Ministry to Build Shelter School for Child Sex-Trade Victims

Thursday, Jun. 11, 2009 Posted: 1:13:15AM HKT

In regard to empowerment, the people behind The Amber Initiative welcome interested individuals to intern with them.

Amber's launch is scheduled for December, according to Meixi Ng, one of its co-founders, in an email reply to some queries from The Christian Post.

Ng says that she co-founded the organisation along with Suraj Upadhiah after returning from an independent trip to Kolkata in July last year, during which they had had a firsthand experience of the "gripping" injustices going on in the brothel areas.

"It's like seeing a crime and not reporting - we couldn't BUT come back and devote so much of our time to working on this despite still being in school. Founding this came out of more than just wanting to, but needing to," she wrote, adding that they had conducted an art workshop in the community centre in the city as well.

As to promoting the ministry locally, the U.S.-based Director of Programmes says that Amber will be conducting a Justice Conference in August and "doing some things" in Singapore with the secondary schools which are being firmed up.

She expressed that the response thus far from the youth to talks previously given at other secondary schools and JCs has been "incredible".

The group is also planning to start a programme that works with either the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University or Singapore Management University in which it will link the varsity youth to local non-profit organisations.

While funds are being raised for the school and shelter, in the meantime the programme hopes to support local and global non-governmental organisations that are doing responsible ground work with regard to human trafficking. Amber has also started a monthly newsletter to keep the public informed of its ongoing projects.

The Amber Initiative is a programme of Eagles Communications, founded and led by youth and focusing on youth and social justice. Even so, according to Ng, Amber has its own board of directors and is about to be registered as a charity in Singapore while maintaining a very tight relationship with Eagles.

There are ten million women in prostitution in India, according to Human Rights Watch. Four hundred thousand children are forced into prostitution, reported the Daily Telegraph, while 100,000 women are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation in Kolkata with 40 percent of them below 18 years of age, according to Sanlaap’s Red Alter Campaign. Fifty million girls and women are missing as a result of systematic sex discrimination such as foeticide, according to a UNICEF report.

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Edmond Chua
The Christian Post (Singapore) Reporter