HIV/AIDS and Commercial Sexual Exploitation

By Dr. Pravin Patkar

(This article first appeared in the broadsheet DNA on 13 December 2015 as one half of an open debate in a piece titled "Two sides of the debate: Prostitution as livelihood or victimhood?")

We at Prerana believe in comprehensively protecting girls, young women and their children from being trafficked for sex trade and help them gain dignity and livelihood options. This understanding has come from working for decades in Kamathipura, Mumbai's oldest red-light district, where we often face dilemmas on intervention when mothers who have AIDS come to us with HIV positive children. Planning intervention strategies if the mother dies first or if the child dies first can be heart wrenching.

The national level HIV/AIDS control programme is entirely insensitive to such recurring tragedies of the suffocating darkness of the red-light areas. A darkness which got further poisoned with the advent of HIV/AIDS. Everyone wanted to blame prostituted women. The nation responded with a national programme of AIDS control, suspected to itself be controlled by multinational pharmacy majors. At the ground level, this programme was hijacked by sex traders and their advocates. Fearing customers would would run away from the trade they were desperate to save, they conspired to turn the threat into an opportunity by projecting themselves as primary movers of the national HIV/AIDS programme. Without a thought for the vulnerable…, they would only strive to popularise condom use.

This, when many like us working with the community for decades have never judged women in prostitution as immoral. In fact, we've consciously worked to overcome their incorrect self perception of being 'morally loose' and make them understand that they are the 'wronged ones and not wrong'.

Sex traders harp on a false conflicting dichotomy of HIV/AIDS workers and anti-human trafficking civil society organisations when in reality the problem is that of sex traders operating as HIV/AIDS workers The latter are committed to protecting business interests of traffickers, brothel keepers, pimps and customers and mainly engage in condom promotion and getting the sex trade decriminalised (i.e. not to treat trafficking, kidnapping, confinement, pimping, brothel keeping, detaining someone for prostitution, inducing, buying selling someone for the sex trade as punishable crimes).

What the law says

The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act 1956 (revised in 1986) does not prevent an adult person from selling his/her bodily sex* in private premises to a heterosexual partner. It defines prostitution as 'sexual exploitation of person for commercial purposes' by dropping the previous 1956 definition 'prostitution is sale of sex by a female'. Against organized sex trade, it penalizes brothel keeping, pimping, trafficking, procuring, detaining a victim, offering premise for brothel-keeping, seducing, soliciting etc which are essentially sex trade activities. In fact, this women-victim-friendly law suggests that magistrates don't punish women booked under this law but orders the state to provide them alternate livelihood.

While the 1986 revision only bettered the law's victim-friendliness, the Criminal Law Amendment 2013 in the Indian Penal Code has made it next only to the world's best - Swedish law (the Nordic model) - on prostitution.

In a publication Muktatechi Bharari (Flight of Freedom) by SANGRAM and VAMP (a collective of sex workers), their leader Meena Seshu recommends girls be brought in the sex trade three-four years after menarche. Prostituted women on the other hand reiterate: "We don't want our children to get into this trade. They shouldn't suffer like we have."

Studies on the devadasi system (Jogan Shankar, M. Sunder Raja), the biggest supplier of young girls for the sex trade in western India, establish that only pre-pubescent girls could be dedicated as devadasis. Most modern studies conclude that a large number (over 80 percent*) of victims in the sex trade are below 18 or trafficked when below 18. The sex trade predates on children!

The condom promotion programme protects customers not women. Credible research from sources supportive of 'sex work' also shows that a large number of prostituted women are HIV positive.

Appropriate Approach

Malaria cannot be controlled by merely distributing mosquito repellents and nets but by managing stagnant water properly. Similarly, scores of women - victims of discriminatory hierarchies of caste, class, status, gender, disadvantaged by several layers of marginalization from drought to gender-based violence and affected by personal tragedies like orphaning, domestic violence, sexual harassment at workplace - become easily available for sex trade that exposes them to fatal infections and condemns them to a life of indignity, stigma and discrimination. Projecting that as voluntary work chosen by the women adds insult to injury.

The sex traders' representatives' absurd theory of empowered prostituted women leaves many questions unanswered. Why are they several times more susceptible to HIV/TB? Why are many of these women homeless? Why do they shun cameras? Why do they complain of police extortion? Why can't they on their own send children to good schools? Why don't they have toilets/kitchens for themselves in brothels? Why do they end up begging in old age? Why don't they have savings, health insurance and old age pension?

Why do they live in such filthy, stinking, dark and ill ventilated cubicles?

The destinations of human trafficking represent the modern form of slavery. They are incompatible with civilization and human rights. The crime syndicates must be busted and the guilty must be severely punished. Economic development policies that create large scale vulnerability, disintegrate indigenous protective mechanisms and support systems should be abandoned.

* - indicates changes made to the original article published in DNA

(pictures sourced from pintrest)

From Cambodia to India: The Sinister Orphanage Tourism

"Safety and security don't just happen; they are the result of collective consensus and public investment. We owe our children, the most vulnerable citizens in our society, a life free of violence and fear."

 - Nelson Mandela 

Drawing some parallels…… 

I. The Hoarding That Signaled Danger

 

About six months ago, at two locations in Mumbai, we saw a giant size hoarding which was essentially a fund raising advertisement by an NGO for its Children’s Home. The advertisement disturbed us on many counts. It disclosed the facial identity of a child. It mentioned her real name and age. What disturbed us particularly was the following quote used as copy on the hoarding:-
“Put a name and face to your support. Meet and bond with her.” 

