India Archives - Shared Hope International

September 20, 2013 by Guest

A Father for Freedom

Written by: Marissa Montalvo

Life is one of the most precious things in the world and it takes tremendous courage to save one. Sparsh Founder, Timothy Hirwale, shares what motivated him to rescue and raise dozens of India’s children as his own and how his organization is making an impact.

“There was a time in my dad’s life he was left alone to die on the street of Marathwada, a rural place in Maharashtra, India. An American missionary named Elizabeth Walton picked him up as a malnourished child and cared for him and gave him the name Daniel. Looking at the beautiful lifestyle of my orphan mom and dad I was inspired and thought I would love to care and love these precious children.”

Dedicated to offering that same love and care that Walton gave his father, Timothy decided to create Sparsh, an organization that offers protection and a family to children and orphans.

“For me the thought of a child being left alone without care and protection and without love makes me move in my inner spirit. You can call it a call of God or inner urge to do something for children, but from the age of 18 there was only one aim and goal or ambition and that was to serve the children.”

When he was 18-years-old, he was called “bachelor dad” because he had already taken in two 3-year-old children.

“The first time when we picked up Payal and Sunny from the red light area to Sparsh, there was this tremendous joyful satisfaction in my heart but it took 10 days for Payal to accept me as a father because she had horrific time with her father.”

His mission isn’t easy. Timothy says some of his greatest challenges are overcoming the helplessness he feels when he can’t accept more children because his home is full, caring for the education and development of so many children, and finding the time between fundraising, administration and running the home to offer individualize love and support to all 17 children. Not to mention the logistics of transporting 22 people using one small six-passenger van. Placing his challenges into perspective, he says stories like Nandini’s are worth it.

“We brought Nandini from the street. She was full of mud and carbon all over her body. When we started giving her a bath, all the black water flowed from the bathroom. Seeing that, all rest of the children screamed and ran away saying that she is very unclean. But as the days pass by, when I look back, I thank God for this little life, full of joy and smiles every day.”

Timothy says being a good father means being a good role model, building comfortable communication so children feel free and open to be themselves, finding creative and resourceful ways to provide for the family, and by taking the time to instill values in the children.

“In my opinion, a good father introduces his children to the future and does not try to keep them from world. I feel [parent should] let them see everything, have experiences of their own and when the time comes for them to make the right decision of following any religion or career, it is their own choice. I will rest assured because the values, the love I have showed to them, is genuine and you will get a genuine result. Your love and values will always guide them to be a successful human being.”

The time and energy Timothy invested in being the best father he can is paying off. He says he has seen an increase in the children’s level of trust and sense of security since coming to the home. They are sharing their feelings, hugging and showing intentional acts of kindness-actions that indicate the children are developing healthy patterns of affection and relationship skills which can be more difficult for children with traumatic backgrounds to develop.

Timothy is a man of prayer, passion and purpose. He says men must step forward with courage and boldness to fight against injustice.

“I feel God has blessed America with everything, what other nations covet. The God given freedom is being taken away by human traffickers all over. Our negligence is bringing the HIV rates high on rampage. Our negligence is seeing our own daughters and sisters being taken away in front of our eyes…Feeling sorry for the horrific act is not just enough. It is the time to act. Many think it won’t happen to me or my family, but greed and pleasure does not know any relation and color. I pray and plead, let’s make human trafficking a history.”

About Sparsh
In 2011, Shared Hope International expanded its impact in India by welcoming a new partner in Pune. Sparsh, which means “touch” is a restoration refuge providing a family environment to women on a journey of restoration after sex trafficking, their children, and children whose mothers are still enslaved in Pune’s red light district.

September 25, 2012 by SHI Staff

Return to India: A Warm Welcome at the Brothel

The oppression of the brothel is palpable, assaulting all the senses in unison. The stench of the street mingles with the sickening sweet mask of incense, the dank narrow staircases feel like upward winding tunnels, each floor reveals clusters of women—lovely, dressed for work, bejeweled bodies, empty gazes staring. Quiet, there is no chatter. They languish. It’s hot; it is the slow season.

Each floor is owned by a separate brothel owner and we wind our way to the topmost floor where Reshma is the brothel owner. Timothy is welcome there, a rare visitor gaining entrance through trust. Like many of the brothel owners, Reshma herself was trafficked and her only memories are contained there. She wanted her own children to have a life away from that place, so entrusted them to Sparsh’s care. Two years ago along with Reshma we met one of her ladies, a very beautiful and sad Rekah, who also had given her two children into Sparsh’s care. Later that day at Sparsh we see Rekah again—now a transformed woman! She smiles broadly as she describes her new life reunited with her children, helping in the home and going to cosmetology school.

Reshma is more compassionate than most brothel owners and says she will come out as soon as her debts are paid. On this day we visit with four ladies that work for her. Haseena looks very downcast and holds her naked nine month baby boy as she pours water into his bird mouth from a plastic bottle top . How will baby Imran grow up there? What chance does he have? Rupa tells us she worked in a sari factory very long hours and made $2 or $3 for a 12 hour day; when she was offered the opportunity for similar work at higher pay in Pune she seized the moment… that ended up here. She will stay, she says, because she cannot read or write and she has three children somewhere.

Is there something you would like to do if you were freed from this place? Rupa and another girl giggle nervously. Puzzled by a question that called for a vision of a future beyond these walls, Rupa asks us how learning to read and write could help someone. Each of the ladies’ stories were the similar—they were tricked or sold into this life. Now here, with children to care for, with no education, they are trapped. We look on as Reshma helps dress Rupa for work, carefully folding the beautiful sequined sari and fastening a sparkling necklace. They urge Elizabeth to try on a sari—turquoise to match her t-shirt…everyone laughs and takes pictures of Rupa and Elizabeth together. But Elizabeth gets to leave.

