POPxo Power Women List 2020: Ruchira Gupta, The Advocate For A World Without Trafficking

The Activist Working For Women’s Rights
Ruchira Gupta is a journalist, activist and founder-president of Apne Aap Women, an NGO that works towards eradicating sex-trafficking. Gupta has been actively advocating for a world without trafficking for over three decades now. She has been instrumental in developing the Indian anti-trafficking law, as well as other anti-trafficking policies across the world. In India, her NGO has led interventions to end prostitution among tribes in the states of Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and West Bengal.

She is also a professor at New York University, where she teaches courses on human trafficking. She has won several accolades for her work, including the French Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur, the  Litterarum Humaniorum Doctors at Smith College, the Clinton Global Citizen Award and the Sera Bangali. 

Ruchira Gupta’s 2020 Power Move
Amid the coronavirus lockdown, women and children from low-income families were suffering from food shortage. After a distressing call from one of the girls her NGO sponsors, Gupta sprang into action and launched One Million Meals, an initiative to ensure the supply of food and dry rations to marginalised communities. Her team started with cooked meals and then dry rations and distributed them across families. When they noticed a staggering gap between supply and demand, they began to supply trucks full of ration across state borders. Within 100 days, the initiative crossed over five million meals. The initiative managed to provide meals to 10,000 victims of sex trafficking, including 2,500 women and 7,500 children.

The POPxo Power Women List is an annual list that celebrates incredible Indian women from diverse domains who make power moves that have a real impact. With The POPxo Power Women List 2020, we celebrate 15 phenomenal women. To see the entire list, click here.

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