Prostitution is an institution akin to slavery, one so intrinsically discriminatory and abusive that it cannot be fixed--only abolished

NGOs in Mumbai Area

A lot of literature is available about the various socio- economic political aspects of prostitution. However very little information is available on the various government and non-governmental effort made to help this section of the population in leading a dignified life. An in-depth study of the red light area and the pattern of functioning reflect the dehumanising situation that the commercially sexually exploited women (CSEW) face every day. They are pushed into the trade at a young age, at times even before they attain puberty and thus are not aware of the trap they are falling into. Once in the trade, there is no escape till the brothel keeper has earned well enough through her. Here she is subjected to physical and mental torture if she refuses to abide by the wishes of the keeper. Once trapped in the trade, women get pulled into a vicious circle from which escape is difficult. She gets succor through the contacts with various organisations working in the area. . As most women have no formal education, they have no knowledge of how much they earn. When she is allowed to leave the set-up, she is most probably a victim of life threatening diseases like HIV/ AIDS/ and STDs, without any place to go to. Thus in all probability, she will continue in the area and start soliciting and earn for her partner They form the bridge for her to develop linkage with the outside world, which also form the support system to the women, should she choose to move out of the trade. Many organisations work in Kamatipura, known as the largest red light area of Mumbai, dealing with various aspects like rescue of minors, dealing with health awareness and treatment with special focus on HIV/ AIDS and other STD related diseases, providing counselling services, de-addiction programmes, skill development and training etc. Some organisations help in taking care of the chil dren of the CSEWs by providing full-time care/ protection and education through the day/night care shelters or residential homes away from the red light area. Government organisations like MDACS(Mumbai Districts AIDS Control Society) has played a very prominent role in generating awareness on HIV/AIDS through the assistance provided in providing free literature and organising various street campaigns. There are many organisations working in Kamatipura. To name a few: Navjeevan Centre an undertaking by Marthoma Church, CCDT, Prerna, Oasis India, Jyoti Kalash, SAI, Bombay Teen Challenge, Stop Sex Slavery, Salvation Army, Apne Aap, A Man Foundation, etc. Each organisation has independent specific goals which could be health, education or overall rehabilitation of the CSEW and/ or their children.

We have to overlook their past and rehabilitate them as one of the agencies in Bombay called Savadhan headed by Mr. Gupta is doing

If you would like further information on Jubilee Action please e-mail info@jubileeaction.demon.co.uk Jubilee Action is a registered charity no 1013587 II. Extent Many surveys have been conducted to find out the extent of child prostitution. Dr. Gilada's paper on perspectives and positional problems of social intervention" shows that, "70% of women are forced into prostitution and 20% of these are child prostitutes." Statistics of the survey done show:City Population Prostitute Population Bombay 10 million 100,000 Calcutta 9 million 100,000 Delhi 7 million 40,000 Agra 3 million 40,000
A survey conducted by Indian Health Organization of a red light area of Bombay shows:1. 20% of the one lakh prostitutes are children. 2. 25% of the child prostitutes had been abducted and sold. 3. 6% had been raped and sold. 4. 8% had been sold by their fathers after forcing them into incestuous relationships. 5. 2 lakh minor girls between ages 9yrs-20yrs were brought every year from Nepal to India and 20,000 of them are in Bombay brothels. 6. 15% to 18% are adolescents between 13 yrs and 18 yrs. 7. 15% of the women in prostitution have been sold by their husbands 8. Of 200m suffering from sexually transmitted diseases in the world 50m alone were in India. 9. 15% of them are devdasis.

