While some girls and women pen down their thoughts, others dictate them to a volunteer. Most of the writing is in Hindi, Urdu and Bengali and are translated to Hindi and English and edited before they are put up on the Web. Once on the Web, volunteers of Apne Aap read out the articles in informal meetings with sex workers across India.

“If your husband beats you, then you should go to the local police station. But in most cases, we see that you don’t because you think it’s your husband’s right to thrash you. But no, it is your right to stay in a violence-free world,” writes 27-year old Mumtaz from Topsia in Kolkata in her article, ‘Learning About My Rights’. Before she could turn 20, she was the mother of three and a victim of domestic violence. “Today I know of my rights and I want to share them with others like me,” she says.

“People tell me I will never get married because I live in a red light area and my mother is a prostitute,” says Ruby, who went to Assam on a UNICEF child participation project and wrote an article in the Despatch on her experiences.

“We hope that our reporters and correspondents will prove that grassroots journalism and alternative newspapers like ours have a space and can succeed,” says Gupta. She also hopes her ‘reporters’ will be trained in writing, editing and layout, and can someday be integrated into the mainstream.