Shafiq R. Khan selected for Grinnell College Innovator for Social Justice prize

CHANDIGARH: Shafiq R. Khan, founder and CEO of organisation, Empower People, has been selected for the prestigious Grinnell College Innovator for Social Justice Prize for this year. Khan has been persistently pursuing fight to eradicate bride trafficking in North India, especially Mewat in Haryana and empower the girls and women who have been affected by this issue.He will be felicitated on October 1 at Grinnell College, USA.
Raynard S. Kington, president of the Grinnell College, USA in his note displayed on the official website mentions that the prize carries an award of $ 100,000 (Rs 71, 39,626), the largest given by any US college in recognition of social justice. He says further, "Empower People operates in many regions across North India, most notably in the Mewat district of Haryana. The organisation works to support law enforcement agencies and families of trafficked brides by locating and rescuing missing girls and women. The organisation then ensures follow up through an intensive rehabilitation and tracking process that aims to ensure that the women and their ostracised children live safer, more equitable lives and do not fall prey to trafficking again. To date Khan and his organisation have rescued and rehabilitated approximately 4250 trafficked women and girls, intervened in 88 cases of honour killings, and taken up 27500 cases of domestic violence. With their support, 3200 girls are continuing their education and 12650 children of trafficked women are attending school in 85 villages of 10 states."
Khan, 35, who hails from Gaya, Bihar comes from agrarian background. He now operates from Delhi. His foray in activism began at a tender age of 15 when he joined a communist party. Later he joined social activist and political leader Swami Agnivesh and worked with him in Delhi on issues related to female foeticide and empowerment. Side by side he continued studying and completed his graduation in social work from Indira Gandhi national Open University in 2010. Khan told TOI, "I alongwith my 10 other friends travelled through various districts of Haryana and adjoining states of Punjab and Rajasthan to conduct a social mobilisation campaign and came across a trafficked bride who explained her poor plight and sought help from us. After completing our campaign, when we returned to her village, we came to know that she was sold off to somebody else. Moved by this episode, I founded my organisation 'Empower People', which was aimed at empowering these women, and not only protecting them which various agencies and organisations had been doing till date."
He said that around 200 communes, aptly named as Paro Molki ( terms used by locals as reference for the trafficked brides ) provide the survivor victims a platform to turn them leaders and enable them to rescue others of their kinds. "We felicitate liaisoning with local police for these women survivors and provide them training in counselling victims on rescue. Besides this, we provided share in land holding to such 300 women by convincing their husbands. So with these empowerment tools, these women now call shots in the same villages where they were living miserable lives as exploited slaves," he said.
Elated over his selection for the coveted prize, he said that his father who often pulled him up for not having a secure employment now felt proud over him. This innovator for social justice said that he is now toying with another unique idea of fielding the trafficked brides in the ensuing assembly election in Haryana to further embolden the message of their empowerment.