Priti Patkar is an Indian social worker and human rights activist. She holds the position of co-founder and director at Prerana, an organization that has been a trailblazer in addressing issues within the red-light districts of Mumbai, India. Priti Patkar's efforts primarily focus on safeguarding children who are at risk of falling victim to commercial sexual exploitation and

trafficking Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

Personal life

Priti Patkar was born in

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

. Her father was a government servant and her mother ran a daycare program. She is a Gold Medalist from The Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai where she completed a Masters in Social Work. She is married to social activist

Pravin Patkar Pravin Patkar is an Indian academic and human rights activist. He co-founded Prerana, an NGO working for child protection & anti-human trafficking. In 1999, he founded Asia's first Anti-Human Trafficking Resource Centre supported by the US Gov ...

Activism

Priti Patkar has been working for the protection and rescue of children and women victims of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation for over 30 years. She founded Prerana in 1986, after a research visit for her Masters in Social Work to the Kamathipura Red Light Area – where she witnessed three generations of women soliciting customers on the same street. She is accredited with several path-breaking social interventions for the protection and dignity of children and women victims of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. Patkar has to her credit the largest number of legal interventions and writ petitions in India to protect the rights and dignity of child and female victims of child sexual exploitation and trafficking.

References

External links

How Prerana’s Priti Patkar has changed the lives of sex workers' children
– 2014 Guardian newspaper article
Prerana Anti-Trafficking, Mumbai
– official website
Prerana - Lighting the Lamp of Self Esteem for the Children of Sex Workers
– article at The Better India website
Priti Patkar
– archived profile from the Ashoka website

– archived from IBN Live {{DEFAULTSORT:Patkar, Priti Indian women activists Living people Scientists from Mumbai 21st-century Indian women educational theorists 21st-century Indian educational theorists 20th-century Indian educational theorists Women educators from Maharashtra 20th-century Indian women scientists Activists from Maharashtra Women scientists from Maharashtra Social workers from Maharashtra Educators from Maharashtra Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century Indian women educators 20th-century Indian educators