We are living in a world where innumerable child sex predators are operating in online and offline spaces, who are trying every trick in their book to get access to children for purposes of exploiting them sexually. Police agencies like Interpol and Europol are working day and night for years together to keep pace and track down and bust the criminal rackets of child sex predators. In this context, in the reality of the world that we live, the above advertisement reads like a clear invitation to such sinister criminals to pay some money by way of donations and get easy access to child victims.

That the advertisement was misguided and in bad taste is beyond question. What worries us is that this is hardly an isolated incidence. It is just a symptom of a larger malaise. 

II. Great Expectations 

Recently two members of a Child Welfare Committee (CWC) shared their concerns with us over the manner in which a certain Children’s Home approached them with a peculiar request. The Home in case has been operating for more than 20 years. Its social worker was seeking permission for three of the Home’s resident girls to spend their vacation at one of their firangi (local slang for foreigner, mostly of a Caucasian origin) volunteer’s residence. 

When the CWC Chairperson probed further seeking more details about the volunteer the social workers became quite furious and asked, “How can you doubt the intentions of firangi volunteers? They have been so helpful and generous to the children in our Home. And all that without expecting anything in return! Is it not their kindness that they want these girls to share their residence on holidays?” Fortunately, the CWC Chairperson was rightly circumspect about the whole proposal and did not yield to the outburst. 

Soon the firangi volunteer herself approached the CWC and in a confrontational tone started blaming the Committee for acting ‘unnecessarily stubborn.’ “I only want to help those poor girls get an experience in family life,” She said.

Professionals in the field of child protection must realize that what the CWC was doing was exercising a bare minimum caution that it is supposed to observe. We must be reassured that the CWC remained undaunted and stuck to its demand for scrutiny. 

With full respect to the kindness of human beings and the element of altruism, there is a need to highlight the growing and sinister trend of child sex predators who are trying to access vulnerable children under the garb of volunteerism and donations. Orphanage Tourism is one of the latest and most insidious trick of the travelling sex offender- one that we must all be wary of and safeguard our most vulnerable children from. 

III. The Case of the Swiss Couple 

 A decade and half ago, a Swiss husband and wife couple was arrested in The Resort, a hotel on the Aksa beach of Mumbai for sexually exploiting several children from the nearby slums and making pornographic films on them. It was alleged that the couple had been visiting India and operating from that hotel for the previous seven years. Their modus operandi was simple - offer plenty of gifts (such as clothes, chocolates etc.) to those children. It was discovered during the investigation that they were involved in similar offences in Thailand and Sri Lanka, as well.

IV. Anchorage: The Colaba Orphanage Sex Tourism Case

In 2001, yet another case was detected in Colaba, Mumbai in which British nationals and former officers of the Royal Navy, Allan Waters and Duncan Grant had started an orphanage by the name of Anchorage Home. The residents of the Home were street children between the age 8 and 18 years. Duncan Grant set up the Anchorage Shelter Home in Mumbai in 1995 that Alan Walters visited frequently. (source:- Childline).

The investigation revealed that “Grant and Walters were sexually abusing the children under their care and that a large number of foreign child sex offenders were regularly visiting the shelter and taking the children to Goa where the children were also being sexually abused,” Another accused was the manager of the Home, Mr. William D’Souza, an Indian national and a former pimp for sex tourists visiting Mumbai. In March 2006, a Mumbai Sessions court sentenced Grant and Waters to six years in prison on the charges of sodomy and sexually abusing five minor boys. They challenged the conviction in the Bombay High Court, which acquitted them in 2008. 

However in 2011, Supreme Court restored the conviction and the sentence. Grant and Waters have since completed their sentence and returned to the UK where they have been put on the Sex Offenders Register. Apparently, Grant had been on the radar of the British law enforcement for over 20 years. 

V. Goa Gurukul & Father Peats

 

 In the year 2005 Freddy Peats died in the jail while undergoing the longest imprisonment of Indian history for sexually exploiting several children, making pornographic material on them and making them available for other foreign tourists in the state of Goa under the garb of running a shelter home-cum-orphanage and inviting ‘volunteers’. He would inject the groin of the child victims with steroids to stimulate erections. He was arrested in 1991. His accomplice a New Zealander E.C. McBride was extradited to India and sentenced with imprisonment for the same offence. 

VI. The Kolhapur Orphanage Involved in Sex Trafficking

On Sunday 26 April 2015, Emmanuel Gaikwad was arrested by the Goa Police for trafficking to Goa some children between the age 9 and 14 years from an orphanage by the name of Our Father’s Home (OFH) located in Kolhapur. The OFH was run by Emmanuel Gaikwad along with a Korean missionary Ekuk Kim alias David. The Deputy Superintendant of the Goa Police shared that the CWC Chairperson of Goa had mentioned that the operation of Our Father's Home (OFH) in Kolhapur was illegal. A UK national Timothy Geddens was also booked in the case. 

