Date: Thu Nov 02 2006 - 08:53:48 AST
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hello(); Sunday, September 3, 2006
TRAPPED in the trade
In some villages of the Bedia, Nat and Kanjar communities in
Rajasthan, there are no women under 25 years. Here families force their
girls into prostitution in cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Usha Rai visits
these areas and recounts the plight of the girls who have to fend for their
families while the men idle away the hours
Khatouli, Bansi Paharpur, Khakranagla and Ludhawai villages, barely 20
to 30 km from the famous Bharatpur bird sanctuary of Rajasthan, are like
umpteen other villages of India steeped in poverty and desperately trying to
modernise. In the midst of ramshackle houses and narrow gullies with
overflowing gutters, a couple of garish double storey buildings stand out
like pimples on a scarred and pitted face.
They are the homes built on the earnings of young girls of the Bedia,
Nat and Kanjar communities, traditionally pushed into prostitution to
support an entire family—many of them strapping young men who may have
school or college degrees but are not eager to sully their hands working in
the adjoining stone quarries. There are no other easily accessible jobs in
the vicinity and the few who struggle for employment after doing a course in
electronics or motor mechanics are edged out because they belong to that
society refuses to accept."
These are villages where young girl of 10 to 25 years are totally
absent. You enter homes where cattle are tethered and desi liquor is being
brewed surreptitiously in a thatched corner of the courtyard. Young men of
all ages pour out to meet you though it is the middle of the day and they
should be at work.
Demand for girls
There are no young girls. They have all been pushed to into the dhanda
(prostitution) or sent to Mumbai or Delhi to live with aunts or older
sisters and train for the business when barely nine and 10 years.
Ironically, these are villages where there is a demand for daughters.
Sex selection, practised in so many semi-urban areas of India, is unheard of
here. The more daughters there are, the greater the chances of better living
for the entire family. Girls are well fed so that they mature early and
become bread-winners. Their desire for good clothes, swanky sandals and
lipsticks are met quickly because they have to be groomed early in life to
look attractive.
Winds of change
There are breezes of change blowing even through these villages. It
was in 1988-1989 that Prof K.K. Mukherji, former head of the Department of
Social Work, Delhi University, his wife Dr Sutapa, after extensive studies
on prostitution and child trafficking in particular, set up the Gram Niyojan
Kendra (GNK) and began working in eight villages of Bharatpur to control
prostitution through integrated development. The other prostitution-prone
areas that GNK is working in are Naugaon, Uttaranchal and Nautanwa in UP.
Harjeet Kaur, a social worker of GNK moved to Roopwas village in Bharatpur
and began identifying problems and winning the confidence of the Bedias,
Nats, Kanjars and the local community in general under the auspices of
another NGO, Samriddhi.
The task that GNK and Samriddhi have taken on is stupendous. In 2003
when Dr Mukherji did his first major study on commercial sex workers, there
were 3 million prostitutes in the country. Today their numbers have swelled
to 5 million. Earlier those in the trade were from scheduled castes,
scheduled tribes and backward classes. Poverty drove them or their parents
to send girls into the flesh trade. Today while 60 per cent of the
commercial sex workers are from the backward castes and classes, 40 per cent
are from the upper classes operating as call girls, bar girls and high-class
prostitutes. Dr Mukherji has identified 16 categories of prostitutes.
Prostitutes have an earning life span of 15 to 20 years. Ninety per cent are
in the 15 to 35 age group. While older men want young girls, younger men
look for mature, older women who can initiate them into the world of sex. Dr
Mukherji’s studies show that there is growing number of young men who spend
time with commercial sex workers just before marriage to ensure they are not
impotent. If young grooms are not able to perform within a week of the
marriage, they are declared impotent and the marriage could be annulled.
Young virgins are in great demand because of myths that they will cure
men of various ailments, including AIDS. It is also believed that having sex
with a virgin adds to the man’s virility. For "nath uttarna" or the first
sexual encounter with a virgin, in Delhi the going rate is Rs 1.50 lakh. In
Mumbai it could go up to Rs 2 to Rs 2.50 lakh. As the woman grows older, the
demand for her lessens as well as the fee she gets. However, with the
increasing craze for group sex, a young woman endures several days of
physical assault and takes home a big packet. There is no emotion involved
in the sexual act. The young women are totally detached. "If worms crawl on
my body, why should I worry," a young prostitute said of the hands clawing
her during a sexual act.
Despite the glamourisation of sex and the lucrative return from sex
trade, Dr Mukherji is confident that prostitution can be prevented through
education, assured employment and eradication of poverty. In a small way,
Samriddhi has started self-help groups in the villages it works in. Through
tailoring classes it is providing skills to young girls and a primary and
middle school with hostel facilities have been attracting some 80 children.
