Puja When she was 12 years old, Puja was forced into a child marriage so her parents could support their other 12 children. She moved with her young husband to Calcutta, where she was then trafficked by her landlord and sold to a brothel.
After two years of physical and sexual abuse, Puja was rescued and sent to a women’s union where she received education, health care, and handicrafts training.
Today she supports herself by using this training and has saved enough money to share an apartment with another trafficking survivor. She has led workshops on embroidery and shared her story to inspire other women. “The work for Made By Survivors has given me not only my first experience of independence, but also a new identity as an artisan, rather than a victim,” she says.