India's 944 580 000 inhabitants live in an area of 3 287 590 km, with an expectation that the population will reach 1 billion in May. Almost a quarter of this total are under 18 years of age. 25% of the population live in urban areas and this is estimated to be growing annually at just over 1%. Over population and lack of education in nutrition and health contribute to the deaths of around 11 000 children each day. In 1951, 164 million Indians were living in poverty compared to 312 million in 1993-94. There are estimated to be over 900 000 sex workers in India. 30% are believed to be children. Recent reports estimate that the number of children involved in prostitution is increasing at 8 to10% per annum. About 15% of the prostitutes in Mumbai (Bombay), Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, Hyderabad and Bangalore are children. It is estimated that 30%of the prostitutes in these six cities are under 20 years of age. Nearly half of them became commercial sex workers when they were minors. Conservative estimates state that around 300 000 children in India are suffering commercial sexual abuse, which includes working in pornography. In one study of 456 sex workers in Mumbai who had been 'rescued' by police in February 1996, a fifth were under 18 years and two-thirds were under 20. The main obstacle in the cracking down on child prostitution for the police is the issue of rehabilitation and where to place and reintegrate all the children that they rescue.
111 million children of the 250 million child labour force are Indian Every 2nd child has no access to primary education in India Every 3rd girl child does not live to see her teen years in India

There are no estimates of the number of children who are subjected to child-trafficking, debt-bondage, forced labour, pornography, prostitution and drugs, in India

Every hour, four women and girls in India enter prostitution, three of them against their will.
II. Cases There are several causes of child prostitution but some of the most important ones are as follows: 1. Devdasi system:- many of the devdasis are the girls who were dedicated to the Goddess Yellamma by their parents at a very young age. They are the servants of God as they are married to the Goddess. This ceremony takes place twice a year. The main one is during the second fortnight of January at Karnatakas Saudatti village in South West of Miraj. Once the girl is married to a Goddess she cannot marry a mortal. The procurers frequenty visit the place in order to get the fresh supplies of girls as 4000 to 5000 girls are dedicated every year to the Goddess by the process of bidding. Attaining puberty is a secondary thing as there is a ceremony known as heath Lawni (or touching ceremony) whereby the girl is made over to the highest bidder. A study revealed that one third, of which three fourth are under fourteen years, are in Bombay's cheapest brothels. They belong to the low castes like Mahars, Matangs, etc. who give low priority to education. They are so poverty stricken that Fathers, brothers and husbands do not hesitate to sell their daughters, sisters and wives. Prevention of devdasis Act has been in the statute book since 1935 and amended recently but the system continues even today despite governmental ban, Still the girls are dedicated to the Goddess and forced into virtual prostitution and made to entertain males in order to invoke the blessings of the deity. It was estimated that in Delhi 50% of the prostitutes are devdasis and in Bombay, Pune, Solapur and Sangli. 15% of them are devdasis,

(3) Growing poverty, increasing urbanization, and industrialization, migration, and widespread unemployment, breaking up of joint family system etc. are also responsible for the prevalence and perpetuation of the child prostitution. (4) The influx of the affluent and not so affluent people from Gulf countries in India has boosted the flesh trade in cities like Bombay, Hyderabad etc. The parents are forced to part with their daughters for as little as 2 rupees to two thousand in the fond hope that they would get two square meals in the moneyed new world. Nearly 5000 teenagers and women in a Tehsil of sangli district in South Maharastra wait for the month of June when the Arabs come and the year long poverty and hunger of these women, children, and babies is dispelled over night 9) Child marriages are a common phenomenon even today and the bride is very much younger to the bridegroom so the husband drives the innocent wife into prostitution. There is a case where a girl of 13 was married off to a man of thrice her age three months later he abandoned her and married another girl. She returned to her poor parents and three months later a man promised her a good job and took her to Bombay from where he went and sold her to a middle aged woman at Kamatipura for rupees ten thousand and did not come back to take her
IV. Who are these girls, where then they procured from? How and why? Tribal Kolta women and girls from Garhwal hills are compelled to become prostitutes to rescue their family from debt bondage. Poverty stricken young girls from Bengal and Nepal are lured with promises of attractive jobs and marriage. The agents came to know about the existing condition in the areas of U. P. Tehri Garhwal. Dehradun etc. The local Rajputs used to keep the men as animals and exploit their wives, sisters and daughters too. The agents were successful in convincing these women well and hence brought them to Delhi and Agra and sold them to the brothels there.

