TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Abhay (00:00.098)
Hey friends, this is Abhay Dhandekar. Before we get started, don't forget to subscribe to Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing on YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen or watch. That way you never miss our show celebrating the vibrant Indian and South Asian global experience. Thanks.

Hello, I am Bhuvan Ribhu and I the founder of Just Rights for Children and this is Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing.

My name is Abhay Dandekar and I share conversations with talented and interesting individuals linked to the global Indian and South Asian community. It's informal and informative, adding insights to our evolving cultural expressions, where each person can proudly say, trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Hi everyone, on this Trust Me I Know What I'm Doing episode, a conversation with acclaimed Indian lawyer, activist, and the founder of Just Rights for Children, Bhuvan Ribu. Stay tuned.

Abhay (01:07.67)
I am certainly biased as a pediatrician in this regard, but the work of activists who are constantly fighting for the rights of children and aiming to end injustices is sadly a job that is never complete. And the reality of this is that it takes tireless visionaries to bring issues to the forefront, but not just shine a light on them, but to execute and really act on these kinds of things, to create environments and policies.

so that no child has to face any kind of exploitation. And so with this in mind, I'm so pleased to be joined by the extraordinary Bhuvan Ribu, a distinguished child rights activist, an author, a lawyer who's founded Just Rights for Children, the world's largest legal intervention network dedicated to protecting children from abuse, trafficking, and child marriage. Bhuvan has been an absolutely transformative figure in advancing child protection laws in India.

and inspiring a worldwide movement to end child marriage by 2030. We're so grateful for his ongoing work and of course for joining us on Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Juan, thank you so much for making some time for us.

Thank you, thank you. And as you said, immediately when I heard about your podcast, trust me, I know what I'm doing. I was greatly inspired by that heading that line because when you go out to protect children, you have to have that belief. Trust me, I know what I'm doing.

Absolutely, yes. And inspiring confidence is something that especially for those who are not only just willing to listen, but those who are not willing to listen, we need to speak to that confidence. I wanted to start by asking you, you've been doing this now for many, years, over 20 years since you started this journey. How has this evolved, particularly in the last few years? Is it?

Abhay (02:56.354)
the kind of work that is incremental building so that you are closing the gaps with each step? Or do you find that as you scale and as you gain traction that each step actually unearths another area that needs to be addressed where, you know, it feels sometimes like you're boiling the ocean, so to speak.

25 years ago when we started child protection was not considered as a criminal justice issue. For the crimes of child marriage, labour, nobody was going to jail. There was no police action required. If a child was to go missing, the police was not even duty bound to register an FIR or investigate or look for the child. Something like that is unthinkable in a country like United States.

But this is the sad reality that we were grappling with. So in India, I started working in 2002, a little bit assisting certain organizations on the issue of child labor and trafficking. And in 2004, after I was attacked while rescuing some girls, I realized that there was no law in India prohibiting trafficking. Despite the fact that trafficking and untouchability are the only

two articles in the Indian constitution that prescribe punishment. Still, there was no law. So I had to leave India for a few months. I actually came to the United States just to protect my life. But here I got this both this sort of understanding this wisdom that what good is my knowledge of law if it is not for the larger protection of rights and the law itself.

So I went back, set up an organization to work purely on trafficking and God has been kind. Since then, my goal was to put trafficking in the Indian penal code and outlaw it. We were able to do it in about another nine years in 2013. The labor became a crime. Missing children's FIR is now duty bound to be registered and where 160,000 children went missing in 2013.

Bhuwan (05:11.854)
By 2015, that number had fallen to less than 60,000. 100,000 children were not going missing because legal act was being done at scale. This is a fundamental shift in the way we understand the rule of law and we understand society. That shift has happened. Criminal justice and child protection through the enforcement of rule of law has become the norm today.

Everybody in the country is now rescuing children. Nobody is giving an argument that children are poor. So they will continue to work. Children are poor. So they will continue to get married. Anybody in their right mind does not think that child marriage, is nothing but child rape, should exist. So we have changed this consciousness by only enforcing what existed. What India has done in the last 25 years is what humanity has never seen.

More children are being rescued. 110,000 children have been rescued in the last three years. 400,000 child marriages have been prevented and stopped in the last three years. In fact, less than three years since April, 2023. So this has changed the way child protection works. And I believe this has the potential to change the way we as a society deal with crime and the rule of law. So the respect for the rule of law.

is going to what is going to build the foundation of a developed India.

