NARESH PARAS, AGRA

CATEGORY: GENDER EQUALITY

A resident of Agra, Naresh Paras is waging a battle against exploitation of women and children for more than a decade. In his pursuit for protection of women’s rights, he has faced threats from criminals.

In 2007, Paras used the Right to Information Act to highlight the case of a girl who had been confined to a women’s shelter home for 14 years. He successfully secured her release and eventually got her married. He has rescued several girls from the clutches of traffickers and brothel owners and reunited them with their families in Bihar, Orissa, Bengal and Maharashtra. Naresh rescued a 13-year-old girl who was being sexually exploited by her father. The man was finally sent to jail. A woman from Nagaland, who had mortgaged her son to a money lender for Rs 2,000 that she needed for her husband’s last rites, finally got her son back due to Naresh’s efforts.

He also traced a woman’s family through social media and helped her in getting reunited. She had been begging on the streets of Mathura for two years after having been kidnapped, raped and abandoned by some people. Naresh launched a campaign in slum areas to promote 1090 women’s powerline and create awareness against sexual abuse.