 Namaskar! I'd like to share a few stories that have inspired me, molded my perceptions, built my attitudes. This happened when I was sixteen. It just had my most life-transforming experience of being gang-raped and being told that I deserved what I got. Then coming to this brilliant inspiration that I wanted to work for victims of sexual violence and more specifically victims of commercial sexual exploitation. For some reason I did not think I should go and do some internship or volunteer with an organization that did similar work. I wanted to go and learn on my own. Then I started searching for places where prostitution happened and I started frequenting a place where a large number of street prostitutes worked. It was very funny, I was sixteen, four feet six inches and still I am four feet six inches, I have not grown taller but at that time I used to think I will grow taller someday. Going to this place being shooed away, people spitting on my face shouting at me, abusing me and I kept telling them I wanted to do something, I want to help you all. Can I do something? They couldn't understand what was my motive or my agenda, why have I come here? What am I up to? Went on for many weeks, many months, nearly four and a half months just going there, watching the Tamasha women getting, going with the customers, coming out, pimps beating up people and all kinds of drama going on. One day when I landed there, one particular woman who had was being very abusive to me, she had actually spitted on my face once she called me and said you want to do something for us. There is a child there, go do something for her. I went there, saw this ten year old child apparently mentally retarded. I believe she was brought four days back there. She was raped by many men over. Men were just taking her inside the lodge, raping her, putting ten rupees inside her blouse and just leaving her there. I don't know what prompted this woman to ask my help for this child whether this child was destroying her livelihood whether she found this woman, this child a threat to her own business I have no clue what it was but that was my first chance to do something. It took me five days to understand where this child came from. Finally managed to understand that she came from a particular village in the outskirts of the city. Took another three, four days to arrange for a vehicle and on the D day I said I'm going to take this girl back and I cautiously asked them, is anybody who would like to come with me? Three women came forward, very nasty. They said we don't believe you whether you actually take this girl or not. I said okay, please come. We went to the village, as we neared the village this child started recognizing everything she started recognizing the lanes, the by lanes, the shops and everything and then we reached her house and she wouldn't go in, she just wouldn't go in. She was shivering, we didn't know what to do I had no clue what to do, this was my first case I looked at these women and one of them said let's go and meet the village head, the panchayat we went there and then these three women completely took over they started convincing the village head how this girl had lost her way, she'd come to our colony and that they kept pointing at me that this madam is the one who's trying to help her this girl is untouched, nothing has happened to her she just came to our neighborhood we took care of her for the last four or five days and I was shocked these three women I had been seeing them for the last four months this particular woman who was getting beaten up by her brokers her pimps, every now and then another woman once who got so badly beaten up by her customer her eyes was black, her lips was bleeding she could barely walk and these three people were defending the chastity of this child saying that nothing has happened to her she's, you know, as pure as she went from here and we've taken care of her convinced the village head to take care of this child the village head called the family the child belonged to and it came out that this child's parents died four months back and her paternal uncle who wanted the property, kicked this child out of the family the child lost her way, she went to the highway she went somewhere and somebody caught her and threw her in this prostitution den what stuck me in this story, in this incident one, disability especially mental retardation, being mentally challenged how that physical exclusion makes a person more vulnerable to abuse another thing that stuck me very hard in that incident is these three women they had absolutely no reason to help this child they had absolutely no reason to do anything for this child because the society has not given them anything for that matter there they were standing defending this child telling the village that this child is pure and she is ten, everything years later, in 1995 when I started Prachvala, my organization I had another understanding of exclusion I started my first intervention as a small school for prostituted women's children this was in a vacated brothel and next to the vacated brothel were a few transgenders who lived there very silent partners for my work silently providing me security silently providing me all that I need as an emotional base just standing there one day, when I came I saw the 16 year old transgender her name is Kajal her feet completely cut it was blood oozing out, pus oozing out it was a gory sight and I asked her, I said, why are you not going to the hospital? and she said, going to the hospital all the humiliation there all the snide remarks and all that is far worse than the pain I am going through I had a few rupees in my hand those were days that I had no money I just sold my earring to mobilize some funds to pay salary and rent of that small space with that money I took Kajal took her in an auto rickshaw to a hospital that I knew got her admitted, treated I forgot 20 days later I had an invitation for a party those were days that I didn't have much work to do so I went for the party party hosted by the transgenders I thought because I had become a little friendly with them they are calling me for a party when I entered I was shocked this whole path full of flower petals this little simhasan a seat, high seat kept for me this party was in honour of me 50 transgenders came together to celebrate my goodness that I had helped one of their community two months back Kajal, while she was begging in the train was pushed out of a running train by the ticket collector who felt transgenders are such nuisance I wonder in this world of inclusion that all of us live in do we have that kind of generosity this group of human beings who have been so much excluded just because of the way they were born in our minds, in our emotions, in our attitude in the way we provide them no access to opportunities that they have nothing else to do when begging or prostitution they had the generosity to celebrate goodness for the first time in my life attending the TED conference was an experience of inclusion for me experience of meeting incredible human beings who included me in their compassion and empathy when I reached TED my landlord was evicting me I was not getting a space to rent I couldn't find a place because nobody wanted these kind of women in their premises I nearly mortgaged my house when somebody came as a benefactor and helped us buy some land I couldn't buy any land inside Hyderabad so I went 60 kilometres away from Hyderabad bought this ten acres of land bare land my challenge was I already have 400 and odd children youngest child that I've rescued from prostitution is around three and a half years old and the oldest is around 45 I have already 450 of them 400 in the shelters and 50 in different hospitals where do I take all these kids I have to have a children's home I have to have an adult home and since I'm going somewhere in the wilderness I jolly will have the hospital, the school and everything in that place that's when I came to TED and this incredible support followed and the Google grant which is making the whole thing possible TED was not just about money it was also about inclusion of different kinds whole new world of opportunities for our survivors today my girls are working as camera women in a very prominent TV channel they're working in a software company they're working in the eye hospital for the incredible generosity of the mind people have shown opening up their hearts it was also about networking meeting hundreds and thousands of people getting thousands of emails of disclosure of young men and women who have been sexually abused and who pledged that they will break the silence around them where am I today I stand at the threshold my own challenges challenge of finding people to work with me finding people who can be committed for the cause we've been attacked three times in the last one year mob attacks of 400-500 people coming and trying to destroy the shelter traffickers infiltrating into the shelter as victims and destroying the shelter from within attack on my life and every time that has happened somebody from the mainstream world who joined us support us has resigned and gone it's a challenge for me how do I build this team how do I create systems and structures to be more sustainable how do I maintain the faith that is bestowed on me create transparency and accountability in the movement that I've built but one thing I'm 100% sure today I'm more than ever obsessed with my conviction only when the most excluded only when the most rejected only when the most isolated gets included only then we will have a world which will be a better place for all of us to live in thank you