I guess what I'm hearing most importantly is that not only has the rule of law been enacted, but the consciousness that it creates around it is really something that drives a lot of momentum, which is fabulous. In that, when you have a victory of sorts, mean, people think about these, this is of course a slow grind and a movement that has been building and building and building, and there are victories along the way.

Abhay (07:13.614)
And yet when you do see some of those victories open things up, are there also even more opportunities that you see building, whether that's in India or on a global scale? that consciousness also share that much more excitement and enthusiasm to make sure that the successes in one place can be scaled to another?

Absolutely, absolutely right. We actually you know, there is a saying about a Chinese bamboo that takes five years to develop its roots and its root system before it actually shoots up the ground and then suddenly it rises to a hundred feet in like a few months time. It is the same in India. We created the laws or we made the laws to actually establish what is right and what is wrong. The law defines what is right and what is wrong.

So we created the laws, we created the institutions, we created the ecosystem accountability, we created courts, fast-track special courts were created in 2020. We invested money on child protection. The government came and ran large campaigns like last year the government adopted the child marriage free Bharat campaign and suddenly we had 25 crore, 250 million people.

taking a pledge against child marriage on a single day, largest mobilization of people in human history. But what it makes us see is that change and sustainable change needs scale. You can rescue one child or two child or 10 children. It won't end trafficking. It won't end child labor. What would end child labor is deterrence at scale, which is what we have now been able to do.

using all our knowledge and all our laws and all our experiences and suddenly the movement has become very big. So within a space of you know, what is three years in fighting any social evil or crime? But in three years today, we can say that we will end it. It's not that we can. The end is imminent. And today, just as we launch this child marriage free world campaign, the Kenyan government joined in the Sierra Leone government joined in the African nations.

Bhuwan (09:28.152)
joined in, people from Nigeria joined in, France joined in, Norway joined in, philanthropists joined in. Suddenly what India has been able to achieve has become a beacon of light for the entire world. This is now, what it needs is now scaling out.

incredibly impressive and yet so much work to do. You're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. After a quick break, let's come back to our conversation with acclaimed Indian lawyer, activist, and the founder of Just Rights for Children, Bhuwan Ribhu. Stay tuned.

Abhay (10:06.784)
Every story told is a lesson learned and every lesson learned is a story waiting to be told. I'm Abhay Dandekar and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians so everyone can say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. New episodes weekly wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Bhuwan (10:31.726)
This is Madhuri

Dixit and you are listening to me I know what I'm doing with Abhay Dandekar

Abhay (10:45.592)
Hi, this is Farhan Akhtar

Hi guys, I'm Ananya Pandey. This is Vidya Balan and you're listening to What I'm Doing.

Hi.

to trust me I know

Welcome back to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's rejoin our conversation now with Bhuvan Ribhu.

Abhay (11:04.95)
When you think about it, your work has focused on some pillars here, right? mean, stopping child trafficking, child sexual exploitation and abuse, child marriage. And from the outside, the magnitude can again seem overwhelming. Yes. And maybe you can give some perspective, not only just on the scope of this, to some degree, how you actually prioritize the work.

So a couple of years ago, three or four years ago, when I started working in a programmatic way against child marriage, I will give that as an example. No one believed that the end was possible. I had conversations with colleagues, with friends, with other NGOs who said, so many people have tried, so many people have failed. It is ingrained in the system. So we thought, OK, let us look at it scientifically. So we identified the most vulnerable hotspots.

Using government data of National Family Health Survey, we identified what is the prevalence rate in India, which at that time was 23%, 24%. That means one in every four children was married. UNICEF estimated that every minute three children were getting married in India. So the scale could be humongous. So we thought, OK, let us see.

where the problem is most acute where the prevalence is over 23%, 257 districts identified in first phase. And we said, let us focus here and end child marriage here. If you do that in eight years time, India's 24 % would reach a tipping point of 6%. Then we said, let us go to 330 districts where the prevalence rate is over 20%. And let us focus in the villages, in the blocks, in the areas where the problem is most acute. So we did that.

Like when we went to the NGOs, we said, OK, all we are asking one person to do is go to a village and stop in one village. Six child marriages in a year, only six in a year. But you have to take responsibility of about 50 villages. So 50 villages in one district meant 300 child marriages stopped in a year and stopped means call the police involved the right actually stop it.

