What would a life that belongs to you feel like?

From the moment you are born, imagine knowing that a price tag has been attached to your
existence. What would freedom look like to you then?

When I was asked to write this blog, I sat down and kept thinking about what freedom would
actually feel like for girls like Monisha,who was 17 when she was rescued by Freedom Firm and
Fahila, who was 15.

When your whole life has been shaped around being used as a product, I wonder if freedom
ever simply means freedom.

I read Diya’s story and it brought up so many emotions in me. There are certain desires that
remain deeply human, no matter how much trauma a person has experienced. I was so glad to
know that she eventually married the love of her life. It reminded me that a life of choice, love
and self-autonomy is still possible after years of simply surviving.

I can only imagine what happens when your body has been trained from a young age to live in
hypervigilance. When you have spent years in a constant state of fight or flight, safety cannot
suddenly become natural just because you have been rescued. The body and mind have to
slowly learn what safety feels like. That can take years of patience, consistency and repeated
experiences of being treated with dignity.

It made me wonder about my own role in all of this.

It can sound noble to talk about rescuing a child or a woman and helping restore their life. But
what about the world they return to?

How do we change the immediate surroundings around us?

A woman driving a car is still sometimes met with, “How can she?” A single mother trying to
build a life for herself is still questioned and judged.

I was recently speaking to a friend who had gone through a divorce. Along with the pain of the divorce came accusations about her character. I heard men who knew her say, “Of course, there must be something wrong with her
character.”

This is what makes me angry.

For generations, women have been treated as objects to be judged, used and discarded. Things
are changing, but they are changing painfully slowly.

And even when a woman or child is rescued, I think we need to ask ourselves how we look at
them afterwards.

Too often, survivors are seen through a lens of pity. That angers me too.

Rescue should not be an act of charity where someone is permanently seen as a victim. It
should be about restoring a person’s life, dignity, choices and agency. It should mean giving
someone the space to decide who they want to become.

I remember speaking to people and still hearing something in their voices. Even after a person
has been rescued, they can still be looked at through the lens of what happened to them. Their
past becomes the first thing people see.

But a person’s worst experience should never become their identity.

When I think about trafficking, I also think about the culture that surrounds it. I truly believe
trafficking is an extreme end of a spectrum that begins in everyday attitudes. It begins with
misogyny, toxic masculinity and objectification. It begins when we teach boys that women exist
for their consumption. It begins when we excuse the objectification of someone’s body as
harmless. It begins when we question a woman’s character instead of questioning the behaviour
that harmed her.

I get particularly frustrated when a man says, “I get triggered when a woman dresses a certain
way.”

But what about your eyes?

What about the way you look at her? What about the way you speak about her? What about the
responsibility you have for your own behaviour?

Change has to begin there too.

It is quite easy to be intellectually woke. It is much harder to become emotionally aware. That is
a painful journey because it requires us to look at the beliefs we have inherited and ask
ourselves whether they are actually humane.

Reading the stories of girls rescued by Freedom Firm has made me think about freedom
differently.

Reclaiming your own agency after trauma is an inherently feminist act. When a young survivor
learns that her body, choices and boundaries belong to her, she is reclaiming something that
was taken away from her. She is undoing the idea that her body belongs to someone else.
Rescuing is therefore not just about taking someone out of a dangerous situation. It is about
listening to them afterwards. It is about respecting their choices. It is about allowing them to lead
their own lives.

You may not be in a position to rescue a child from a trafficking ring today. Most of us aren’t. But you do have power over the culture you create around you.

Every time you reject objectifying language, you challenge the idea that someone’s body is
there for consumption.

Every time you teach a boy that emotional expression is a form of strength rather than
weakness, you challenge toxic masculinity.

Every time you respect a woman’s boundary without asking her to justify it, you teach her that
her “no” is enough.

Every time you refuse to judge a survivor by what happened to them, you give them a little more
space to be seen as a whole person.

Maybe systemic change does not always begin with something grand.
Maybe it begins with the way we speak.

The way we look.

The things we excuse.

The assumptions we make.

And the way we treat the people standing right next to us.

Perhaps that is where freedom begins too.