Former Mumbai Customs officer and hockey ace’s movie on life’s work rescuing sex workers at dubbing stage; to drop on OTT platform soon
Anson Thomas, warrior for the stop human trafficking cause
Anson Thomas, a former Mumbai Customs goalkeeper, is producing a movie called, ‘Pledge to Protect’. The 130-minute film, getting ready for an OTT platform is now at dubbing stage; work is on at a studio in the Western suburbs.
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The movie, which is self-funded by the ace hockey custodian, is a biopic on Thomas’s 30-year journey in the red-light districts of Mumbai and outside the city. Thomas made it his life’s mission to rescue women, “I considered them my sisters” from a life caged as commercial sex workers, and accord them a life of freedom and dignity.
The rescue
The Kharghar resident chuckled as he said he left his government job “with it all the perks and prestige” in 2010 to do full-time social work. Thomas said, “I have rescued girls and women, at least 800, from brothels across India. I started from Kamathipura, went on to Pune and Kolkata, tackling this vile trade. It has been a journey fraught with danger, from verbal threats to being physically chased by men armed with iron rods… I have tried to show the very dark world of human trafficking in this movie. The canvas is not limited to India but a sweeping view of modern-day slavery.”
The sportsman, who played for both Mumbai and India Customs, claimed realisation of the wrongs came to him in the early 1990s. “I used to drink socially. After a priest chided me publicly for drinking on a picnic, I introspected and decided to give up what I thought was my weakness. I used to carry the Bible with me from thereon.”
Also read: Who will think about us: Vasai sex workers
Stinging replies
Thomas noticed that commercial sex workers would line the roads in south Mumbai “with potential customers eyeing them like prey” on his way home from work. “By then, I had started social work, so I used to tell the men about AIDS, I would tell them you can hide from everybody, but not from God.” Thomas said he was met with stinging replies and threats of violence from men who did not appreciate being “lectured on morality”.
“I was 25 at that time. I spoke to some of these sex workers, and the women told me, give me Rs 5 lakh, I will quit this work forever. I learnt they have no choice. I then visited Kamathipura late one evening, and it was the long, dark night of the soul. I witnessed women, pimps soliciting. Several pimps came up to me, literally chasing me and asking if I wanted minor girls, girls of a certain complexion. It was chilling and devastating.”
Deep corruption
Thomas started working towards rescuing girls, it is a path too long to document here, but he witnessed the deep insidious corruption that keeps the human trafficking network alive. He remembered, “A girl was sold into sex slavery, rescued and resold thanks to the connivance of some very powerful people. I got at least one of them arrested, with death threats, threats like booking me under the anti-conversion law hanging over my head. A young woman was promised a job as a nurse in Mumbai, shown the picture of the outside of a building which was actually a brothel, but was told it was a hospital where she would work. Once here, she was sold into prostitution.”
The hockey player took a football into the lanes of Kamathipura and started playing football with the kids. “Sports has the power to change lives. With nothing else to do, the children of sex workers will become pimps, or find some other work here. If they are shown a world outside, they will find a way, like some of them have.”
Thomas who is 55 years old today said ‘Pledge to Protect’ is self-funded “as I wanted to have control of the movie. I have a pension, my wife works, I do not need much. I have a commitment to the cause and to God, it is He who has acted and made this film, not just me”. The film has actors Govind Namdev, Ganesh Yadav, Sunil Pal, Vaishnavi and Bhakti Chavan in the star cast.
In the end, the former Customs officer, said, “I have seen some preachers and politicians talk from their respective pulpits. They often do not practise what they preach. ‘Pledge to Protect’ will show it is not enough to take a pledge, like all Indians are my brothers and sisters, but act on that too, and protect them,” he finished. Hearing the passion to protect in his voice, you know there is no doubting, Thomas.
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