Bhuwan (13:19.822)
It's not like you create something. And when you do that, if the police comes, one child marriage stopped is going to mean that deterrence that the entire village will know that when a child was getting married, the police came. And if you do it six times, then everybody knows that I can go to jail in that village. 300 child marriages stopped in 400 districts meant 120,000 child marriages were prevented or stopped in a year. Suddenly in three years, it is 400,000. So we said, now that you are going to a village.

identify who are the vulnerable families who need economic support. They identified 50 families, 60 families. So we said, let us organize camps for them with the government. Let us link them to social security. Just this year in 2025, we have linked 1.3 million people with social security. This is like government money, which is being given to people. Yes. hundred and thirty thousand out of school girls have been identified and put in school. You can reach the scale.

Any scale, if you actually break it down to the nuances and then we started GPS tracking using technology of temples that could be involved. went to faith leaders and we said, all you need to do is one temple, one mosque always exists in a village. Let that place of worship be the beacon of message. That message that child marriage is a crime. Suddenly the entire thing has collapsed by hitting that.

So it is there is a method to the madness. It is just that when you say the numbers, they are overwhelming. Today say that while three children could be married every minute in India, we are also linking three vulnerable families with government schemes to prevent child marriage every minute while stopping physically one child marriage every three minutes on the issue of trafficking, for example.

Nine children go missing every hour in India or trafficked every hour. Five children are being rescued every hour in India as a result of our efforts and work. So it is doable. It is just a thing of the will.

Abhay (15:28.748)
You know, and it requires a tremendous amount of trust and network so that people also remain accountable to those principles. And I think that with each one of those stories that you mentioned, whether it's at the village level or at the district level, at the temple level or the mosque level, the idea of cultivating that trust and accountability is huge.

so that each and every story can have sort of, again, it's a momentum accelerator for the next story. When you think about every victim, every survivor, every family who is either vulnerable or in fact getting assistance, whenever you think about any childhood exploitation, justice needs to also be delivered in a swift and urgent and safe manner. And yet these are not always the adjectives that we think of when

particularly at the communal level, when we think about the legal system in India, or for that matter, in many countries that are out there. So I love the picket philosophy that you've shared in the past. And I'm just curious about how that framework has been able to bring about the systemic change that you're talking about. I mean, how do you build believers in this so that people can feel that the justice system is swift and urgent and safe?

But again, particularly for those families and children, children who are survivors and victims, and for that matter, still in the specter of vulnerability.

So I will break it down in three different parts. How do you build trust and accountability also in responders like NGOs? So we asked the NGO partners that we are working with. didn't ask them for elaborate detailed written down reports. We said, if you stop a child marriage, we need a piece of paper from the panchayat saying that this child marriage was stopped. We need a police report. All we need is a government document that certifies that a child marriage was stopped. That builds a culture of accountability.

Bhuwan (17:30.67)
When I say that the number is 400,000, 315, they are counted numbers in a government record. So government is working with us. The second part deals with justice itself. What is justice? Justice is not an afterthought. Justice is not what happens what you get after a crime has happened. True justice lies in the prevention of crime.

So we believe that we must work on prevention before protection and protection before prosecution and prosecution to create the deterrence that is justice. Deterrence that will create prevention for the prevention. I'm sorry. Justice, which is retributive will mean that a crime has already happened and we cannot make a child whole again. If a child has been subjected to trafficking, if a woman has been subjected to rape or trafficking, we cannot make them whole again. So we can only

send somebody to jail for that but that trauma is forever you being a doctor knows that once that trauma happens it is it will be forever so we believe that we must work towards prevention of crime and all our actions should lead towards that goal secondly in cases like trafficking in cases like child marriage traditionally prosecution has never happened like i will say even today that if there is a case registered only

under the trafficking laws or the child marriage laws one has to assume that this was a person who was guilty. Eventually the witnesses may be pressured or something else may happen, time will delay that process. All those things will happen. But at the end of the day, the registration of FIR is the beginning of that justice delivery process which would ensure rehabilitation to the victim, which would ensure

a sort of a deterrence in the minds of the accused, which will tell the community that the law exists for their protection. It is the community that also suffers. The crime is never against an individual. And lastly, would say earlier we had, we did researches that prove that in child sexual abuse cases in some states it would take 20 years, in some states 25 years. But in the last five years, we have created fast track special course. You would be surprised to know

Bhuwan (19:51.566)
In a country like India, 90,000 or 92,000 child sexual abuse cases and rape cases were reported last year. 50,000, 94 % of those cases reported were actually completed. The trials were completed. So it is not that things are not moving, but we have to clear the backlog of about 200,000 cases. There was a very interesting thing that is actually the journey of how Just Rights for Children was born.

