Couple traveling to India to fight child sex slavery By FRAN MAYE

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Couple traveling to India to fight child sex slavery By FRAN MAYE.

KENNETT SQUARE — When Mary Cairns discovered that young girls in India rarely get a basic education and many are sold as sex slaves, she knew she wanted to do something about it.

Going to India, she thought, would be cost-prohibitive. And what about her interior decorating business in the borough she built up over the years? And she'd have to leave her pets behind.

Cairns decided that with her two children grown, now was the time. So she leaves for India this Saturday with her boyfriend of more than a year, Mike Mays.

"There are 27 million sex slaves in our world and a lot of them are children," Cairns said. "Girls are either kidnapped or sold by their families into slavery. Families sell them because they are desperate for money. The atrocity of this issue got me interested in wanting to go to India."

Cairns and Mays will be traveling to the Partdada Pardadi Girls School in Anupshahar, Uttar Pradesh, India, about 80 miles east of Delhi. They will be there for six months and will help teach girls at the school to set them up for success later in life.

The school was established about 10 years ago by Sam Singh, a native of India who headed up DuPont's headquarters in India. He used his retirement savings to build the school, and his goal was to take one girl from each of the poorest families in the villages and give them basic education and some training.

As an incentive for the girls to go to school, Singh set up a fund to pay them the equivalent of 25 cents a day for each day they attend school. If they go from fifth grade to 12th grade, they can make about $750, which sets them on the road to economic self-sufficiency.

The money can only be taken out when they reach age 21 or when they are married. The money cannot be accessed by a man, even their father.

"Up until now, girls had never gone to school over there," Mays said. "Girls worked in the field. The Indian government provides basic education, but it's only the boys who go to school."

Mays will instruct teachers in English, life skills, and use of computer programs like Microsoft Word and Excel. He will bring standardization to teaching practices, and aid with marketing and fundraising. He had to quit his job as a software engineer in order to make the trip.

And Cairns too made a leap of faith. She's having friends take care of her business she's had in the borough for 25 years. Cairns and Mays estimate they are spending about $20,000 each of their own money to make the trip.

Trip, though, isn't the word Cairns and Mays like to use. It's more of a mission.

"We can work with the girls there, get them educated, provide them with educational training that will reduce their risk of ending up in slavery," Cairns said.

Recently a teacher's colony, complete with a modern building, was built in the area. Cairns and Mays are elated they will at least have electricity (for about six hours a day) and running water.

"We're leaving our lives behind here," said Cairns, 53, who previously had done some missionary work in Jamaica. "After 9/11, we all realize how fragile life is. Most people will never take this risk.

"I love my business, I love doing what I'm doing," Cairns said. "But I'm hanging window treatments, making people's houses pretty, but there's more to life than that. Gratification comes from making a difference in the world."