Hawa + Girls, Kanjar Community, Sex Trade, Nirvanavan Foundation, Alwar, Rajasthan, India, November, 2013

I returned to Alwar last November and worked with the wonderful Nirvanavan Foundation, under the leadership of my friend Nirvana. We visited four schools in total and talked about the existing hostel and the possibility of two more for the Kanjar Villages. Here my dear friend Hawa sits with the girls of one of these villages, and does what few in my experiences here have done… truly give himself to the photography… proud to have spent this time with all of these girls and the foundation.

Nirvanavan Foundation works in 12 Kanjar and Nat Villages, communities engaged in traditional prostitution. The girls are either sent off to the bigger cities or work with the outlying villages, providing their services as managed by the men in their communities. It is a hard reality to witness and an infinitely more cruel reality for them.

The young girls in this image face such a world on a daily basis, yet the foundation works with the premise that providing an education will someday soon produce the changes necessary to end such a practice for these girls. Perhaps that change will come for them, perhaps for their girls. Only time will tell.

www.halimina.org
www.nirvanavan.org.uk

Note: This image was made with a hand-held Sony RX100M2, edited for size only.