January 2024, we were running this as a program and all the NGO networks were working on ensuring access to justice for children. And in January 2024, there was a newspaper report that said that a person had been acquitted by the Madras High Court for downloading and keeping rape videos of children. And he had been acquitted that he does not committed a crime because mere download of child pornography is not a crime according to

that judge and that was it. Man was identified in the United States. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from US reported it to the MHA, Ministry of Home Affairs in India. They forwarded it to Chennai police. Chennai police actually took the action. The man was convicted within two years. And then he went to the high court and then he was acquitted. So what I'm saying is things were happening. People were doing their job, but suddenly the entire system collapses because if the law

is not clear, gray, ambiguous. If the law says it is not a crime, then anybody can do it. So we thought this was a criminal justice issue. So there were no victims who could go in appeal because it was just videos. The state chose not to go in appeal to the Supreme Court. And the man had walked free, why would he go in appeal? People who are acquitted of crimes such as rape, such as trafficking, such as child marriage, they are the beneficiaries of this lackadisical approach.

So this man, we collected all our NGO partners together and I asked them that we should create a sort of an advocacy force and approach the Supreme Court of India. And we did in March, 2024, we approached the Supreme Court of India saying that the state is the people of India. It is not only the government and what that meant was that under a special leave petition, said, allow us, allow us to represent those children and this crack.

Bhuwan (22:19.446)
And the Supreme Court allowed us in six months, not only was that a judgment overturned, but also the just rights for children was born as a global force for child protection through the rule of law. This is a story that changes possible change in winning. And it is only that somebody has to take that bull by the horns.

love that story, not just because of the outcome, but it sort of nicely encapsulates this whole journey of policy and institution and capacity building and how do you generate knowledge, the economics behind that, the connectivity behind that, of course, through the tech and really outlines that so beautifully there. And of course, lots and lots of incredible work that can be done as a result of that.

You're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. After a quick break, we'll come back to our conversation with Bhuvan Ribhu. Stay tuned.

Abhay (23:24.28)
Conversation. It's the antidote to apathy and the catalyst for relationships. I'm Abhay Dhandekar and I share conversations with global Indians and South Asians so everyone can say, trust me, I know what I'm doing. New episodes weekly wherever you listen to your podcasts.

Abhay (23:46.702)
Hi, I'm Vivek Murthy. I'm the 21st Surgeon General of the United States. And you're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing.

you

Bhuwan (24:03.854)
Hi everyone, this is Chef Vikas Khanna.

Hi, I'm Rich Verma, former US Ambassador to India, former Deputy Secretary of State.

I'm Indra Nooyi

hi I'm Kani Kusruti

and you are listening to me, know what I'm doing.

Abhay (24:21.496)
Hi there, I'm Abhay Dandekar and you're listening to Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing. Let's rejoin our conversation now with acclaimed Indian lawyer, activist and the founder of Just Rights for Children, Bhuvan Ribu. You know, you just mentioned a little bit about the trauma that you faced when rescuing girls from a vulnerable situation and how that sparked at least some of the journey for you.

I'm curious in if you connect the dots from that experience to the genesis of what you were doing in the early 2000s to these, you know, of course, string of awareness around really difficult situations to some of these incredible and powerful victories, if you will, throughout your career. What if you had to in fact unlearn about yourself to be successful as an activist?

as a lawyer, as an author, as a human for that matter in doing this work.