Geddens, a Winchester University graduate was a music teacher at Glaitness School, U.K. and had declared that he was going to Goa to teach music. Geddens also claimed that he was a music therapist. 3 OFH children were found in his possession in Goa. The DNA report states that the Kolhapur CWC was not aware of the existence of OFH. None of these children were moved from Kolhapur to Goa and given in the custody of Geddens in Goa with the permission or knowledge of the CWC Kolhapur or CWC Goa (which is mandatory as per the Juvenile Justice Act 2000). The parents of the children were also not aware of this shift. (source: - DNA, 25th April 2015) 

VII. The Altruist Tourists

In the last 6 months we received two separate calls requesting our organization Prerana to allow tourists to visit our shelter facility and interact with the resident children there. Both callers were tour operators. As we did not promptly grant their request but kept asking more questions, they kept promising us that the tourists would give attractive gifts to the children if we allow them to visit our shelter and interact with the children.

The tour operators tried every negotiation tactic to make us believe that we should consider ourselves fortunate to get such kindhearted foreign tourists who in spite of having travel led from the faraway lands to India wanted to spend their time intermingling with some poor and orphan children instead of going to other recreation points. They further tried to lure us by indicating that if the tourists felt happy then they would also give  attractive donations to the organization.

Those calls reminded us of our experiences in Cambodia on a study tour organized by ADMC Foundation earlier this year where we had the opportunity to interact with some amazing organizations and frontline child protection workers. 

VIII. Orphanage Tourism in Cambodia

 

Cambodia is a land of scarred childhoods. It is just emerging from a brutal past in which innumerable children were orphaned and subjected to heinous forms of violence, harm, and neglect. The ILO report of 2006 finds over 313,000 Cambodian children caught in the worst forms of exploitation including drugs and prostitution. 

A UNICEF research in 2007 reported that of the 40,000 to 100,000 individuals being exploited in sex work in Cambodia, around 35% are minors. The ECPAT Report on Status of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in Cambodia mentions that while exact statistics were difficult to access, local and international research has shown widespread menace of child pornography and travelling child sex offenders. In the absence of any robust path to economic development it appears to be relying upon tourism and an uncontrolled population of expats. The situation is a fertile ground for the growth of orphanage tourism. 

There are reports of mushrooming of innumerable orphanages all over popular tourist locations in Cambodia where routinely foreign tourists from the developed countries visit, stay, and intermingle with the children… apparently an innocent activity. 

Cambodian child rights organizations like M’lop Tapang & APLE whom we visited maintained that the so called orphan children in many of these orphanages are actually not orphans at all. Many orphanage owners pay a rent or fixed amount to the parents to take away their children and keep them in their orphanages. These children are made easily available to the sex offendors. It was our own direct experience in the major cities in Cambodia that most tour operators and hotels offer orphanage tours in their packages. 

We witnessed several tourists working out the itinerary of visiting such orphanages as the first thing after checking in. The introductory leaflet kept at Reception counter of some of the hotels unfailingly devotes a paragraph on such tours. The orphanages in return get some donations against this access. It is not just hotels, the tuk-tuks (rikshaw) drivers in cities of Cambodia will always find an opportunity to ask every tourist if they would ‘want’ access to girls or boys by visiting an orphanage. UNICEF has now joined the campaign against orphanage tourism in Cambodia. 

 IX. Being ChildSafe 

The ChildSafe network, a global child protection system, conceptualized and established by Friends International undertakes child safety audit of hotels and Tuk-tuks. They sensitize the staff and issue ‘thumbs up’ stickers that certify that they adhere to the principles of the ChildSafe movement. It was always heartening to view a ChildSafe sticker as one walks into a hotel or boards a tuk-tuk. However as we observed, it is far from a fool proof system. Despite having been branded ChildSafe, some hotels and tuk-tuks have no qualms in flouting the principles.

In creating the ChildSafe network, the activists have clearly succeeded in initiating a public dialogue that brings to light pertinent issues related to orphanages such as: Are we fabricating orphans and making a business out of them by setting up such orphanages? Are we, instead of creating safe spaces for children actually creating safe havens for the child sex predators to exploit children under the garb of “voluntary community service? 

There is no doubt that activists working in organizations like Friends International and M’lop Tapang started many innovative interventions to protect vulnerable children of Cambodia, give them livelihood skills and to offer to them the choice of safe and sustainable alternative livelihoods. However, when it comes to enforcing child protection it is not always possible for the civil society organizations to intervene in establishments owned by private sector. 

Kudos to the civil society organizations like Friends International, APLE and M’lop Tapang who are fighting orphanage tourism in order to protect Cambodian children from sexual exploitation and trafficking. They deserve special recognition for incorporating progressive and path-breaking interventions despite the unfavorable politico-economic situation. 

X. The Hell Holes

 

There is ample evidence to suggest that orphanages are being used as the most unsuspecting fronts for the organized reprehensible crime of child sex tourism. Foreign nationals are involved in setting them up and running most of them. Often a local manager is recruited and placed as a ‘fixer’ (the contact person to ’fix’ the regulating government bodies). 

The access to these orphanages looks almost exclusively limited to Caucasian foreign nationals from the developed world.  The reports of Europol and Interpol mention that these child sex predators commonly use the terms ‘hunting their prey’ (the children) in their internal communication. These police agencies have also shown that the crime syndicates of traveling child sex offenders keep, share, and compare with other similar offenders their photo collections of hundreds of the children they have 'hunted down' and the description of the process of 'hunting'. Some even have the temerity to go a step further and claim that there is nothing wrong in having sex with children. 