The mothers of 35 children in these schools are in prostitution but they
want to protect their daughters from the trade.
Most of these girls live in the hostel and barely get to see their
mothers. In addition there are counselling services for the family, eight
balwadis for the children and seven non-formal education centres. Though the
self -help groups are small, they pool in Rs 20 a month and this is their
resource bank.
Izzat ke paise mein jeena seekho, is the new slogan in villages. When
young girls of the village wear sindoor in the parting in their hair and a
mangalsutra around their necks, they attain respectability and status.
Thanks to the efforts of GNK, six girls of these villages have been married
and 35 girls stopped from entering the trade. Anarkali (name changed) is 17.
She was married last September to a scooter driver in a neighbouring city.
Anarkali’s three sisters have not been as fortunate—they are in the dhandha.
Help at hand
It is Anarkali’s 13-year-old nephew Deepak, who studies in a school
run by Samriddhi, who helped her escape from the traditional trade. Anarkali
’s mother and brothers wanted to join her sisters in the dhandha in Mumbai.
She was even sent to Mumbai for the grooming but came back unhappy. On a
visit to the school she told representatives of the NGO of her desire to
marry and not get into the profession. Deepak supported the idea. He would
tell his mother "Get jijee married. She will not go anywhere." Deepak’s
mother in turn spoke to her father and finally Anarkali was married. Her
brother was, however, unhappy. "By marrying her off, you have denied an
income for the family," he said. Now mother and brother are reconciled to
the marriage and are basking in the respectability they have earned by their
action.
Sunaina’s struggle to get out of prostitution is equally laudable. She
studied till class 10 and, after seeing the conditions of her sisters in the
profession, fought against being pushed into it. Sunaina also refused to
marry in her own community because of the disrespect for girls. She was also
scared of being pushed into the trade even after marriage. The father said
if you marry in another community and they find out you are a Bedia you will
be disowned. In her final year of school she met a Brahmin boy, who was
interested in marrying her despite her being a Bedia. The two eloped and
married. Three years later Sunita returned home with a child. Both Sunaina
and her husband were working and raising their child. Sunaina’s defiance
changed the family destiny.
That women are desperate to get out of prostitution is amply evident.
Take the case of Kiron (name changed), mother of two daughters and a son.
Kiron has four sisters and a brother. The older sister is married. Two
sisters are in the trade. When Kiron was just 11, it was her mother who
introduced her to the trade. After 14 years in the trade when all her
earnings went to support her parents, she met a doctor eager to help her get
out. Though married, he began to live with her. When her brother found out
that she was leaving the trade, he hit her with a burning log and said "get
back into prostitution or our devtas will get angry and our children will
die. In our community, girls cannot marry anyone nor can they get support
for an independent life." Despite all the pressures, Kiron took her three
children and ran away. Her brother could not find her for four or five
years. With the money she had kept, Kiron bought land so that she could grow
crops and live comfortably. Her eldest daughter is married, her son is now
working and the younger daughter will be completing her graduation this
year. She wants to be a lawyer. Kiron continues to live with the man who
pulled her out of prostitution and maintains that her children are Sardars
and not Bedias.
Breaking free
There has been a reconciliation with the brother who burnt her with a
log. He too is refusing to send his daughters into the trade and has moved
away from the community. Kiron’s sister who is in the trade is also
educating her daughter. Both are associated with Samriddhi for the last 10
years.
Not all women are as lucky as Anarkali, Sunaina and Kiron. Though
Nandini has escaped the flesh trade and lives in a comfortable brick house
in a village adjacent to the Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary, her husband has TB
and is unable to do hard work. There is tremendous pressure on her to send
her young daughters to join her nanads in Mumbai and get trained for the
business. She refused to send them initially, and the two nanads stopped
sending money to their brother. Faced with starvation, Nandini had no choice
but to send her daughters to Mumbai. They immediately responded by sending
Nandini a mangalsutra.
Wide-eyed and innocent, the little girls were visiting home and
express their reluctance to go into the dhandha. One of them said "I want to
be a doctor or an engineer."
Along with education and marriage, young girls and boys of this region
need work. The Bedias and others, however, continue to be discriminated.
Young Samma was eager to start a beauty parlour. Even the DC of Bharatpur
recommended her for a loan but the bank just hid her application and never
got back to her. So far Samriddhi is working in eight villages. It plans to
cover 20 villages by the end of this month. The task undertaken by Mukherji
and his team is laudable but unless jobs and education are assured, it will
be difficult to pull them out of the trade. The young men will continue to
exploit them on the pretext that they are not getting jobs.
