Lata is a 22 year old sex worker from Sonagachi, one of the largest red-light districts in Kolkata. At 15, when abject poverty and lack of job opportunities made her flee Bangladesh in the hopes of a better life, she never imagined herself being forced into the sex trade by the neighbour she was accompanying.
Couple of months in, her first attempt at escape ended in police brutality and assault when she realized that members of the organized sex trade (even if they occur in legally dubious areas like Sonagachi) can be prosecuted for working in a brothel and are thus afforded no protection against deplorable working conditions. She had no option but to return.
Over the years, the girls learned to look out for each other in the face of violent customers, unprotected sex, ills and diseases, and whatever else came their way. In the absence of government assistance, a few NGOs tried to offer help in the way of gatherings and events to raise awareness about diseases and sex workers’ rights but they were often forbidden by the “madam” to attend these.
When, at 20, Lata became a mom to a baby girl, her first thought was to quit the brothel and raise her child in more respectable surroundings (with more money), even if it meant losing the safety in numbers she found amongst the other girls. You see, sex work is not illegal per se. Only if two or more prostitutes do it at one establishment for their mutual gain is. But as she soon came to know, the roadblocks to exercising her right to work in this field were plenty.
For starters, she couldn’t work within a 200m radius of a public place. Nor could she solicit customers. (Customers availing of her services is completely legal though). Furthermore, if she decided to rent a place to work out of, her landlord would be at the risk of prosecution for supporting/living on the earnings of a prostitute, which is illegal. And if caught doing any of these things, violence and harassment at the hands of the police was almost a given.
Two years on, Lata is still at Sonagachi, amidst a country-wide lockdown that has ground the economy to a halt. Only the girls who were trafficked from Nepal and other countries remain. Money has dried up and govt aid for people not even recognized as informal workers is next to nil. When a loyal customer or two try to help out with some cash, they get beaten up by the police for flouting country-wide norms. There’s a provision for getting free cooked meals at a centre nearby but it comes at the risk of media scrutiny and dealing with the police. Lord only knows what will happen if one of them were to actually contract the deadly virus.
Madhuri came to Mumbai when she was 18 for two reasons — to find work and to meet her favorite actor after whom she was named. Hailing from a village in Satara, she was the eldest amongst 5 kids (3 girls, 2 boys) from a poor household and had come to the city of dreams in the hopes of supporting her family.
In her first year, she was staying in a dinghy flat with 8 other girls, having an overfamiliar and lecherous landlord. Besides the odd job as an extra in an ad, work was hard to come by. A drought back home forced her to ask for a loan from the landlord and usury ultimately forced her into a life of prostitution to pay off her debt.
She now lives in Kamathipura with other girls who’ve either been trafficked or circumstantially forced into this life along the seedy margins of society. Her ration card, which promises her free grains, comes with a side of scorn from the PDS worker. An attempt at visiting the local temple almost ended in lynching on the charges of desecration of a holy place. A friend’s child was denied admission at a school because none of the parents would like to attend PTA meetings alongside a prostitute. And even after the child was admitted to another one, words like “randi”, “chhinaal” etc follow him around during lunch break.
The derision and the disgust have become a daily dalliance for her. Derision by the masses, disgust at the self. But what other way is there, she muses every time some naive NGO worker lands at her doorstep offering to tell her things she’s already learnt on the job. In an ideal world, a person wouldn’t have to choose between a life of dignity for the self or for their loved ones. But in the real world, her monthly money transfers have made possible the impending nuptials of one of her sisters back home.
Madhuri’s excited to go back to her village for the first time since her arrival in Bombay. On her way to the bank to send over some money for the preparations, she makes a call to her mother to finalize her journey back home. Her mother, who’s known about her occupation through a Bombay based relative, thanks her for the money and hesitatingly suggests that she take a rain check on this wedding due to the travel expense. The call ends as Madhuri wonders whether she’d ever be able to afford the expense of meeting her family again or her namesake.
Written by /u/AreYouVeda for Librandu.