XI. The Vulnerable Indian Child

In a country like India where over 1,00,000 children go missing each year, (source:- bba) where every 3rd minute a child gets trafficked, where infant mortality is the highest in the world, where close to 13 million children eke out living in the informal labor markets, where 3,00,000 young ones are involved in organized beggary (source:- wikipedia) and where 4,00,000 children don’t have a roof over their heads and families to support them there is no dearth of unprotected children vulnerable to such predators. 

XII. The Business of Charity 

Starting an orphanage seems to have earned some cultural status and hence the orphanage founders are felicitated and there is a general perception of them as ‘people who cannot do wrong’. Often their financial well being depends directly upon the number of children living in their shelters. Hence keeping captive orphans in their shelter in big number is a precondition of their own survival and career of many so called social workers specialized in setting up and running orphanages.

There is no cognizance taken of the basic fact that an orphanage may not always be a suitable place for a child in need of care and protection to live and grow. Equally irresponsible are those patrons who blindly donate to orphanages. Some orphanages strategically locate themselves close to highly worshiped religious places. Their donation diaries are filled with outpourings of instant charity from desperate devotees who flock to these places.

One common form of charity is to sponsor breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner or parties for the orphans. The orphanage managers take the donation and block a date in their diary in front of the donors. The diaries get full so fast that very often multiple diaries are maintained for the booking. Why would such orphanages try to locate the parents or guardians of the children and to restore the children in their custody? There are other orphanages, and their number is rising, who are ill-reputed for using orphans only to show to their donors as to how many children they have converted to their religion. Often children in their custody who are completely dependent on them for survival get converted without a choice. 

XIII. The Need for Macro Level Provision for Data Sharing

Many developed countries have set systems in place to ensure that people who offer to volunteer have to pay a fee and get a police certification of not having committed any crime against children. 

Initiatives like the ‘International Child Protection Certificate’ issued by the UK Criminal Justice Department to volunteers looking to contribute their skills and time working with children in other countries are steps in the right direction. The ICPC allows international schools and other organisations who work directly with children to be able to access the criminal conviction history of UK citizens and those who have resided in the UK for any period of time. This will enable overseas schools and other organisations to assess an applicant’s suitability to be working with children. 

Many countries maintain and make publicly available directories called ‘Sex Offenders’ Registers’ which have entries of names and photographs of persons with history of sexual offences. These procedures go a long way in ensuring that the child beneficiaries in child welfare organizations, shelters and orphanages are not accessed by child sex offenders under the garb of volunteers, duty bearers, or care takers. 

This system is obviously based upon the experience of these countries of the sinister attempts by the child sex predators. Unfortunately in India ‘background check’ or ‘police verification of volunteers and candidates for job’ in child welfare services is not mandatory. Some transparent and progressive organizations in India have started a good practice of getting the background check done through the local police stations. All these measures are inherently weak as there is no system in India to keep a data bank of such criminals and the verification remains limited at the most to the data of the specific police station only. 

We need a comprehensive and constantly updated data maintenance and data sharing system in order to make the provisions of police verification and sex offenders registers effective. Until that happens children in shelter facilities will continue to remain dangerously exposed.

As an interim measure the un-scrutinized visitors, both local and foreign seeking access to children in the name of donating, charity, volunteering or tourism must be immediately blocked from getting that access. Homes that operate in ‘secrecy’ as mentioned in the beginning of this article must be closely monitored not only from the point of view of ensuring child safety but also for their legal status in terms of registration. Merely indulging in reactive measures once an expose occurs does not reverse the damage caused to the children. 

XIV. The Dignity of the Child 

Shelter homes are facilities meant to restore the dignity of the children who are vulnerable. Privacy is an important prerequisite of it. Children are not exhibits! The unscrupulous orphanage owners who “display” the children for mobilizing donations should be held accountable for the wrongs. Exposing the face and such other identity of a child in need of care and protection or a child in conflict with law who are before the juvenile justice system is not just an offence under Section 21 of the Juvenile Justice Act 2000 but is also a violation of the child’s rights and dignity.

Looking after the well being of such children is entirely the inescapable legal responsibility of the State and the civil society. It is not an optional act of charity. 

XV. Where India Can do Better for Its Children 

We in India are much better placed in terms of our legal institutional framework and resources. We already have laws for child protection in place. We have clearly defined minimum standards of care and protections in the Rules of the Juvenile Justice Act 2000. We have guidelines for registrations and licensing of child care institutions. We have a Child Welfare Committee (CWC) whose aim is to protect children. However, our record on most indicators of child victimization in shelter homes is still enormously bad. 

This is certainly not, as some people like to project, due to our sheer huge population. Remarkably however many smaller and poorer countries have shown a better and praiseworthy performance on the child protection front than India. 

XVI. Volunteerism’ or Volupteerism? 

 Against what we observed in Cambodia and what has been happening all over the world with respect to victimization of children for sexual purposes through tourism and under the garb of orphanages/shelter facilities the case mentioned in the beginning of this article indicates a sinister plan. Would it be wrong to conclude that in plain words the ad mentioned above says, “give us funds and we give you access to unprotected children.” 

As it has already happened in Cambodia and has been observed in parts of India it raises a scary question – Is it ‘volunteerism’ or volupteerism? 

