My Choices Foundation

I believe that through partnerships and collaborations we can change the lives of many women and girls in India. Due to the nature of being a behavioural-change targeted organisation, which inherently measures success by long term commitments to respect and protect women and girls, this prize will enable us to further expand our programs and have a ripple effect for women and girls that will last generations. Through our years and track record of achieving success, we are in a position to utilise funds to effectively and measurably reach families and individuals.

Therefore, I am applying for the prize that will enable our organization with the necessary funds to expand. The Covid-19 pandemic has further intensified violence against women and girls, as well as trafficking and child marriage. Women are faced with the choice to either remain inside and get killed by violence or go outside and get killed by the pandemic. Women and children are vulnerable during this time and traffickers target vulnerable families. We will utilize the funds to expand our Sex-Trafficking and domestic violence projects to even more vulnerable states across India.  

In 2011 I left a career in Investment banking and finance to follow the call I felt to serve women and girls in India by working for their empowerment. In 2012 I founded My Choices Foundation (MCF). Since then, MCF has grown to become a national leader in addressing domestic violence and sex trafficking in India, and recognised internationally for the ingenuity and impact of its work. 

Under my leadership, MCF has helped peacefully resolve over 11,000 cases of domestic violence and has equipped over 2.5 million individuals living in high-risk areas across 8 states to stay safe from sex trafficking. Through its anti-trafficking initiative, MCF has established the first national helpline exclusively for trafficking and is leading the coalition effort to prevent sex trafficking, our impact as of 2020 can be viewed in our latest Impact Report. 

 I have been awarded the ‘50 Most Impactful Social Innovators’ award and AGSM Alumni Award for Social Impact and Public Policy for my work in India. The Red Alert Research Paper, which I co-authored with behavioural architects of Final Mile, won the 2016 ESOMAR award for excellence in market research and has become a seminal document for anti-trafficking program development.

Through the work done by My Choices Foundation, we aim to stop sex trafficking and provide free counselling, safe home and legal services to survivors of domestic violence. 

Global data collected suggest that - 40% of married Indian women face abuse, violence in their homes. Domestic violence is the most pervasive form of violence against women, but least reported or recognized. To help women and children understand that domestic violence is a human rights issue we conduct multiple awareness programmes for varied demographics with targeted messaging. We also address the issue by providing free counselling, legal and safe homes services for survivors of violence and abuse.

Every few minutes, a girl is trafficked in India and forced into sexual slavery. Only 1% of these girls are rescued. Sex trafficking is mostly invisible and under-reported. With the coronavirus pandemic that has put the world on lockdown and people feeling uncertain about the future, traffickers have adjusted their business model to the ‘new normal’. Through our Safe Village Program, we create awareness through positive messaging about the various ways traffickers exploit the vulnerability of people from rural communities and empower the communities to report these crimes via our toll-free national helpline. 

Our domestic violence prevention work is grounded in empowering local women to help survivors in their communities. Our PeaceMaker model focuses on training local women as paralegals who then act as our eyes and ears in the communities and help survivors reach our centres to avail our free services in instances of abuse and violence. 

Our anti-trafficking work is grounded in extensive research to understand what kind of messaging would resonate the most with our target audience. Our research indicated that: 

1. Parent’s desire to meet the social norms and expectations of doing the best for their children, oblivious to the dangers of trafficking.


2. The desire of young men for better things in their life and to be just “good enough” leads them to buy sex
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3. Traffickers exploiting the vulnerabilities - poverty and mindset that undervalues girls and women.

Based on our findings we developed the Safe Village program which uses positive messaging to create awareness about the dangers of trafficking. Guided by our vulnerability mapping tool built by Quantium which helps identify at-risk villages, the Safe Village Program is reaching the highest risk and most vulnerable villages around India, teaching and equipping families how to keep their daughters safe. 

Through our anti-trafficking and domestic violence prevention programmes, we focus on targeting the emotions of people which would help in addressing issues endemic to women and children. 

Our domestic violence prevention programmes are curated based on the target audience. We focus on educating children and young adults about child sexual abuse, child marriage, child labour and dating violence. For working professionals, our programmes are focused on domestic violence and workplace harassment. For women, we focus on domestic violence and child sexual abuse. 

Our anti-trafficking initiative, Safe Village Program is designed with targeted messaging towards the father, mother, boys and girls of the village. Each beneficiary is targeted through specific messages that would resonate the most with them (Good father, Informed Mother, Cool Boy and Guardian Girl). Through such targeted messaging we are having an impact on our beneficiaries since we focus on what would be relevant for each beneficiary rather than having a common/mass messaging programme.