I think a lot of unlearning has happened with failure. Behind every one success, there is a string of a hundred failures. I remember a case about 10 years ago. Director General of Police had called me. I was just in my office and he called me to ask about a child who had gone to the police asking for her marriage to be stopped. And the police went.

and attempt to marry was not a crime. The child could not be taken out of the custody of the parents. The law didn't exist. And this child, the DGP, the highest official of police is calling me and I said, you can go and stop the child marriage. did. A month later, this girl was married and she called up the police and this DGP to say that you have failed me. The man who I got married to has now raped me. I don't want to go back to society. I don't want to go back to school. He called me and said,

Bhuwan (26:19.244)
What good is your local, your legal knowledge? We fail when we work. The one thing that I would, I have had to let go is this idea that you will win every battle. Sometimes you will lose battles, but you have to win the war. This battle, we had lost this child we had lost, but in 2015, when the juvenile justice act was being amended in that drafting, I proposed.

that a child at imminent risk of marriage should be treated as a child in need of care and protection and the state can intervene and take the custody of the child away. I went to the Supreme Court in 2015 asking that child marriage should be declared as child rape and in 2016 it was made so. I said that giving a child in marriage should be treated as cruelty. So we did that. So the laws you were earlier mentioning about picket first make the laws, the policies, then create the institutional frameworks that are accountable.

then involves the community to come together, converge, then increase knowledge through pledges, through awareness campaigns, et cetera, then hit the entire ecosystem and maybe even create the economical framework, the budgeted national action plans and use technology for monitoring and to ensure accountability. That is what we've been able to do. And this one thing that I have had to unlearn is to hold on to either success or failure. Both will come.

Yeah, amazing, right? mean, what we find out about ourselves along the way, making sure that we are not the rate limiting step behind the progress is very critical and important. I hear the story that you just shared about the work that you do that is seemingly a victory. And yet, like you mentioned, there are so many failures that accompany each one of those victories. And you have to, in a way, of stay resolved by that. I'll end with this.

thought in the scope of all this incredible work that you do, the work is also incredibly intense and it's filled with a range of emotions that are certainly speaking back to the children that you work with, their families, of course, the communities that they live in. And those range of emotions can be everything from absolute despair and futility and desperation with depression to

Abhay (28:38.188)
liberation and emotion and happiness, especially when someone is surviving or is really making their way away from some of these atrocities. When you think about the intensity of this and the emotions that everyone goes through, but particularly for you as a leader and someone who's inspiring the change that we're trying to see here, what keeps you motivated? What keeps you optimistic? What keeps you energized?

to keep the work going on an everyday basis so that you can scale this and you can actually build a movement that isn't just based on you alone.

I believe your question actually answered that each rescue operation each child smiling each child marriage prevented protected each child saved and each man behind bars who's actually exploiting children put in jail they make you believe that more is possible change is possible and like today we came here today from India with nothing we are not a big organization neither in terms of

you know funding in terms of manpower and India has not traditionally been the global leader and global champion for the protection of rights or protection of the rule of law. But today the way people accepted us the way people accepted our results and victories that is a motivation to keep going because you can now scale it up and your blueprint India's blueprint of child protection is becoming a blueprint for the world.

All these things are inspirational in their own right. That's why. Secondly, you see a mother and if the mother is crying and asking for the rescue of her daughter, you see a child who's actually crying and saying, I do not want to get married. Then the key question is that if you, if not you then who, if not now, then when do I want to live with that trauma that I did not do anything. I could, and I did not. We who understand the law.

Bhuwan (30:41.454)
We who understand what is right, what is just, it is our responsibility to actually work for it. Silence today is violence. And if we fail to protect our children now, nothing else we do in life matters. And it is not very resource intensive. It is easy. You know, if 500 Indian Americans living in the United States decide to give 10,000, 15,000, $20,000 to an NGO back home,

actually stop child marriages from happening to enforce the rule of law the work would suddenly double up, triple up and what we are hoping to achieve in five years time may happen in three years time all it requires is 500 people giving nothing almost that is what people need to feel accountable for it is not my work it is our work and together we are doing it the more of us come together the more we will be able to achieve

I know you and your team are here in New York at the UN General Assembly and making sure that this message is being brought on, scaled on a global platform. And of course, there are so many who are so grateful for that. I think the inspiration is there. It takes a lot to inspire. It takes even more to actually act upon it. Bojan, we are so grateful for all you do. And I'm so grateful that you were able to take some time to be with us today and share this. We're really hoping for nothing but the best for you and your team.

Thank you. are hoping for nothing but the best for the children of the world. And together we shall create a child marriage free world.

Thanks so much, Bhuwan. And please check out JustWrites.international to learn more about the work and ways to get involved. And the link is in the show notes too. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so please get screened and remember that every story is unique and personal. Don't forget to please subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. Pass this along to your friends and family. And a kind written review is always appreciated. Till next time, I'm Abhay Dandekar.