Shafiq ur Rahman Khan has been chosen as the winner of the coveted “Grinnell prize” for the year 2019, a report said on July 30. Notably, he is also the first Indian to receive this award in recognition of his exemplary dedication in working to safeguard the rights of vulnerable women and children.
The Grinnell College Innovator for Social Justice Prize (the Grinnell Prize) honours individuals who have demonstrated innovative leadership in their respective fields and who show creativity, commitment and extraordinary accomplishment in effecting positive social change.
Shafiq R Khan has been honoured with the Grinnell prize for his outstanding contribution in working to eradicate the Indian bride trafficking trade (the selling of women into often multiple forced marriages) and further empowering the agency and leadership of survivors. He has risen above the norm and worked single-mindedly for the cause of rescuing girls who fall victim to “bride trafficking.” His humility and passion for social welfare is worth the commendation from the Global community.
Shafiq R Khan, 35 years, hails from Gaya, Bihar. His foray in activism began at a tender age of 15 when he joined a communist party with the hope of working for the well-being of the poor. He witnessed the sorrowful plight of people entrenched in poverty and bonded labour, and the power equations that worked to ensure the divide between the rich and poor remained wide and after around four years of work, he moved away from the party because he felt called to do more and do it differently.
In 2004, he moved to Delhi to explore different ways of tackling oppression and to understand the various dynamics more keenly. He joined the Bonded labour liberation front which was at the time working against sex-selective abortions where he became part of the back office team for ‘Multipath march against Female foeticide’. Shafiq especially noted the power dynamics with regard to gender and realised how a lot of the entrenched ‘societal values’ were actually ‘enemies of women.’
He began to study the movement of feminism which helped him understand the systemic nature of women’s oppression and thus the importance of land rights for women. He took up Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) for graduation in 2006 and it was during these days, that an event set him off on his unique path that he continues to walk 13 years on, even today.
Shafiq organised a 300 km long March against Female Foeticide in 2006 with a group of friends as part of a social mobilization campaign, where he met a trafficked bride who talked about her helpless plight and asked for his help. Due to the insistence of his co-travellers to focus on the March, he continued onward unable to do much at the time. Her story and plea though remained with Shafiq and he returned a month later only to find that she had been sold off and moved forward to another man. Upon further enquiry, no trace of the woman was found. She had disappeared. It came about as a shock for him to discover how men were uninhibitedly dealing in the sale and purchase of women in broad daylight and disposing of them once their needs were met.