Interview with Smita Sharma on “Stolen Lives”

Two girls stand holding hands facing away. They watch a train speeding past. — M., who is now 18, waits with her cousin for a train in South 24 Parganas, a largely poor district in West Bengal with a high incidence of trafficking. A man M. met in a class sold her to a brothel in Delhi. She managed to call her father and was rescued by police with help from a nonprofit called Shakti Vahini. (Smita Sharma/National Geographic)

by Savannah Dodd and Smita Sharma

After our podcast interview with Smita Sharma earlier this autumn, I wanted to learn more about her experience photographing “Stolen Lives: The harrowing story of two girls sold into sexual slavery” for National Geographic.

This project came about while Smita was working on Not My Shame, a project documenting rape and sexual violence in India, when she met a girl who was trafficked on her walk to school. While the issue of sex trafficking is not a new one, she learned that trafficking increased 140% percent in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific between 2007 and 2016 (Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2018). Sex trafficking is a deep-rooted nexus among Bangladesh, Nepal, and India, where Nepal and Bangladesh serve as the source countries and India is both a source as well as destination for trafficking.

Smita began working on this story six years ago. In the first three years, she undertook this work independently, financing it through her work from other assignments, before pitching it to National Geographic. Since 2018, she has been working in partnership with the team at National Geographic and with writer Yudhijit Bhattacharjee. It was published in the October 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine.

I sat down with Smita to learn more about the ethics of working on this story. The following interview has been edited for clarity.

Savannah Dodd: How did you begin to approach this story?

Smita Sharma: I initiated conversations with anti-human trafficking activists who were working on this issue. I had a whole lot of questions and the learning was through a prolonged process of research and perseverance and did not happen overnight.

I also started reading articles about sex trafficking and realised that in-depth reporting on this issue was hardly ever done. The stories that were usually published would mention about a trafficking racket busted from a region and, only skim the surface of the issue with statements such as “Girls found in the brothel have been rescued.” But where was the story of the girl? How was she trafficked? What happened to her while she was forced into prostitution? Was she kidnapped or was she tricked? There were no background stories about the girls themselves and it was all about reports. Hence, I wanted to fill this gap and tell stories of the girls and understand what led them into that situation. That’s when I started meeting them.

Before the Nat Geo assignment, I had met at least ten such girls in India and six in Bangladesh. One of the girls narrated her story of how she was tricked and trafficked to Delhi from her village in South 24 Parganas of West Bengal, India. She got a call from a guy who professed his love to her over the phone, and he asked her to come out on a date. When she met him, he asked her to marry him and that he wanted to take her to Delhi to his sister’s house. Then he added that his parents also want to meet her. After some time, his parents arrived. They all went to a temple, exchanged garlands, and got married. And she never returned home! She went along with him to Delhi only to find that out she had been trafficked and that she was sold to a brothel at Delhi’s infamous GB Road.

When I asked her why she went with a man that she had just met, she said that he was so convincing, and that his parents showered her with gifts and said they would take good care of her. It was then that I realised how these girls are so vulnerable and naive, and all they want is a little bit of love and affection. The traffickers take advantage of their vulnerability and innocence. Most cases of trafficking are not by forceful abduction, as it’s often thought. Instead, the girls are trapped with false promises of marriage, love, jobs and an escape from the daily grind of their dreary lives, unaware of the brutalities that lie ahead of them.

And, in this particular case he came with his ‘parents’! This was an elderly couple who were paid by the trafficker to pose as his parents. So, you understand that this is not about one person’s job, it is a huge nexus, and both men and women are involved in it.

SD: How did you protect the identity of the girls while you were working on this project?

SS: The entire process was like solving a visual puzzle because of the prevalent laws in India that you have to abide by, like POCSO. My intention was to show their personality while not disclosing their identity. I used a lot on lightning to eliminate certain parts and to create shadows to hide the faces. I carry tiny lights and also use the available natural light. Shadows are very important in my work.

Making portraits was a collaborative process but photographing reportorial images was much more challenging. How do you preserve the anonymity in such circumstances and still make visually arresting images? That was a big challenge.