 - Pravin & Priti Patkar

(pic credits:- Jennifer Saura, WikiCommons, TheUKDatabase, Kid's Guernica)

Supreme Court Lifts the Fresh Ban on Dance Bars and Other Issues

If the legal battle on Dance bars ends in a decision that will seem to favor traffickers and pimps, the Maharashtra State Government must blame its own arrogance, non consultative and over confident style of handling this battle and operational and intellectual isolation and a its singular obsession with obscenity. The State Government’s Legal Amendment of June 2014 which enforced the ban on dance bars has been stayed by the Supreme Court of India on 15th October 2015. Although the interim order has kept the hearing for November, the law has little chance of survival as the State government has failed to do its their homework and build evidence to back its premise.

Despite the fact that it has been the anti-human trafficking organizations who had sought the ban, facilitated a conducive public opinion across party lines and actively supported the government, the state on its part has reciprocated with a non-inclusive, non-consultative stance viz a viz the anti human trafficking organizations. The resulting debacle is now for everyone to see.

Customers Must be Booked! Delayed But Right Step in Cracking Down The Sex Trade

(Dr. Pravin Patkar responds to ‘The police start arresting customers of sex workers’ - Pages 4 & 5 of Mumbai Mirror of 24 July 2015 )

It is perfectly legal in India for a woman or a man to sell her or his bodily sex to another adult man or woman respectively, against money. It is also legal for an adult man or woman to buy bodily sex from a heterosexual person.

But no freedom is absolute. There are always limitations borne out of the competing rights of civil society and other individuals.

The state and the civil society in India are deeply concerned about the enslavement of vulnerable children and women in the organized sector via the route of human trafficking. The Indian law is against the organised sex trade.

Linking It Right: How DNA Testing Can Help Mumbai's Missing Children

DNA Testing can protect children used for begging. But certainly not in the way that the Maharashtra government proposes. Dr. Pravin Patkar responds to the recurring issue of policy proposed by the Govt of Maharashtra. (http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-maharashtra-government-planning-to-test-dna-of-beggar-children-2058534)

The DNA Proposal

The Government of Maharashtra proposes to carry out DNA tests on the children used for begging and on persons in whose custody these children are found. It claims that the procedure would conclusively reveal if the latter are the biological parents of the child or not. If they are found to be unrelated, the government proposes to trace the parents through an online DNA database and thus, reunite the children with their families. This is not for the first time the govt has announced its intention to bring about such a policy. The proposed policy option needs to be properly understood as it is being announced repeatedly and may be taken up for formal approval.

Barring a few people who have raised their eyebrows over the idea that someone’s DNA report will be collected and stored by the government in its data bank apparently there is not much objection to the idea of DNA testing per se. Considering the seriousness and rising number of the cases of ‘missing and found but untraced’ children mostly belonging to certain weaker and vulnerable sections of the society as well as the technological superiority and indispensability of DNA matching the vague objection to creating a DNA data bank might not get much attention. Nonetheless it may be stressed at the outset that DNA data being sensitive must be handled carefully and responsibly.

At face value the idea looks noble and appealing. On closer inspection it will be clear that it is vague and full of defects and gaps. What must be appreciated is the announcement of the State’s desire to do something about the issue of children used for begging. Although in its current form, it is naïve, poorly conceptualized, and based on incorrect presumptions.

Prerana's Outreach: Protecting Vulnerable Children in Mumbai's Red Light Areas

The Kamathipura red light area is a constantly buzzing hive of stinging viciousness and extreme danger, particularly for children who are captive candidates for being trafficked. One of the main reasons why Prerana’s centres are located right in the midst of the red light areas is to ensure that we are constantly on the vigil and able to track the children’s situation and movements.

Our strong presence in the red light area and our intensive outreach system helps us in identifying children who are at risk and hence in need of immediate care and protection. We have, in the past been able to ensure successful protection of a large number of children owing to timely detection and intervention. 

In the beginning of our intervention we faced several challenges and found ourselves clueless as we had yet to grasp the situation in its entirety. Our own understanding was developing in bits and pieces. Over the years we managed to put together the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and get a complete picture.

Prerana On The Ground

We started our first intervention in the year 1986 in the Kamathipura red light area of Mumbai. In response to the various challenges before us Prerana evolved many need-based programmatic interventions which, later we realized, were radical in many ways. Extensive outreach is one such important component of our intervention in the red light districts of Mumbai. 

At the time, the State and the civil society had a common stance vis-a-vis the sex trade-tolerationism. In an informal way of zoning, the activity was tolerated by both despite knowing very well that what was happening inside those zones was highly illegal and criminal. It was conveniently labeled as immoral and ghettoed. 

As the population in the island city of Mumbai grew along with the operations in the red light districts the clashes between the sex trade and the civil society became frequent. The sex trade placed the prostituted women on its ever increasing peripheries and the civil society hit back by condemning the women and pressurizing the police to unleash brutal violence against them. One of the factors that made Prerana locate its services right in the heart of the red light districts was to ensure that women don’t get exposed to such repression while using these services and that the fear of the repression does not prevent them from availing the services. 

The sex trade in the red light districts of Mumbai has been operated by multiple criminal gangs for the past several decades. The elements of criminal captivity and control continue to characterize these districts. Captivity was a little higher for those trafficked women who were recruited from the non-Devadasi belt. (The traditional Devadasi cult was a major source of supply of prostituted women to Mumbai). The prostituted girls and women from Nepal and Bangladesh fell in this category. 

The element of captivity and control by the sex traders was so rampant that some women could not easily walk around within the confines. Most Nepali girls and women were confined in cages which had shutters and locks. We decided to overcome this hurdle by personally visiting the brothels. We prepared a team of our social workers and para professionals and invested in them. That paid good dividends and created the foundation of our outreach team. 