Child sex workers are not confined to big cities. A survey in Bihar revealed that roadside brothels for truck drivers in the Aurangabad and Sasaram districts offered sex workers aged between 6 and 18 years.
RURAL ISSUE:

."60 sex salves all from impoverished Dominican republic were found hidden in sealed containers unloaded at the port St.
Thomas in U. S. Virgin Islands. 28 of these died and survivors were weak with no identity papers. They work for 18 hrs in a day and get only 20 dollars per client." "Millions of third worlds young women and children are sold. Sexual slavery is becoming increasingly international and industrial incharacter". An organization of Manila which exports girls had 18 girls between the ages of 10 yrs to 17 yrs ready to be exported with same sign tattooed on the right thigh. In Thailand child prostitution is relatively discrete and tolerated by police. IX. Conclusion Our society has not only turned a blind eye to minor girls being enticed into prostitution but also is directly responsible for the continuance in growth of child prostitution. First the demand for virgin prostitutes, and secondly it abets child prostitution by failing to provide adequate facilities for orphan and destitute children. Unless so called respectable sections of the society rise in revolt against exploitation the future of younger generation looks bleak. We have to forget the idea of once a prostitute for ever a prostitute and think how can a child help what has been done her by an unthinking adult? We have to overlook their past and rehabilitate them as one of the agencies in Bombay called Savadhan headed by Mr. Gupta is doing. They have got 30 of prostitutes who were rescued married to respectable people of the society. The IHO has been clamoring for women police to patrol red light area because policemen themselves exploit the inhabitant of the Red light area. The Government should divert more funds for rehabilitation and private charitable institutions should also contribute what we achieve in science and technology will be negated if we cannot protect our minor girls who are being exploited. The Government should severely punish the people connected with this inhuman practice should be totally banned for the good of the future citizens of our country.

There is no concern that goes beyond sympathy, to the point of feeling anger and shame and therefore wanting to do something. Most Indians don't see this as a burning issue! But unfortunately, statistics and reality show real that improvement still lies , way ahead!

CASE STUDY

Child Prostitution In India

"Child prostitution is the ultimate denial of the rights of the child."
(Dr Jon E Rhode, UNICEF representative in India).

CASE EXAMPLES:

Meena was married off at 12. Soon after she was taken to Delhi by her husband, where she found out that he was a pimp. In the last three years, she has serviced up to six clients a night. The major part of her earnings goes to pay rent on the little room, the rest goes to her husband. Rita was sold at 9 years old. She washed and cooked for a madam in Delhi for a few months until a client wanted a virgin. Two years later, she barely talks to anyone and spends most of her spare time painting flowers. Maya, 10, was taken to Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh by her aunt who was paid Rs 3 000. When she refused to have sex with a client, she was locked in a room for two days, scared with snakes and beaten unconscious. When she came around she was raped by the client. Four years on, Maya lives in the red-light area of Mumbai. Her two year old spends the night in a crche run by a social service organisation. When he was only a few months old, she used to drug him and put him under her working cot. JUBILEE ACTION RESPONSE Jubilee Action is supporting two houses on the outskirts of Mumbai which are providing permanent homes for orphaned and abandoned children of prostitutes working in its red light district. The staff has rescued some of the 50 girls, others have been brought by their parents in order to protect their children from the streets' influence. Having received little education on the streets, the girls are integrated into the local school system and extra tuition is available at the home if required. 13-year-old Mira of Nepal was offered a job as a domestic worker in Mumbai, India. Instead she arrived at a brothel on Mumbai's Falkland Road, where tens of thousands of young women are displayed in row after row of zoo-like animal cages. Her father had been duped into giving her to a trafficker. When she refused to have sex, she was dragged into a torture chamber in a dark alley used for 'breaking-in' new girls. She was locked in a narrow, windowless room without food or water. On the fourth day, one of the madam's goondas (thug) wrestled her to the floor and banged her head against the concrete until she passed out. When she awoke, she was naked; a "rattan" cane smeared with pureed red chilli peppers shoved into her vagina. Later she was raped by the goonda. Afterwards, she complied with their demands. The madam told Mira that she had been sold to the brothel for 50,000 rupees (about US$ 1,700), that she had to work until she paid off her debt. Mira was sold to a client who became her pimp.' Asha was left to fend for herself on the streets of Bombay after her mother, a prostitute in the red light district, died. Her father wanted to sell her to a brothel owner but Jubilee House staff rescued her. Asha is now studying hard, has passed her typing exam and is happy and safe from the dangers of the streets. Ever since the Delhi gang-rape of a 23-year-old woman, I found myself constantly asking this question: Why are
men committing rape in groups?

