Apne Aap International

Apne Aap International is an NGO working to end sex-trafficking with grassroots initiatives in India and and university partnerships in the USA. It is headquartered in New York and has consultative status with the United Nations. Its university partners include Stanford University, New York University, and U.C. California Berkeley. Its founder, Ruchira Gupta, teaches courses on human trafficking at New York University and mentors US and India based survivors of prostitution. Apne Aap International supports the work of Apne Aap Women Worldwide in India. Apne Aap Women Worldwide is an Indian grassroots organization working against sex-trafficking. It has supported more than 20,000 prostituted and at-risk girls, women and their family members since its foundation in 2002, by journalist, Ruchira Gupta and 22 women in prostitution. It enrolls children of prostituted women into school, and helps women exit prostitution by getting government IDs, accessing welfare like food, housing and health care and filing cases against traffickers. Its main work in India is in the red-light districts of Sonagachchi and Munshiganj in West Bengal and among nomadic groups labelled as criminal tribes under British colonialism in Bihar.