Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication: The impact of budget management for survivors of trafficking
Social thinker and activist Naila Kabeer defined empowerment as the expansion of the ability of an individual to make strategic life choices in a context where earlier that individual was denied that ability. Largely theorizing around the impact of earning livelihood and gaining financial resources on the lives of women, Kabeer underlined that making a small change wherein a woman can make choices about simple household financial decisions, can create ‘pathways to empowerment’ for them.
It is interesting to see how Kabeer’s theory of empowerment can be viewed through the lives and vantage point of survivors of trafficking, especially female survivors of trafficking.
The dominant image created around survivors of trafficking is that of a helpless victim of a grievous crime, someone gullible, easily coerced and manipulated, unable to take any decisions about their lives, especially important life decisions such as education, marriage or earning a livelihood. This is further reinforced by the constructed notion that money is a masculine domain, best left to the man to deal with.
This idea around trafficking survivors and their relationship with financial resources has led to highly contentious decisions taken by even governments, even though management of money largely should lie in the personal domain. However, due to the patronizing and patronizing viewpoint of the State around survivors’ agency, the State has often governed around how women should be taking decisions around their life. In line with this for instance, the West Bengal government while disbursing the victim compensation money for survivors of trafficking took a decision to keep 75% of the compensation amount as Fixed deposit in the bank and 25% was disbursed directly to them. Two survivors from Utthan, a survivors’ collective in West Bengal challenged this directive based on the argument that like any other individual, survivors have the right to spend their money according to their own mind, and the State cannot impinge on that right of an individual.
It is not only the state that has a protectionist outlook towards survivors of trafficking, but also NGOs and the funding organizations working with survivors of trafficking who harbor a similar viewpoint. Many leading NGOs working directly with survivors are used to thinking of them as poor and gullible and lacking the power and the agency to engage in meaningful decision making around their lives, especially financial decisions.
In this context, a question arises: has any NGO or funding organization explored the impact of shifting power to the survivors themselves in shaping their lives? What could be the possible impacts of that?
Leadership Next, a leadership program working with survivors of trafficking in West Bengal sought to explore the potential impact of handing over a core function of a collective, i.e, creation and management of its budget to the survivors themselves, instead of the NGOs working with them. The objective behind this was to equip the survivors' collectives with the capacities to be able to get a deep understanding about their own working budget, and to catalyze a shift in power from the NGOs to the survivors.
In 2021, 11 survivor collectives, with the support of the NGOs working with them, started the process of learning budget management. Trainings were held, budgets were broken down and explained, and the members of the survivors' collectives started managing their budgets with hand holding from the NGO workers.
No other organization had explored the transformative potential of simple budget management in the lives of survivors of trafficking. Not only did the survivor collectives learn to manage their own work budget and take financial decisions, this had a ripple effect on their relationship with the NGOs with whom they worked, and in their personal relationships.
Through an increased knowledge about money, the survivors were able to monumentally increase their negotiation and voice around financial decisions in their own lives and in the financial decisions of their families. In most households, the major financial decisions, i.e, where will money be spent, is taken by the husband, the father, or the elder brother. However, survivors were able to negotiate major financial decisions and not only give their opinion around spending and saving decisions but were also able to influence their family members.
“My husband would often spend according to his own needs, but this time when a choice came between spending on buying a motorcycle for him and spending it on the school fees, books and uniform for our son, I counseled him to choose the latter. I justified to him the need to delegate our family finances thoughtfully,” says Suparna, survivor member from Bandhan Mukti survivors collective.
Another direct implication of this added skill was that survivors increased their knowledge and will towards saving money. 13 out of 20 survivors in a collective started saving on a monthly basis through various means, starting from post office and bank savings to saving in piggy banks. Using this saved money, many survivors were able to contribute to family spending needs, which increased their agency within the family as well.
“Saving bit by bit, I saved quite a lot of money and when my husband was looking for another job, I told him that I have little money to run the household till he gets another job. I felt very proud of myself,” says Amina, a survivor member from North 24 Parganas
Another unforeseen implication of budget planning and management was the added capacity of survivors to be able to detect manipulation or coercion from their families to exert control over their money.
Fatima, a 24-year-old survivor says, “My husband would often convince me to spend all my money for some of his needs. Many times, to meet his requirements, I took huge loans from money lenders and went into debt. Then we had a discussion in our NGO, where we discussed how everyone has the right to be able to decide what they want to do with their money, and how difficult but important it is to say no to our loved ones if they are crossing their boundary.”
Support from the NGO and peers helped survivors like Fatima to not only get out of debt and start saving, but also to be able to detect such manipulative pressures being given by their families.
Apart from changes in their personal lives and relationships, the act of learning about budget planning and management changed personal dynamics not only with the NGOs but also between survivors. It made NGOs rethink about the inner power of survivors and their expanded capacities. Some of the NGOs were also for the first time ever, relooking at their own notions around survivors’ abilities and reimaging their own work with survivors.
Soma, a social worker shares, “I realized that I too have my own biases around survivors because when it cames to teaching survivors about the budget, I realized that I was holding the bias that they will fail at it. This helped me relook at my work and my activism around human trafficking and created a shift within me.”
The experiences of this experiment teach activists and funders that it is of utmost importance that they invest their time, energy and resources in building the leadership capacities of trafficking survivors. Through investment in survivors’ leadership, the impact is not only on their own lives, but it trickles down into the whole anti human trafficking ecosystem.
About the author:
Anwesha is a development sector professional and gender-based violence researcher who was associated with the Leadership Next programme as a programme coordinator.