Dont get me wrong. Rape committed by one man is just as bad. But what I am extremely bewildered by is why some men find it necessary to sexually violate women in a group. The definition of gang rape is this: When a group of people two or more participate in the rape of a single victim. The gang rape of the 23-year-old Delhi woman is not an isolated case. Shortly after her plight was brought to international attention, news reports of more gang rapes in India started popping up everywhere. Recently, a Swiss woman was gang raped by a group of men while she and her husband were on a bicycle tour of India. At the same time, an English woman was reported to have jumped out of her hotels balcony because two men were trying to force their way into her room. Its not just in India where gang rapes are happening at an alarming rate. In America, two footballers were recently sentenced for gang raping a 16-year-old girl in Ohio. Last year, a 14-year-old girl was lured into a hut and raped by nine men, some who invited more friends to come join in the rape after they were done with her. Rape is abhorrent. To participate in a gang rape is not only sick, it makes these men cowards. After doing some research online, here are some insights into the sick minds of gang rapists. 1. They think they can get away with it when there are more than one of them Cowards tend to have a safety in numbers mentality. They think that statistically, its harder to pinpoint who is guilty when there is a group of perpetrators involved. Either they think this messes up the DNA evidence or the victim is more likely to keep quiet about the attack because of fear of further reprisals.
2. They believe it gives them an excuse to act atrociously

Remember participating in orientation activities in school? Do you remember being made to do crazy things like lie on the road when the traffic came to a stop? I think orientation is fine but what is not fine is when rational humans suddenly behaved like crazed cavemen around a campfire. The same with gang rapists. While I cannot claim to possess the mentality of a gang rapist, it is safe to assume that most people when they find themselves in a pack situation find it easier to just go along with what the rest are doing.
3. They see a justification to their actions

What Im talking about here is VICTIM-BLAMING. According to many insensitive people (many who also happen to be politicians, community leaders, parents, news reporters), women get raped because they asked for it. The 16-year-old girl who was gang raped in Ohio by two footballers shouldnt have gotten herself so drunk she should have known better. And now, because of her the futures of two brilliant young men are ruined. In India,

men are saying that respectable women who stay indoors, whose dressing do not tempt men dont get raped. Excuse me! If men cannot control themselves, shouldnt they be the ones to stay indoors?!? In fact, men who cant help but
rape should be chained up and kept away from society. 4. They take non-resistance as consentHonestly, this