To view the complete facebook photo album, click here.

May 18, 2012 by SHI Staff

Return to India: From Children’s Songs to Trafficker’s Woes

In the midst of 2009 and world-wide economic contraction, Timothy and Joyce founded “Sparsh” which means “to touch” and the way they have touched so many lives in such a short time is utterly amazing. It is our first stop on our site visits to India and Nepal, and after just a few hours’ sleep it was “today” in India…

Today included a happy reunion with children who, thanks to our partner, will not have to suffer what their mothers have suffered. Bright and well behaved, these “smallies” clambered all over us. They sang for us and recited Bible verses they had learned, then went crazy over Elizabeth’s iPhone with the silly apps.

But today was also a jolt of reality…a trip into the brothel, looking into the hopeless faces of ladies submitted to “the life” and a conversation with a 17-year-old trafficker.

Timothy introduced us to Samir who gave us a look into how the system works. Two years ago at age 15 his mother died and he went to live with his aunt, a brothel owner with mafia ties. She put Samir to work in the family business. He was good at it–he secured 7 or 8 girls every month and poured them into the voracious pit of the Mumbai brothel system. For this, his cut was a bit more than 25% of the $2000 selling price for each innocent young girl. An alluring way to make money in a difficult economy…

There is a large mafia element in India’s trafficking. A common scenario is that mafia scouts look for poor families with young daughters, befriend the father and offer him small loans to keep his family from starvation…until one day they call the loan and take the daughter as payment. Most of these girls cannot read or write and soon bear children in the brothel, a situation that ensures their continued service in order to provide for their own children. Timothy explains that almost all would leave if they knew their children would be cared for…and that’s where Sparsh comes in. They first earn trust, then care for the children, and then ultimately support the mother’s initiative to leave the life.

Of course Samir is not his real name…he’s now a changed person since meeting the Lord and becoming convicted of the evil he was doing. But he is not safe–recently he was badly beaten by mafia–with police cooperation–for turning informant. Saddest of all, was our helplessness–Samir shared the knowledge that in just a few hours three girls are scheduled to be transported. Destination: hell in Mumbai.

April 18, 2012 by Guest

Recent Secret Service Scandal Raises Awareness of Sex Tourism

Recently thrust into the media due to the less-than-honorable actions of some members of President Obama’s Secret Service team, sex tourism has risen to the attention of the global community. Sex tourism, defined as traveling to a domestic or international location with the purpose of purchasing sex, has become a multi-billion dollar industry with some seriously questionable repercussions.
One such repercussion is the proliferation of sex trafficking. Sex tourism increases the demand for commercial sex, enticing traffickers to force women and children into the market to satisfy this demand. This leads to child sex tourism, which is defined as traveling to a location with the purpose of engaging in sex with a minor. Although this commercially-facilitated form of child abuse is known to occur in countries with a weak economic structure, it also occurs in the United States on a regular basis.

For example, Las Vegas is a hub for sex tourism, and thus sex trafficking is extremely common. In a 2008 study performed by Shared Hope, over 400 prostituted children were found in Las Vegas in just one month. Efforts to curb child sex trafficking have made some progress, but the problem continues to plague the area. Fortunately, law enforcement agencies are aware of the strong presence of sex trafficking and tourism in Las Vegas, and are developing measures in similar areas in their communities with the potential to become a hub for sex trafficking. For example, Hollywood Casino Toledo is slated to open in Toledo, Ohio this June, so local law enforcement officers are being trained to identify and address sex trafficking.

Countries with a weak economic structure are popular destinations for sex tourism because buyers can purchase comparatively less expensive sexual services with exotic women, men and/or children, with greater anonymity than if purchasing in their home country. A prime example is India. According to the 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, “Religious pilgrimage centers and cities popular for tourism continue to be vulnerable to child sex tourism. Indian nationals engage in child sex tourism within the country and, to a lesser extent, in other countries.” Essentially, Indian children are being trafficked in India to provide domestic and international tourists with sex, and Indian adults also travel to other countries to engage in sex with minors.

All forms of sex tourism fuel global sex trafficking. Although the U.S. Secret Service members’ alleged sexual engagement involved adults, their actions are driving the sex tourism industry, thus promoting the brutal commercial sexual exploitation of women and children in the region and around the world.

April 9, 2012 by SHI Staff

Back to Our Beginning

Two American women and one Indian man navigated their way through the heart of the brothel district in India. They entered one particularly dismal building, climbed four flights of dark and narrow staircases, and pushed their way through the choking stench of body odors vainly masked by incense. Every room they passed on the way up was in use, or was framed by a vacant-eyed girl or woman … waiting, waiting, for the next humiliation.

When they reached the top floor two mothers were anxious to receive them. One was the brothel owner; the other was Hanna, a very young mom who was debt-bonded to her.

These two ladies had begged our restoration partners in India to take their precious children away from the horrors of the life in the brothel. They were overjoyed to see their children’s rescuers had actually arrived. Their children would finally be free. Yet they remained enslaved.

We had no idea this covert meeting in 2010 sparked a hope and determination in Hanna that would eventually empower her escape the chains of exploitation and flee to join her child at our partner’s restoration home.

Hanna never knew her birth date, so when her loving new family realized it had been a year since she was set free, they blessed her by celebrating the one year anniversary of her rebirth into freedom, complete with a surprise party.

In the next two months, our team will travel to Jamaica, India and Nepal to engage face-to-face with local restoration partners that have matured and expanded because of our support. We look forward to sharing an update on Hanna’s story and others from our partners in Jamaica, India, and Nepal once our team returns with pictures and stories of God’s provision.