As the children of the red light area based prostituted women face indescribable trauma, violence and deprivation especially in the peak business hours we started night time crèches for them in a class room in a local public school building. We named it the Night Care Centre since the term ‘crèche’ was incapable of capturing its significance even minimally.

Meeting Radha and Bholi

During one such outreach visit in the year 1999 our team first met Radha Nepali (name changed) in a brothel in Kamathipura. Radha was trafficked from the extremely backward north western hilly region of Nepal. When she was sold to a Nepali brothelkeeper in the redlight district, she was 16 years old. She had a 3 year old daughter, Bholi (name changed). The team verbally informed Radha about the various child protection and welfare services Prerana had started and proposed to her to send Bholi at least to the NCC Radha’s brothel keeper seemed open to the idea of sending Radha and Bholi out of the brothel. Our overall strategy proved correct. 

We had strategically avoided openly confronting the brothel keepers and showing all our cards. (more about this on some other occasion). We thus overcame that hurdle effectively and managed to have Bholi admitted to the nightly shelter the NCC. Radha proved to be a responsible mother and attended all the monthly meetings meant for the mothers. Bholi adjusted very well to the NCC. 

Soon after that in the year 2000, Radha’s heath began to fail. We supported her for a complete medical check-up. Finally the HIV test was conducted as per the advice of the doctor and Radha shared the result with us. She was detected HIV positive. Although she was provided all the necessary support in terms of nutrition and medicines, Radha succumbed to a co-infection of HIV. Bholi was then barely 5 years old. In her last days Radha was very concerned and vocal about the future of Bholi. She repeatedly requested us to protect her from the sex trade. 

Soon after Radha’s death, her brothel keeper stopped sending Bholi to the NCC. She even started hiding Bholi inside the brothel every time she found that Prerana’s Outreach team was on its way.

Rescuing Bholi

Some brothel keepers had allowed the children to attend the NCC and such other activities hoping that by sending their children to the developmental activities of Prerana they would be able to modernize and scale up their business by having well educated and English speaking prostitutes. For other brothel keepers, having a child of the prostituted women in their brothels was like having captive free-of-cost recruit who could be sold anytime or put to the trade eventually. Radha’s brothel keeper was of the second type. She wanted Bholi to take the place of Radha. Sensing the danger that Bholi will be trafficked we decided to have her officially and legally rescued. 

As a part of the overall strategy, Prerana always avoided appearing prominently in the forefront of rescue operations. We had been regularly networking with civil society anti-trafficking organizations whose primary focus was facilitating rescue. 

In September 2002, in a search and rescue operation conducted by the local police and facilitated by the said rescue organization Bholi was rescued and produced before the Juvenile Welfare Board (after the 1986 amendment in the Juvenile Justice Act the same is renamed as Child Welfare Committee) who placed her in a shelter facility for girl children. 

After 6 months, she was transferred to yet another suburban shelter facility as the previous one could not keep girls above 6 years. Bholi was just about to turn six.

Tracking Bholi

Prerana’s outreach was not confined to the red light areas. We tried to maintain regular contact with the children even after they got placed in institutions of residential care and development. It is not always possible to do so in every case as many factors such as the overall managerial culture and worldview of the organizations running the shelter, the inclination of the person in authority etc all would determine whether our continued contact and inputs to the child would be allowed or not. In Bholi’s case the organization was open to our continued follow up and cooperated very well.

Bholi’s Progress

For 10 years after, till the age of 16, Bholi lived in the suburban shelter. Prerana followed up with her progress and well-being closely and consistently. Our Institutional Placement Programme Team (IPPT) made it a point to meet Bholi once every month. Although we place these children in outside shelter facilities our programs are inclusive for all children we come in contact with. The IPPT ensured that Bholi participated in all our outdoor camps and special workshops. Bholi regularly spent the month long summer and Diwali vacations at Prerana’s centres. We noticed that Bholi had developed the capacity for independent thinking. She possessed a courageous temperament. She was open to admit her mistakes and got along very well with everyone around. A harmonious and professionally collaborative relationship between Prerana and the Shelter was very crucial for this process. 

In her stay at the shelter facility Bholi developed a trusting relationship with an older girl named Gopi (name changed) who was also a resident of the same shelter and a Prerana beneficiary. Both of them bonded very well and Gopi assumed the responsibility of mentoring Bholi. When Gopi turned 18 and was ready to move out of the shelter facility she expressed her desire and commitment to take charge of Bholi when she (Bholi) turned 18 years and got ready to move out of the shelter.

Higher Studies

In the academic year 2012-13, Bholi passed her 10th standard Board examination with 51% marks. She then moved into Naunihal (a shelter facility run by Prerana) in June 2013. We worked on her care plan in which she had expressed her desire to learn computer technology and take up a front desk job. When Bholi turned 17 we helped her get enrolled for a Diploma Course in Computer Applications at a Computer Education Centre in the Central suburbs of the city. 

Simultaneously, in the month of June 2014 Bholi appeared for an entrance exam of the Yashwantrao Chavan Open University. Bholi passed the entrance exam and is now pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree in Arts. Bholi also completed her computer course successfully. As she turned 19, she moved out of Naunihal and into our Falkland Road Night Care Center. 