There was one photograph I loved from the girl’s shelter. Once rescued from the red-light areas, the girls are brought to shelter homes. They usually spend one to two years here where they develop a deep bond with each other. One morning, a few girls were leaving to go home. They came out with their bags while the other girls waited outside to bid them farewell. There was complete silence as the girls gathered around each other. Suddenly they all broke down in tears and hugged each other. The faint morning light on their faces as tears rolled down looked surreal. I was so moved by their gesture that I stood there watching and later took a few photographs. Images like that didn't make it in the final edit because we had limitations and we couldn’t reveal identities.

SD: I know that sometimes people use different post-processing techniques to anonymise photographs, for example by blurring or painting over faces. Could you have used these methods to retain some of the photographs that were too revealing?

SS: You shoot everything on the spot. This comes under the guidelines of photojournalism. You cannot alter an image and change it through post-processing later. For example, if you digitally take out an object from an image, whatever maybe the reason, that’s not acceptable. So, all of the photographs that you see, I photographed them exactly that way. Even the lead photograph of the girl with the green background, I only highlighted her hands and her dress, and I had a backlight to highlight her hair. Her face was in complete shadow when I made her portrait.

SD: How long would you spend with each girl that you photographed?

SS: I would go and meet the girls at their homes or at the shelter and spend time with them. Once they were comfortable with me being around, I would ask if it was okay to photograph their daily lives. Sometimes I would also give a break and maybe not visit again until a few days later. I worked according to their schedules to make them more comfortable, and I would be in touch with them on the phone. I’m in touch with many of them even now.

SD: What were your personal challenges on this assignment?

SS: Through half of this assignment I was pregnant. I worked on the assignment until my third trimester. So I had this huge belly when I was working in some of the places and photography demands a lot of physical energy in addition to emotional engagement. Also, some of the regions I worked in both Bangladesh and India were difficult to work in terms of hygiene and access to restrooms. I have knocked on many a stranger’s door to allow me to use their bathrooms and fortunately they were all very kind and welcoming.

The families and the girls treated me wonderfully and always made food for me. They ensured I never went hungry and I was touched by their generosity. Some of the girls were embarrassed to ask whether I was pregnant or not. I remember one particular girl I spent so much time with, asked me on the last day, “I’ll ask you something, if you don’t mind. Are you expecting a baby?” I said, “How do you expect me to have such a huge belly?” and we both had a good laugh.

SD: To me, that really sounds like the relationships you built with the girls were pivotal to the project. Did anyone else accompany you while you photographed them?

SS: I was lucky to be assisted by two photographers, Rahat Alam and Masood Sarwer in Bangladesh and India respectively during my pregnancy. They helped carry my heavy equipment as I was strictly asked by my doctor to avoid that. They ensured that I was safe and well rested. I am very grateful to Nat Geo for providing me with that support and to both of them for their help.

I worked on the second half of the assignment after the birth of my boy, and worked mostly by myself. There was some overlap with writer Yudhijit Bhattacharjee who wrote this wonderful piece, and we travelled and reported together for a few days in both India and Bangladesh.

SD: Have there been any moments of having to negotiate between different decisions or different ethical approaches when working as a team?

SS: The entire story was very difficult and often in India the law changes that make matters even stricter. However, I think we worked well within the boundaries. My editor Jennifer Samuel, the text editor John Hoeffel, and Yudhijit all played a key role in giving the story its final shape. Everyone from Nat Geo was very supportive and we all were very invested in this by a common ethical arc.

I also consider myself to be lucky to work with such a fantastic and experienced writer in Yudhijit. It was not about my project or his story, it was our story and we mutually helped each other on several things during the entire journey. There was no ego and the ethical approaches were always clearly demarcated and jointly agreed by the entire team.

SD: How do the girls feel about the story coming out?

SS: The journey of the girls from the red-light districts to the shelters and then back home is a very challenging one. Life for these young women and girls is tough and the process of reintegration into society takes a long time.

The girls who opened up to me have been incredibly strong after all the horrific things they have been through. Hearing their stories was heartbreaking but it has also been a very cathartic process for them as well as for me. At the end of the day, everyone wants to be treated as a normal human and not looked upon with sympathy or shame. What matters is how we as storytellers approach the subject and the level of sensitivity that we bring. Giving them their due respect and dignity went a long away in helping them recount their experiences. A few girls after speaking to me said that they felt it was like off-loading a burden off their chest.

The girls know their identity is not going to be compromised, they have that confidence in me, and they understand the importance of raising awareness. They shared their stories with the hope that it will prevent other innocent girls from falling into traps that they have been victims of. They don’t want anyone else to go through what they went through.