A visit to oldest red-light district in Bombay, and the largest in Asia.

Went on another field visit through the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. This time we visited the Prerana organisation that has as a main goal to educate kids in the red-light districts, and taking care of them in other ways too. They for example aid the police in rescuing or shifting kids to Observation Homes. They work in the Kamathipura area in Byculla, which is the oldest red-light district in India, and the biggest in Asia. It is actually not too far from why I live (not really knowing where the borders to the area goes).

It was probably one of the most interesting field visits so far. I didn’t see too much of the prostitution in the parts of the streets that we walked in, but it might have been because it was in the middle of the day. But the atmosphere and the area felt way different from the other areas of Bombay that I have been in. Not sure in what way, other than it might have been me just knowing that it was a red-light district, and that once again I walked in an area where very, very few white people seem to visit.

We learned many interesting facts. There are very many brothels in the area, and they are very organized. In a building, the bottom floor could be a metal shop, the second floor a floor a brothel, and the third maybe something else. Some could house more than one brothel. Some areas have a special type of women in their area, for example Nepali women.
Most women come for economical reasons, because they feel that they have no other means to make money. Others are fooled in to marrying some scum bag man in some other place and then sell her here, and then he goes off to marry someone else and do the same to her.

There are the eunuchs … that are men that might be castrated, born with not fully developed genitals, or are hermaphrodites. They feel like women, wear makeup, and are dressed like women with saris and flowers in their long dark hair. They act like women when they are sexually exploited by men. We passed one of the areas where some of them lived.
They are even called the “Hijras”, and I have run in to them before onboard the local trains, where they walk around clapping their hands, pet the men on the head, and ask for money. Some give them money out of superstition that the Hijras would put a curse on them otherwise.

There is a myth going on among many people that prostitutes get a lot of money. First of all, many of them maybe get 30, 40, or 50 rupees per customer ...and on top of that they need to pay rent to the brothel for using a bed, both, or room. Then they need to pay for the food, their manager, and their pimp, so in the end they only get to keep around 20 percent. Even the street prostitutes have to pay money to a pimp or someone else. Sure, there are some prostitutes that do get paid a lot more, but it doesn’t make it more right, and they are in a minority.

Many sex workers used to die early because of HIV, tuberculosis or other reasons.

The children of the sex workers have been drugged and also been exposed to what is going on inside the brothels. The Prerana organisation and other NOG:s (Non Government Organisations) has night care centres for the children - partially in order to prevent them from being exposed to this destructive environment as much as possible.

Back to my previous thoughts that I had last week about the prostitutes that I pass from time to time in my neighbourhood – I talked to the woman that worked for the Prerana about it. She agreed that a smile probably would be taken the wrong way. Just talking to them, even if the language barrier wasn’t an issue, would still be bad, even if I did it as a social worker. People walking by would just see a white man talk to prostitutes and come to wrong conclusions and thus harm the work in the long run. In fact, according to the Prerana worker, people would just not understand why I would talk to a prostitute if I don’t want sex with her. They would ask me “Why do you talk to her?”

I’m not sure yet that I will be able to, but at the moment I would like to go back to the area at night time and see how the life of the neighbourhood is then, but also see the Prerana at work with the kids. I don’t know how safe it would be for a white person to walk around there at night time, especially if I go back by myself. But I am seriously considering it. I have stepped out from my sheltered life multiple times while in India, but I need to do it even more before going back. I have very strong feelings against prostitution, especially trafficking, but it is an area that I really know too little about …less knowing what I can do.

Fighting the prostitution here will be very, very hard as long as people find 100 excuses to defend prostitution, and as long as the myriad of pathetic, false, incompetent, and corrupted Indian politicians shows a complete lack of interest in doing anything about it.

It is a sick world that we live in. It’s just not India…. the sickness is everywhere.