In the month of November 2014, upon Bholi’s request, she was enrolled in an eminent Foundation for a Vocational Training program in Hospitality for a period of 3 months (the name of the Foundation is not disclosed to protect Bholi’s identity).In January 2015, Bholi was given an award for Full Attendance at the training institute during an Award Ceremony organized by that Foundation. After the completion of her course, Bholi was placed as a front desk operator in a popular laundry chain that is currently gaining considerable popularity in Mumbai city.

Prerana Will Always Be There

As is obvious from Bholi’s journey, it takes great efforts to ensure not just long term protection but also care development and future planning. The task of an organization does not end with just rescuing a child. Appropriate follow-up and hand holding are integral to the post-rescue component. Successful social mainstreaming requires that holistic services and facilities are made available to the child in a timely manner. Furthermore, the case also brings forth the engagement of another girl, Gopi, who tended to the needs of Bholi. This highlights the manner in which Prerana encourages and engages with children.

Currently, Bholi is very well settled and has been socially mainstreamed with a steady and decent income. And Gopi never forgot her promise. When Bholi turned 18, she took her into her own house. They are now part of one happy family.

-  Dr.Pravin & Priti Patkar

Cell Phones – Tools of Liberation or Escalated Control for the Red Light Areas

This year Mumbai faced one of the worst summers of the last 50 years or more. Temperatures soared to over 40⁰ C and humidity levels reached saturation. But such oppressive weather could not be an excuse for not doing our outreach work. ‘Outreach’ was and continues to remain the backbone of Prerana’s 3 decades old intervention in Mumbai’s red light areas (RLA).

A Prerana outreach was underway at the end of May 2015. The occasion was a message regarding a general health camp. By way of a reminder, four members of Prerana’s outreach team physically visited every brothel in Kamathipura, Falkland Road and Vashi-Turbhe RLAs. Not surprisingly, every woman the team met assured them that they had already received the message and would certainly be present for the health-camp.

What was a little surprising was that over 50% of them mentioned to our team that personally visiting them was hardly necessary. Especially considering the scorching summer heat under which people were reportedly dying of sun stroke. They added that it would have sufficed if our team had reminded them on their cell phones. A compassionate, enlightening and most practical suggestion! We welcomed the idea but we also know that we have several other good reasons for physical outreach.

Use of Cell Phones in Red Light Areas

Over the years, the path-breaking work at Prerana has attracted many scholars, students, and journalists, domestic as well as international, to visit and/or undertake internships at Prerana. This time it was a Fulbright scholar from the US. She wanted to study the use of cell phones among the prostituted women – Had it liberated the women? Had it made them their own bosses and offered independence from pimps and madams?

We shared with her some of our observations and experiences from the ground.

Our office is an open space where the women from the RLAs walk in without any hesitation. One of the women from Falkland Road, Reshma (name changed), age 42, walked in accompanied by her daughter Hena (name changed), age 14, whom we had placed in a distant shelter facility for care, protection and development. Hena had come to spend her summer vacation with her mother. After greetings and some initial pleasantries we asked Reshma if she had a cell phone. She promptly dug in between her breasts and pulled out a basic model – a new piece which would not have cost more than 1000 rupees in the market.

Next we asked her for her number. With some embarrassment but without much hesitation she handed over the phone to us stating she did not know her number but that we could find out for ourselves. Hena had an apologetic smile on her face.

This is a common reality. Most of our women use a basic cell phone model for making and receiving calls and for listening to songs. Listening to popular songs while soliciting for customers is a commonplace observation in the evening hours. A small minority of women also have Chinese manufactured smartphones given to them by their relatively well-off regular customers. But hardly anyone remembers her own 10 digit number.

All women share their number with us but most of these numbers change every third month. Reasons range from efforts to keep away from irate and violent customers, miscreants, police and in some cases, pimps to using the devices as small time mortgage. (The latter draws a parallel with the small possessions of the backward area tribal bonded labor whom we have worked with in the past. We observed that the common possessions like wrist watches, brass cookware, and radio transistors suddenly disappear from their possessions only to find a place in the local money lender’s cupboard.)

About four years ago we had conducted a brief inquiry with our women on how cell phones had changed their lives. Most women had mentioned one distinct benefit…. they did not have to depend upon anyone to write a letter to their families back home and that they did not visit public booths to make calls. Cell phones were particularly important when the women were taken into custody by the police and wanted their brothel keeper or pimp to bail them out. Similarly, while outdoors, they could get in touch with their pimp if the customer acted tough and did not keep to the terms of the contract.

The central questions of our current probe are – Has the widespread possession of cell phones among prostituted women led to a new era of sexual independence? Have the women been liberated from the dehumanizing control of madams and pimps? Have they now become their own bosses? Has possessing a cell phone led to self employment as against slavery?

Once again a parallel with the lower income category outdoor workers like couriers and such other delivery boys, is inevitable. Initially when their employers gave them a brand new cell phone the workers felt proud and flaunted the possession. They soon got disillusioned on realizing that with the device on their body they were under a far greater control and monitoring by their supervisors.

When these questions were put to the prostituted women of the RLAs we work in, most of them concurred that since the cell phones have come in their lives:
- the control and surveillance exercised over them has become stricter and closer
- they are expected to be at the beck and call of their pimps and intimate partners/fancy-men who actually double up as pimps

- if the phone is found engaged for too long their loyalty is suspected, resulting in severe punishment and deprivation.

Who has the Control?

