Anson Thomas’ biography, Pledge to Protect, is now available after he spent a large portion of his life working to save women and children from human trafficking rings. In 2010, the former goalie for the Indian Customs Hockey Team resigned from his job as a preventative officer to pursue his true calling: saving lives in the country’s red-light areas. Anson Thomas has rescued over 800 women and children from brothels over the course of three decades and has garnered recognition for his efforts.
And now, he’s poured his life savings into making a biopic about himself in order to bring attention to the country’s sex trafficking rackets and how each person can assist put an end to a morally and socially corrupt system and its practices. Govind Namdev, Ganesh Yadav, Sunil Pal, Mushtaq Khan, Vikrant Anand, Vaishnavi, Anjali Ugavne, Aayshree Sangle, Trasqueen Navya Singh, and Bhakti Chavan were cast in important parts by the sports fanatic. Suresh Zhade’s film, which deals with modern-day female enslavement, is currently in post-production and will be released next month.
All of these ladies are my sisters to me. I’ve rescued girls as young as 11 and 12 years old, young ladies, and even those a little older. It is unjust to drive these innocent women into prostitution, which is a deep, black abyss. I’ve spent practically my whole life, and the majority of it alone, attempting to help these women. I completed it on my own. I pretended to be a prospective client on occasion, taught their children in sports to reach out to them on other occasions, and on other occasions, I just acted on my instincts and facts about the wrongdoing. I’ve had to fight corruption and filth on every level, but it was all worth it since I was able to rescue a few lives in the end.
“I want people to know that if one of us decides to come forward and save one life, we can put a stop to this inhumane practice,” says Anson, who funded his own biography.