has got to be the LAMEST excuse, ever. Apparently, as long as women do not kick and scream and yell for help, we are giving these men the go-ahead to sexually have their way with us. The 16-year-old girl was so drunk, she could not defend herself. BUT witnesses said that because she wasnt resisting, they didnt know if rape was happening. The education system needs to teach men that anything LESS THAN A YES is a NO. Even if we women were to take off our clothes and do a sensual sexy dance in front of you, if we DO NOT SAY YES to sex, its RAPE. Get it into your heads. At the end of the day, rape is a misogynistic act. Men who subdue women by forcing themselves sexually on them are simply doing one thing: They think because they have a penis, they are allowed to rule the world. Im sorry, guys. Its time you wake up to the fact that women are no longer objects. We are co ntributing to the economy, we are just as well educated as you, and we have the same rights as you have. Do not ever think you have a good reason for rape. And, dont even THINK about putting the blame on us.
Indias transforming urban economy has, firstly, produced a mass of young, prospectless men. The parents of these children, m any first-generation migrants to cities, worked on the land or were artisans. Though this generations position in the economy may have been inequitable, its agency as workers was not. The young, though, find themselves fighting for space in an economy that offers mainly casual work. This casualisation has come about even as hard-pressed parents are spending ever more on education. Even the pressures on middle-class and lower middle-class men are enormous. Frequently coddled in son-worshipping parents, young men are only rarely able to realise the investment and hopes vested in them. For a second context to hyper-violent masculinity, we must look at culture. Increasingly, cities have no recreational spaces for young men. Films, long one of the few cultural activities that a working-class audience could participate in, now target lites; movie theatre prices exclude large parts of the youth population. There is diminishing access to theatre, art, music and sport. In its place, the street becomes the stage for acting out adulthood, through substance abuse and violence. Thirdly, a number of young men, particularly in new urban slums, are being brought up by no-parent families families that fathers have abandoned or are largely absent from, and where mothers work long hours. Elsewhere in the world, too, this social crisis has been linked to sexual violence. South African researcher Amelia Kleijn, in a 2010 study of child rapists, found most had deprived childhoods marked by physical and emotional abuse, as well as neglect. Fourth, there is a crisis of sexuality. Few men, working class or rich, have access to a sexual culture which allows them sexual freedoms or choices. The crisis is exacerbated by the fact that sections of urban lites participate in a sexual culture which is relatively liberal a culture that young men can watch on television and in public spaces, but never hope to participate in. For some, the sexually independent woman is thus enemy to be annihilated. In his hit song C**t, the rape-valorising rap star Honey Singh voices his yearning to kick a woman after raping her, to drive out the bhoot of ego from her head. Similarly, Strang sees on the streets a wash of blonde and auburn wigs, lipstick smeared on those deadly pincer-like insect jaws.
COMMODITIES

Young men of all classes, finally, see women as status-enhancing commodities emulating the long-standing gender privileges tradition has vested in lite men. In India, womens bodies appear to have become the principal terrain on which male rage is venting itself. It isnt that young Indian men are inherently violent than they were in the past. In 2011, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, 29,937 men between 18 and 30 were arrested for murder. Twenty years earlier, it was 38,961. In 1991, 270,602 men of this age group were arrested for rioting; in 2011, the figure was 72,867. Sexual violence data, though, trends the other way. 8,864 18-30 men were arrested for rape in 1991; 16,528 in 2011. Molestation and sexual harassment arrests from this cohort have also almost doubled, from 23,075 in 1992, the first year for which data is available, to 32,581 in 2011.
ILLUSION OF EMPOWERMENT

For many men, then, violence against women works much as drugs do for addicts: it offers at least the illusion of empowerment where none exists, fixing feelings of rage and impotence. This, in turn, points to a wider malaise. Marxist scholar Antonio Gramsci noted that Fascism arose in a society where mothers educate their infant children by hitting them on the head with clogs. H ow men behave on the streets with women, with other men, with animals is taught. In our society, violence is not an aberration; it is the tie that binds us. In 2007, the Ministry of Women and Child Development surveyed 12,477 children to learn of their experience of abuse. 68.99 per cent of children, over half of them boys, reported suffering physical violence. One in 12 children, again a majority boys, reported suffering sexual violence. It is a staggering fact: half of all Indians have encountered abuse before they became adults. For the overwhelming majority of Indian children, the education in violence begins in the family. The survey found 59 per cent of the 2,245 children who did not go to school located home as a source of violence. In institutions like orphanages, the survey recorded levels of violence very similar to homes. More than 65 per cent of the 3,163 school children surveyed said they received beatings along with classes in maths, science and languages. Employers of child labourers, interestingly, were significantly less cruel than teachers; 58.7 per cent of working children said they experienced beatings at home, at work, or both. In each of these categories, boys were overrepresented. Maulana Azad Medical College researcher Deepti Pagare discovered, during a survey of boys at New Delhis Child Observation Home, that 76.7 per cent reported physical abuse. Half of them actually bore clinical evidence of violence the perpetrators, in more than half of all cases, their own fathers. Elsewhere in the world, figures like these would almost certainly have provoked a national scandal followed by demands of criminal prosecutions. Look through Delhis crime statistics, though, and you will find not one father p rosecuted for everyday crimes against his son. India needs a masculinity that does not involve violence. Moral sermons, though, wont cut it: respect for women can emerge o nly from a culture that genuinely values rights for all. Keywords: Delhi gang-rape, sexual violence, gender discrimination, masculinity, women's safety