Shanta (name changed), one of our women complained that her fancyman cum pimp now keeps a closer watch on her incoming and outgoing calls and seeks detailed explanation for each of the calls. He wants all those calls to reflect in the cash collection, failing which she suffers humiliation and severe physical violence. On some occasions when she was not well and desperately wanted some sleep she switched off her phone. That enraged her fancy-man/pimp. He rushed to the brothel and beat her black and blue. Shanta observed that the cell phone had compounded her distress.

Renuka, age 36, shared that she had moved out of the brothel with her intimate partner dreaming of a life free of exploitation and hoped to lead a ‘respectful’ life away from prostitution, but it wasn’t so. Her intimate partner never trusted her.

She observed, “He always thought that I would cheat upon him once his back was turned. He came home from work every day and first checked my phone. He wanted to know if anyone had visited me and who all had called me and with whom was I chatting.”

“In a day he would call me 10 times. Initially I thought it was because he missed me but soon realized that it was to keep a tab on me. Whenever he tried reaching me on phone and found my phone busy his first question was to who I was chatting with for so long. As it became unbearable I left him. There was nowhere to go so I returned to the brothel from where he had taken me away. To many I proved the proverb ‘once a randi, always a randi’. No one wants to know the circumstances under which I returned to the trade.”

Online Soliciting

Our next inquiry was on whether and how possessing cell phones has affected street based soliciting. An important aspect of this was the demand of the customer to check the product before buying. Our general experience with ‘online retailing’ of goods supports the view that online customers want to ensure the quality of the goods they are buying (unless of course the products are minutely standardized and known). Hence online retailers are required to display 2D & 3D images of the goods as well as show to the customers how they would look on wearing those products.

While installation of any apps that would enable the customers to “inspect and thoroughly check” the goods is an indecent idea it is also doubtful if the women who do not remember their own cell number will be technically savvy to use such advanced apps. How many middle class and educated computer users are familiar with even half of the functions and features of something as basic as MS Window or MS Word even after having used computer for years?

Also, there is also no way simple cell phones with just incoming and outgoing call facility could meet such a demand.

Can Technology Put an End to Red Light Areas?

So has the cell phone revolution led to reduction of RLAs? The answer is negative! Although the conventional RLAs have reduced in number, size, and numerical strength it has little to do with cell phones. Mumbai’s RLAs are a product of the British rule that set them up at the port cities and cantonment areas to meet the need of commercial sex generated by its sailors and soldiers. As these RLAs grew in size they started coming in conflict with the civil areas and that among other reasons gave rise to several other RLAs in and around Mumbai. The old RLAs which were closer to the ports are now extremely viable properties in the real estate market. There is continuous pressure from the real estate market to have them vacated for redevelopment purposes.

The number of prostituted women in Kamathipura and its satellite RLAs was once believed to be over a 75000. The 1960 study by Punekar and Rao indicated that the number had reduced to around 60,000. Women have already started moving out to other distant places. Prerana remains in touch with them as we continue to protect their children. Women have also moved out as the customers have moved out due to the ever rising prices of real estate. As the women move out, pimps and madams follow. Some women now live far away but commute daily to the RLAs.

Sex Talk

The last question we asked some of the women was if they used the cell phones for selling ‘sex talk’. Most of them felt hurt. They said they were not required to sell sex talk but were not sure if the next generation of women trafficked into prostitution would have that choice. Speaking for themselves, they said they condemn sex talk. This observation needs further probing.

Can Technology Liberate?

A couple of years ago, a group from Mysore (from the state of Karnataka in India) visited Prerana to understand the ESGT (Elimination of Second generation Trafficking) model. The group mentioned that they were a part of an effort to develop a cell phone app to assist HIV positive women undergoing treatment by sending timely reminders about their doses. Although we did not get to know about the final outcome of those efforts we have yet to see any of our women in the 3 prominent RLAs of Mumbai use such cell phone apps for their treatment.

It is commonly believed that science and technology are liberating forces. It is true to the extent that they have the potential to reduce the distress and uncertainty in human life. But technology is potentially a double edged sword. Disruptive technology is very much a part of our life. Neither on a priori reasoning nor with field based observation can we conclude that the possession of cell phones by prostituted women has led to their freedom from their exploiters.

The women do not hold the same gadget with the same identity number for too long as they are constantly running away from innumerable sources of violence and control. Even if they have the capacity to handle advanced technology built in their favor they would require considerable training and encouragement. We are living in a state and a civil society that is not yet known by any of these gestures.

The Reality, As of Now

In a world of natural and man-made disasters, where human beings are increasingly becoming vulnerable, markets are uprooting settled human life, families and primary level protective mechanisms are crashing down, where human trafficking is on the rise, where recreation is increasingly described by its commercial inhuman and exploitative qualities there is little scope to believe that pimps and brothel keepers are disappearing or reducing in number.

Technology has also proven itself to be a force that accentuates inequalities. Almost all the street based prostitutes that we work with and that live and operate in the RLAs are at the lowest rung of caste, class and status. They have no collective strength. They are victims of various layers of violence, discrimination, stigma and exclusion. Using apps and harnessing the ‘power’ of technology remains a distant reality.

At Prerana, we may accept the suggestions of our women and send the last minute SMS instead of physically visiting. But the reality of exploitation and captivity is still the prime identity of the sex trade. With or without cell phones!

-         Pravin & Priti Patkar