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Society
A 100 Miles Away from Home ...
by Surendra Phuyal
It's about 8 pm in the humid heart of Mumbai, the home of Bollywood.
Cautiously, I walk down the lane of one of the subcontinent's biggest
red light districts, Kamathipura Road, right next to the Mumbai Central
railway station. My Japanese photojournalist friend Q Sakamaki tags
along.
We walk past several vegetable vendors, grocery and pan (betel leaves)
shops before we realize that we are in Kamathipura. Young girls and
women, heavily made up, are lined up outside the brothels they live and
work in. Loudspeakers blare out the recent Bollywood hit number 'Kajrare'.
We scan the faces of these girls and women. They appear to represent
practically every state of India and every country in the subcontinent.
A pimp follows us and says in English, over and over - "Good item girls,
sir. Good items, sir. Nepali girls, Bengali girls! Only Rs 300, sir!" We
walk on unheeding, and a second pimp pops up. Then a third one. We are
overtly irritated, but they seem adamant on getting custom from us. We
try to walk into the brothels, take pictures and ask the women about
their lives and history. This, however, is far from easy.
We have to make do with brief conversations, observations and quick
photographs. Then we see a dark-complexioned woman in her thirties
standing outside a beauty parlor. Flanked by two other women, she is
inviting prospective clients. The crowded, smelly street is dirty but
colorfully lit-up. When we approach her, she says firmly, "No photos,
no photos!"
"Namaste! Tapain lai kasto chha? (How are you doing?)" I ask in
Nepali. Fifteen years in sex work, far away from home, these three women
still wear their ethnic jewellery and clothes. They are from the hills
of Nepal. The dark-complexioned woman is talkative. "We work on the
streets every night to make our survival money." She was tricked, she
reveals, and then sold here - traded by her boyfriend into two years of
bondage and then prostitution for just a couple of thousand rupees. Is
she planning on returning home, though? Speechless, she scans the street
for some time and replies, "I will wait for my 'kaal' (death) here."
A quick walk around Kamathipura and conversations with some women who
work there make it clear that much of this infamous red light area is
made up of South Asian women - a majority of them Nepali - who have been
sold into bondage and sex slavery. A survey conducted 15 years ago by
Samyukta Nepali Mahasangh, a Mumbai-based organization of expatriate
Nepalese, puts the number of Nepali women in the 350-odd brothels at over
18,000.
Other big cities - like Pune, Delhi and Kolkata - are no different.
According to a study published a decade ago, there were over 200,000
Nepali women involved in the sex trade in India in the mid-1990s. The
study estimated that every year an additional 7,000 women are trafficked
from the hills of Nepal to India.
Some activists say that the HIV/AIDS scare in recent years may have led
to a reduction in the number of brothels in Mumbai. But, clearly, the
problem looms large still.
Experts who have been closely monitoring the sex industry say there have
been paradigm shifts. Open red light areas have moved to clandestine
brothels flourishing in small towns and farmhouses in suburbs. There has
also been a shift in the Nepal-to-India route, and many women are now
trafficked to other countries in West and East Asia via India.
A third - and worrying - shift is that trafficking is now moving beyond
its 'conventional' poaching grounds, such as Sindhupalchok and Nuwakot
districts, to new areas like Rolpa and Rukum, says Renu Rajbhandari of
Kathmandu- based Women Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC). Thanks to the
"open and porous" Nepal-India border, she says, "many more girls from
previously unheard-of places in Nepal are now in brothels across India."
Even minors are not spared. Police and NGOs in Delhi and Mumbai have
rescued dozens of minor girls in recent raids. Yet, there are no signs
of the trade in women and children tapering off. Two months ago, 32
Nepali girls were rescued from Mumbai brothels. They were later handed
over to a Nepali NGO.
Although international laws and conventions strongly condemn trade in
human beings and trafficking in women and children, the multi-million
dollar cross-border trade continues. A recent study has blamed the
"economic forces that drive trafficking from Nepal - the demand of the
client, and more importantly, the demand of the brothel owner."
After the "abduction or purchase of girls in Nepal by traffickers and
the transportation of girls to the brothels of Mumbai or Kolkata", the
girls spend their first two to ten years in slavery and debt bondage,
according to a study by Terre Des Hommes, Nepal.
The study also reveals that "those who have been given their freedom are
unable or unwilling to return to Nepal, and continue their lives as sex
workers". Experts blame social stigma and the stigma around HIV/AIDS.
The bottom-line is that once these women are trapped in the flesh trade,
there's little getting out of it.
January 15,
2005
By arrangement with
Women's Feature Service
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Society
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New Zealand on My Mind : My
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Life's a Charade by Anjali
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The Syed A Short Story by Mehru
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Namdapha: A Land of Unspoiled
Beauty by Arun Jyoti Pegu
No Park-ing by Akshay Khanna
A 100 Miles Away from Home...
by Surendra Phuyal
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