Psychology of Rape in India

In all my experience as a psychologist, I can safely say that the one key to comprehend human nature is to understand that there is never a one key explanation for any human behavior. Its always a combination of several keys. Our challenge is to find the largely functional master key of explanation of an issue.

Largely, its because of three main reasons: The biological make-up (predispositions, temperament, etc.), Present and Past environment and individual experiences; And most importantly our own thinking patterns which govern our behavior choices. (Thats why we hold people accountable for their actions.) The above factors can have varying degrees of influence depending upon what we are talking about.
Since there are no reliable ways to check and correct certain rape fantasies, neurological collapse in empathy and regret, relationship with aggression, we have very limited scope of change in the persons biology and past experiences. However, we are not slaves to our anatomies. Biological understanding of a problem just helps us maintain a problem-solving perspective. In the context of rape, analyzing Delhis culture, even on the face of it, gives you an understanding that it is a precarious soup of the four strongly male chauvinistic cultures of Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. Now, the first tenet of male chauvinism is that men are superior to women. This ideology gives rise to an entitlement and privileged mentality: men deserve better and more in terms of pleasure and prosperity than a woman. Women are merely the instruments through which to achieve those desires. When this claim to power is thwarted, men believe they have the right to express their frustration and anger by forcefully asserting their dominance in a violent sexual act. Now add to this mixture the warped traditional and religious projections of a proper woman: a non-ambitious, non-adventurous, nonassertive, non-person. Woman having been created from a mans rib and the promises of virgins in heaven as reward and skies full of seducing apsaras like Menaka and Rambha, who have no apparently real purpose in life but to entertain and distract men. Then there is also that bromide of what acche ghar ki ladkiya (women of good character) should do. In fact, this purposeless and chattel-like status of women is clear in the old understanding of the word rape itself, which in its Latin roots, rapere means to steal or seize property. Yet another ingredient to this poisonous soup is the lack of a rational education in sex and emotions. This results in a woefully underdeveloped regulatory mechanism in individuals, which is essential for personal and societal development. Our faulty understanding of what it means to be a masculine man also can make us look at this deficiency of a human regulation on an animal brain, as a good thing, as a real male thing. Asli Mard toh (aisa) hi hota hai. Real men are supposed to be like this. Substitute this with whatever comes to mind and you will identify a dominant belief of a culture. We might get several answers from the chai stalls to board rooms to movies like DEV D and Rowdy Rathore, where its okay to pinch a womans waist because the character of Akshay Kumar had no regulatory mechanism over his animal ins tincts. Emotional and sexual education is very important for us to know that a girls dress is not a yes, that the time of the night and your mood (in or outside the influence of alcohol) are no licenses to violate another persons body, and that an iron rod cannot compensate for the self-worth you have attached to your penis size and that a womans moans and cries under you are no mark of your greatness as a male -bodied person. Low self-esteem and the entitlement mind-set among men who are sexually repressed and immature and who live with misogynistic ideas are crucibles of explosive mixtures of beliefs that lead to undesirable behaviors. Patriarchy is not restricted only to the mind-set of men; most often, we find that women are willing subscribers to the patriarchy of society. Many Indian women not only believe in such ideas, they also have warped the idea of what it means to be feminineto the point that women are complicit in the impoverished state they hold in society.