I recently sat down in Soho to speak with Hannah Herr about Daughter’s Rising (http://daughtersrising.org/), an organization that she and Alexa Pham created in 2010. Introducing novel art forms and encouraging local craftsmanship to empower women in Thailand and Cambodia, they hope to reduce the prevalence of human trafficking in the region by making artists of potential sex workers.
The two first met whilst working at a Mexican restaurant in the East Village. Suffice to say, their professional collaboration did not end there. Hannah, then a BFA candidate in sculpture at Parsons, was immediately inspired by Alexa’s previous experiences at Ghar Sita Mutu (http://www.gharsitamutu.com/), a children’s home in Katmandu that sold crafts on the side to fund its operations. All the same, felt eraser covers were not a hot commodity, and Alexa invited Hannah to breathe fresh air into Mutu’s product line. A polymath globe-trotter, she didn’t need much convincing: off she went in the winter of 2009, helping the children sew scarves, slippers and make compacts, which were subsequently imported to the US and sold at A Repeat Performance, a staple antique shop in the East Village where Alexa worked at the time.
With Hannah’s help, the new line of products was a booming success, and she and Alexa immediately began to ponder strategies to improve the organization’s artistic reach. Yet Barbara Bronson, the owner of the antique shop and co-founder of Ghar Sita Mutu – an integral player to bringing these Nepalese girls’ product to market – did not want to overhaul her original business plan. As such, Hannah and Alexa were left in a bind: stumble forth with questionable efficiency or take matters into their own hands. With great vision, if scant management experience, they decided upon the latter.
The original objective of Ghar Sita Mutu had been to fund community girls’ clubs in Katmandu to address the socio-educational needs of those at risk of becoming victims of sex trafficking into India. Indeed, the brothels of Nepal’s more economically dynamic neighbor have routinely been an insidious source of demand for the barren and mountainous country’s most vulnerable people. Nonetheless, Hannah and Alexa soon gathered, if the ultimate goal was to attack sex trafficking at its very heart, they would have to go further east.
Though the international slave trade has been all but eradicated in the last two centuries, the instance of sex trafficking has only seen a rapid increase. And though many say it is ‘common knowledge’ that Southeast Asia is the epicenter of such supply, the hill peoples of Burma, Tibet, Thailand and Cambodia are by far the most effected, Hannah told me. Lacking formal infrastructure and isolated from efficient trade networks, they become artisans to make ends meet. In order assist such efforts, then, they would first go to the source.
Alexa, already well-traveled in the region, was the first to establish artisanal contacts in Thailand. Seeking out a former friend and guide, she traveled to the hill regions to meet with artisanal women from the Karen tribe, a community whose daughters have been long since vulnerable to agents promising domestic work, modeling or secretarial positions in the lowland cities – only to sell them to underground ‘madams’ upon arrival. How was this trend to be combatted? The goal, then, for Daughter’s Rising, would be two-fold: one, enlarge the artisanal mothers’ market and artistic span to enable them to fund their daughters’ education; and two, to establish scholarships to educate them in matters both artistic and practical. Already, things are taking shape. Since launching their inaugural gala in February 2011, Daughter’s Rising has sponsored two girls from the Karen village of Chaing Mai to attend neighboring schools with the proceeds of sales from the organization’s website.
Whereas Daughter’s Rising’s work in Thailand is predominantly preventative, it is more therapeutic in Cambodia. Working with Somali Mam, an escaped sex worker who created a foundation for girls such as herself (and whom Alexa met on her travels), Daughter’s Rising encourages Cambodian girls to take up weaving to mitigate both their material and emotional misfortunes. Using the proceeds of their craft to establish women’s empowerment and PTSD workshops, Daughter’s Rising hopes to establish self-sufficient, locally-led outposts in the country that will address the women’s social, emotional and artistic needs.
Whilst the drive and ethical impetus for such developments are strong, their successful implementation will not come without difficulty: in the isolated hills of Southeast Asia, language and logistics provide their own concomitant challenges. Nonetheless, Hannah and Alexa remain undaunted. Along with Kai, Alexa’s husband, and Claudia Lux, a women’s sexual health expert and mutual friend, they flew to Bangkok last Friday to set up artistic and educational workshops on the ground, in addition to strengthening the women’s commercial ties to the US (via Daughter’s Rising). Though flood and difficulty loom, the promise remains larger.
When they return in mid-December, I will do a follow-up piece to chart Daughter’s Rising’s progress, in addition to screening the documentary they plan to film whilst there.
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