The Rights of the Sex Workers
24th
july 2001 is a date
that is etched in my memory
i remember i was an 18 year old
psychology student
staffed on a research project at
falkland road
an infamous street in mumbai’s red light
district
i was completely unprepared for what
i was about to witness i saw
scores of women of all ages
soliciting customers i
walked into one of the brothels
only to see the pain and struggle
that lay behind their painted faces
and beaming smiles
six women and eight children
were crammed into a 12 foot by 12 foot
room
a woman lay groaning in pain
on a bed raised on cinder blocks
no medical assistance in sight
children were half drugged to sleep
under the beds while their mothers were
servicing customers
on the beds with only a thin curtain
if any for privacy
hunger suffering
and filth was all i could see at first
despite being hungry themselves they
offered me
a cup of tea and a biscuit they spoke to
me about their hardships
and also spoke to me about their hopes
and their dreams for their children
it was then that i was able to see
their resilience their hope
and their courage these women
are as human as you and i
and yet i hear people referring to them
with words like vaishya randi
[ __ ] prostitute why
because the work that they engage in is
considered shameful
and immoral they are consistently
treated
like social outcasts by the societies in
which they live
they are often misrepresented
misunderstood and stigmatized
by communities across the world
my experience of working with these
women
moved me to be part of a non-profit
organization
that works in kamati pura one of
mumbai’s
oldest and largest sex
light areas this organization
helps sex workers and their children
attain their basic rights
according to the dasra report on human
trafficking
india has 20 million commercial sex
workers
16 million of these sex workers
are victims of human trafficking
40 percent of them are children
and teens between the ages of 9
and 18 years
one such girl was luni
she was only 14 years old when she was
brought by her father
from maratha to mumbai under the pretext
of showing her the ocean
he was an alcoholic and
left her behind at a brothel
in exchange for merely 20 000 rupees
to fuel his addiction in an attempt to
escape
muni ran out onto the streets but nobody
was willing to hear her story
onlookers shifted their gaze as she
desperately tried to make eye contact
with them
and she was brought straight back to the
brothel
munni is a sexually exploited child
yet in the eyes of people she’s a
prostitute
undeserving of empathy and care
another woman i know is bina
who is a 22 year old widow and a mother
of two young children
from rural west bengal she
too was brought to mumbai with the hopes
of finding a job by her own
brother-in-law
and left behind at a brothel
when bina tried to escape he called her
and told her if she
ever tried that again that he would
torture
her two young children
bina continues to work as a sex worker
in mumbai
and supports her parents her in-laws
and her extended family back home in the
village
in spite of going through so many
hardships
these women are consistently denied
their basic rights
like health care education
legal rights and sometimes no dignity
even during death
i have heard of instances of women
being asked for sexual favors by medical
staff
they are asked embarrassing questions
about which sexual positions they use
and sometimes are downright denied
medical care
the fear of mistreatment and humiliation
forces these women to go to local quacks
which poses a greater risk to their
health and safety
most women who are trafficked never had
the privilege
of an education but even their children
struggle to attend and stay in school
they are treated differently by teachers
who resent having them in their classes
the dropout rate remains high
as these children are in a very hostile
environment
in my 12 years as a psychotherapist
i have observed how stigma can
lower one’s belief in overcoming
barriers
and leads to a hopelessness about the
self
these women internalize their
marginalized position
they start to believe that they don’t
deserve better
because they are in fact fallen
they avoid the hospitals and the schools
and this way of treatment starts to feel
normal to them
women in sex work are entitled to their
rights
in the political social economic
and civil spheres of their lives
they too have the right to livelihood
and freedom from gender stereotyped
notions about a woman’s chastity
all this will only be possible
when discrimination is removed
from all spheres of a sex worker’s life
stigma and shaming
are real reducing stigma
requires not only policy and legal
change
but also cultural change
as a community we need to work towards
decriminalization of sex workers
anti-discrimination protections and
funding for rights based sex worker
organizations
however these steps alone are not enough
we need to work towards destigmatizing
them
and we need to do this together
the stories of muni and bina
are echoed throughout the world
it is up to us to listen to them and
have compassion for them
it is up to us not to look down
upon them they too
have a right to a life of dignity
you and i have a responsibility
towards the future of our women
and children by visibilizing them
by talking about them and by showing
them
that we care