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Changing Nature of Prostitution
Background: Mumbai, India has the largest red-light area in Asia called Falkland Street or Kamatipura1. This red-light area is actually a criss-cross of 14 lanes between the Bombay central and Grand Central stations in downtown Mumbai. They house some of the most notorious brothels in the country- Pila house, Tabela chawl, Jamuna Mansion and Congress House to name a few. In 1994, a survey conducted by the National Commission of Women2, said there were more than 25,000 trafficked women and children trapped in this red-light area. The survey went on to say that about 5, 000 new girls were brought in every year from Nepal, Bangladesh and other parts of India, some as young as twelve. The older women were simply pushed out onto the streets, with no savings, multiple diseases and starving children.
In 1996 while making The Selling of Innocents3, I spent time in these brothels. I found that India has become one of the biggest slave bazaars for minor girls. Rooms, slightly bigger than the size of a washing machine had eight girls stuffed into them. Each girl had to service ten-fifteen clients a night. Some of these girls were as young as seven. Many had two children by the time they were fourteen. The children would play on the floor while they serviced the clients. The girls were beaten, tortured and starved. A string of clients kept appearing in the doorway all the time.
In 1998, I started an NGO called Apne Aap (self-help) in Kamatipura/Falkland Road with women and children in this red-light area. Our membership grew to 700. At that time the brothels were dense with women and girls, the number of clients constant, and the rentals for beds and rooms very high. Due to the large number of clients, it was hard to convince women to leave or even to find free time to visit the NGO.
In 2002 through the anecdotal experiences of women in prostitution from the area, my own visits to the brothels, police documents, newspaper reports, NGOs shifting work patterns, surveys by HIV/AIDS groups, reports by academics and international agencies and sex guides for tourists I found:
1.The sex industry in Mumbai was changing rapidly. It was increasingly complicated, with highly differentiated sub-sectors. My study backed by anecdotal evidence, direct observation and interviews with women in prostitution suggests that the nature of prostitution is changing. It involves a greater number of people in a greater variety of sites. It is shifting both geographically from the brothels in Kamatipura to the brothels in suburban Mumbai in Bhandup, Bhiwandi and Turbey and from brothel based sex itself to street based sex, slum-based sex, sex supplied from beer bars, apartments and hotels. The trade has gone deeper underground.
2.Assessing the size of the market is difficult because the trade is largely illegal and now more invisible. Numbers are repeated so often that they become accepted as fact, so all statistics must be treated with caution. The trafficking of women into prostitution is underestimated by the government, health departments and by public opinion while it is exaggerated for polemical purposes by NGOs.
3.New sub-sectors in the industry like indirect and part-time women in prostitution also needs to be documented. There are also more MSWs in the red-light areas now.
4.The structure of the market is also more sophisticated now. There is a market catering to tourists to Mumbai from the rest of India and abroad. It is relatively small in the number of times the girl has to be sexually exploited but higher in terms of money turnover. The domestic market catering to local men is much larger but these days also less visible due to a) fear of HIV/AIDS and b) constant police raids and rescue efforts by NGOs
5.This shift in pattern from direct to indirect prostitution is harder to document. The shift from traditional sites and concentration in red-light areas and its becoming dispersed in the suburbs, along highways, beer bars, restaurants, hotels, apartment complexes and slums was registered by Apne Aap members and staff through an informal mapping of the new venues where sex was sold. “Bars, clubs, massage parlors, karaoke bars, restaurants and hotels are typical venues,” said one Apne Aap member. Brothel madams are also using mobile phones and the internet to contact clients. Now the sex-industry has no geographically defined borders.
6.A false sense of security is gained in mapping and analyzing known sex sites. NGOs and health departments concentrate their activities in these areas while the industry has changed around them. The BMC project with women in red-light areas- Asha- is a typical example. Statistics can mislead because they wil attempt to impose order on an infinitely complex industry.
7.Most women and girls in the brothel sector have been trafficked very clearly. Those on street corners, slums and beer bars are compelled by economic and social inequality and maybe seduced, coerced or tricked very easily into prostitution. Under the UN protocol this constitutes trafficking as well.
8.Many women and girls in Mumbai are now easy prey for traffickers due to the rampant consumerism and relative deprivation as well. Anecdotal evidence suggests that such women do so to supplement their income and end up trapped in violent and life threatening situations. Apne Aap members said such women were attracting business away from traditional red-light areas. Long interviews revealed that they too were victims of social and economic injustice.
9.The nexus between organized crime and the police and politicians is more entrenched and developed in a more sophisticated way now. The beer bars are anonymously owned by senior politicians and police. The act of trafficking has happened long ago, the girl is kept in another place, so it is harder to help the girl and bust the business.
10.In Kamatipura where efforts have been made to tackle abuses, the result has been that the brothels have sifted to the outskirts of Mumbai or simply operated secretly out of apartments hard to track down. This has pushed the most exploitative aspects of the industry completely underground. Young, vulnerable, trafficked girls find themselves locked into socially invisible systems of sexual exploitation.
11.The demand for younger girls has gone up. Older women in prostitution and members of Apne Aap said they had no income now. The premium age is now 12-16.
12.Women and children in prostitution are fed up by the HIV/AIDS interventions. They feel they are being used as guinea pigs and not being assisted in their immediate needs. Some of the interventions “ seem unreal” said one woman, “ when we are faced with debt, starvation, violence , ill-health and social exclusion.”
13.The brothels were traditionally supplied with girls from temple prostitution in Andhra, Maharashtra and Karnataka, girls from Nepal and some from Bangladesh and low-caste and minority girls from allover India. Now the number of Nepali girls has gone down, the numbers of Bangladeshis girls have gone up and girls from minorities have gone up.
14.Clients are still mostly mobile groups of men, male migrants, truck drivers, those in armed forces, traveling businessmen and young college students.
15.The tendency of the flesh trade to diversify, expand and to change forms has complicated both State and NGO interventions. The large population of “floating” or “flying” women in prostitution are hard to reach and more vulnerable to violence. The diversification is leading to the Mumbai sex industry’s dispersing into the anonymity of ordinary society. Those entering the brothels or street prostitution are children.
16.There are a growing number of venues for the purchase of sex and increasing sophisticated sexual networks involving, low, middle and high level prostitution.
17.Networks of hotel prostitutes, mobile workers, operating in hotels, hostels and guest houses
18.Whiver estimate srae used there is a phenomenol growth of sex workers.
19 There is a positive co-relation between th eyout of the girls, the number of clients an dteh levl of icome.
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