of rupees to help restore her to health. Doctors had given up hope on her but we took her to Purnata Bhavan under our care.
Here she showed much promise and began doing well with her learning and particularly her tailoring. However, along the way she gave up and decided to run away when she was just three months from finishing the program. She went back to her life of addiction and prostitution. She didn't understand the restrictions we laid had a larger purpose for her good.
After many months of praying for her, wooing her patiently and encouraging her to leave, she finally decided to leave. This time too she was in very critical condition health-wise. We had to once again admit her. Admission means we need to stretch our already overworked and understaffed team to additionally care for her through visits and liaising with the doctors. Once again, after she returned, she was asked to focus on completing the three months and get into a job in Amoli.
This time, though it was difficult, she had to work hard to get through. She completed her training and after her graduation in November, she was placed in Amoli as an artisan. However, instead of turning out like another of our success stories, she found the newfound freedom an excuse to fall back into her old ways. Soon she was drinking every day, initially in control but soon the control gave way.
Today she wants to come back and do a stable job and be part of the family but there is a sense of wanting to live “wild & free” still without the discipline and rigor of normal job life. She is not fully in the trade and wants to come back to us. Continue to pray for her as she decides to leave the pull of her old life fully to a life of dignity, future & hope. We are confident with enough love, follow up and care she will make the flip for good.