UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Journalist, filmmaker and activist Ruchira Gupta will present "Geographies of Injustice: Prostitution & the Last Girl," from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, March 28, in the Stuckeman Jury Space in the Stuckeman Building on the University Park campus.
Gupta has pioneered laws, policies, protocols, conventions and Best Practice approaches in the Feminist Abolitionist struggle against sex-trafficking in the United Nations, globally and India. Her work will be archived at Stanford Library and will be open access for students across the world to study.
Her journey began as a journalist, when she made the Emmy-winning documentary "The Selling of Innocents." With the help of the documentary, she testified to the U.S. Senate for the passage of the first Trafficking Victim Protection Act and to the U.N. for the passage of the U.N. Protocol to End Trafficking in Persons. She founded the Indian anti-sex trafficking organization Apne Aap Women Worldwide, which supports thousands of prostituted and at-risk girls in India. Gupta said she "dreams of a world in which no human being is bought or sold."
Gupta is a visiting professor at New York University, and distinguished scholar at the University of California, Berkley. She is the editor of a feminist journal for SAGE, Antyajaa: Indian Journal of Women and Social Change, and two anthologies: "River of Flesh & Other Stories" and "The Essential Gloria Steinem Reader." She has received several honors, including the French Légion d'honneur, an Emmy, and the Clinton Global Citizen, UN (United Nations) NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) CSW (Commission on the Status of Women) "Woman of Distinction" Award.