Words from Philip Holmes, Founder of the Esther Benjamins Trust

Philip Holmes, founder of the Esther Benjamins Trust, shares inspirational stories in expectation of the Hong Kong 24 Hour Race 2011, hosted by Running to Stop the Traffik and the Youth Endurance Network.

Transcript:
"I'm Lt. Col. Philip Holmes, and I'm the founder and operational director of UK children's charity, the Esther Benjamins Trust, and I am speaking to you from Kathmandu, Nepal. The work of my trust is very special, we are conducting a grassroots fight against child trafficking, which involves conducting rescue operations into India, where we go and confront those who are abusing and exploiing Nepalese children. We bring the children back to Nepal, we rehabilitate them, we give them a future. At the same time, we pursue the traffickers who took them to India in the first place. We bring those traffickers to justice, and there-by, by getting traffickers into jail, we prevent child trafficking.

As part of this program, in September 2011, we brought 23 Nepalese girls back from Michael Job Centre, in Tamil Nadu, south India. The Michael Job Centre was ostensibly a missioned orphanage, run by a Christian evangelist, but in fact his centre had become a trafficking destination. A Nepali trafficker called D B Phadera was taking Nepali girls from Buddhist and Hindu families in Humla, northwest Nepal, twelve hundred miles to the north of India, presenting them at the centre as Christian orphans, they were neither Christian nor orphan; the girls were having their names changed to Christian ones, they were being indoctrinated in Christian faith to turn them into missionaries, and the children were being totally separated from their families. We brought all the girls back to Nepal, but as soon as we brought them back, D B Phadera went on the offensive. He has very very strong political connections, and he has strong media connections. And he felt sufficiently strong to actually issue death threats against individuals of my organization, and to do so on national television.

'The concerned ministry should take us seriously and if they don't, for us the final option is to set the organization on fire. They wouldn't realize when they die and neither will we. We will create agitation... we know what to do... where to find those people and we know how to give "treatment"... and we really will.'

In spite of Phadera's threats, we have continued undaunted, and are currently taking supreme court action against him, which if successful, could mean that he spends up to 20 years in prison. The aggression that Phadera has shown towards us has inspired us to be a little bit more aggressive ourselves. And I am determined that the operations we conduct in 2012, against those who are exploiting children south of the border, are much more robust and far-reaching. For that, we need your support, and we need your financial support.

Thank you very much indeed for taking part in the charity run on the 27th November. Please ensure that the physical effort that you make is matched by a fund-raising effort. Thank you so much."

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Esther Benjamins Trust
• Running to Stop the Traffik
• Youth Endurance Network
• 24 Hour Race