A red-light space, also known as pleasure district, is a part of an urban area where a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as porn shops, strip clubs, and adult theaters, are found. The term red-light area originates from the dark red lights that are used as the signs for brothels. India also lays claim to having some of the world’s largest red-light districts, with Sonagachhi in Kolkata as the Asia's largest red-light district inhabited by more than 11,000 sex workers followed by Kamathipura district in Mumbai.
Most of the sex workers are deported from the rural parts of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bengal and Nepal alluring them with employment opportunities but later confining them into small rooms similar to pits filled with darkness to greet their customers there. These are the infamous "pinjras" for them where they spend their nights whoring their bodies, because of the absence of any choice. During the day, they would rest and sleep but before evenings, they would shower, and get ready for the flesh trade. Body- talk is common and mostly in socially unacceptable terms, repeated body invasions is forced upon them to thrive their business, though the workers are often paid less than the exact amount clients cashed out to their main head who maintained their influence, earning a living from prostitution dealing. Many eunuchs are also deployed after undergoing castration to elevate the business.
Many workers become pregnant in this course and give birth in the same space. Children have seen their mothers and other captive women on the ground floor, waking up early in the morning, decorating themselves and waiting at the door. They would be beaten up if they fail to get clients. While their children get away to the night boarding schools established by several NGO’s, the mothers still fear for them getting trapped in the inter- generational prostitution.
This is the life of sex workers earning their daily bread by balancing their life between running the household , paying rents and negotiating with touts. Their personal and professional life jostles for space in a 10-by-10 room with a bed, stacked with condoms beneath the mattress, and household essentials below the bed.
The lives of these women, caught between apathy, stigma, social estrangement and motherhood, stuck in dingy rooms and lost in the narrow lanes are as real as it can be.
Movements and Organizations Led by Sex Workers
The HIV/AIDS discourse, the location of sex workers within it, and the impact of this epidemic itself played a catalytic role in the formation of the SANGRAM/VAMP Sex Workers Movement. Female sex workers are marginalized both as women and as members of a highly stigmatized group, greatly increasing their risk. Public morality on prostitution, patriarchal norms related to female sexuality, and the accompanying blaming and labeling of women in prostitution are critical elements of their HIV risk. It was in this context of the AIDS pandemic that in 1992, Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha (SANGRAM) a women’s rights NGO, decided to speak to women sex workers about HIV and condom use. VAMP’s emphasis on safe and responsible sex formed the core of the intervention. Applying women’s knowledge of their clients’ habits and behaviour patterns, this project succeeded in raising awareness about the need for protection during sexual encounters.
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Another diversification since VAMP’s inception is - working with sex workers’ children. Children of sex workers often face the whiplash of stigma and discrimination from an early age—such as being taunted and ostracized at school, leading to low motivation and low self-esteem, which translates into poor academic performance. VAMP members designed this program with the aim of helping the children cope with the stigma of their mothers’ occupation. Staff members of the program are adult children of women in sex work. It was through their experiences of being discriminated at school, especially by teachers, that the idea of making education more accessible to children of sex workers emerged.The children examine their identity and explore ways to reclaim spaces for respect given the type of work and lives that are led by their mothers.
The National Network of Sex Workers was seeded in November 1997 at the 1st National Conference of Sex Workers in India (convened by the Kolkata-based Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, or DMSC). The 4000 sex workers attended the conference from India, Bangladesh and Nepal shared experiences and planned strategies to struggle against their conditions of material deprivation and social stigmatization. This was the first time in the history of South Asia that a group of sex workers rallied together and explicitly attempted to inscribe their self-defined and self-conscious identity on the public sphere.
Demanding right to a dignified life, about 4000 sex workers, transgender and sexual minorities staged a protest march in the capital today on the occasion of International Women's Day of the year 2006. Under the aegis of National Network of Sex Workers (NNSW), the march was to oppose the proposed amendment in the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2005, that seeks criminalisation of clients who go to brothels, increased penalties for brothel keeping and lowering rank of police officials who raid the brothels. They demanded that the government should consult all stakeholders as it adversely impact the lives of transgender, sexual minorities and sex workers in the country.
Conclusively, decriminalization of criminal and administrative penalties that apply specifically to sex work, should be done inorder to create an enabling environment for sex workers' health and safety. For making decriminalization meaningful, it must be accompanied by a recognition of sex work as work, allowing sex work to be governed by labor law and protections similar to other jobs. While decriminalization does not resolve all challenges that sex workers face, it is a necessary condition to realize sex workers’ human rights.
Sex workers, like most workers, have diverse feelings about their work. Some sex workers dislike their work but find that it is their best or only option to make a living. Some are agnostic about their work but find that it offers flexibility or good pay. And some enjoy the work and find it all around rewarding or fun. Regardless of what sex workers think about their work, they deserve safe and healthy workplace and human rights.
By Eshita Nirwan
REFERENCES
www.opensocietyfoundations.org
zeenews.india.com
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Peoplesdispatch.org
https://openthemagazine.com/
www.aljazeea.com
chinkisinha.blogspot.com
https://indianexpress.com/
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