The sex workers of India

The U of M and local organizations team up to fight HIV and help restore a touch of dignity

ANDREW LODGE STAFF

They sit outside on a makeshift stoop beside their darkened corridor, a bare bulb casting shadows into the evening street. They wear saris like most women here in Bijapur, a smallish agriculture city in southern India, and to an outsider, they look like most other local women, at least at first glance. The five of them huddle close together, one older, one quite young, maybe early teens, and the other three I guess to be somewhere in their 20s and 30s.

As normal as they initially look to my untrained eye, these women occupy a less than ordinary position here in southern India. They are just a few of Bijapur’s women of the night, sex workers who mostly come from backwoods India to her cities in a heroic and brutal attempt to eke out a living in one of the most unenviable of jobs going in these parts.

HIV/AIDS AND THE INDIAN SEX TRADE

The sex trade. Not something that one immediately associates with India. Mention of the country in polite dinner conversation conjures up a host of images, but for most, prostitution is not one of them. Prostitution is here, though, and according to research, much of which has been spearheaded by the University of Manitoba, it’s flourishing. To add to the tragedy, it’s also driving an HIV/AIDS epidemic that threatens to flood the subcontinent.

“I SEE OUR WORK HERE AS SOMETHING LIKE TECHNICAL SUPPORT TO ALLOW THE WOMEN THEMSELVES TO GAIN EMPOWERMENT AND THE MEANS TO ORGANIZE” — SHIVA HALLI.

According to a United Nations report released in 2006, India now has more HIV cases than any other country on the planet, a number they peg at 5.7 million, or one in every eight global cases. This surpasses the former leading HIV nation, South Africa, which has roughly 5.5 million cases. Of course, proportionally, India is not yet in the dire straits her African counterparts find themselves in. South Africa’s HIV rate makes up an astounding 19 per cent of the total population, while India’s accounts for about one per cent. Nonetheless, it is still an alarming number, especially when Indian authorities have made, and continue to make, the same mistakes made in Africa. The Indian government long denied there was a problem at all and then suggested, among other things, that HIV could be curtailed by forbidding sex with foreigners.

However, there are signs that the government is now waking up to the huge problem that is HIV/AIDS. The Indian National Council on Applied Economic Research released a report last year suggesting that within 10 years, 16 million people in this country could become infected if things continue to go unchecked. Nongovernment workers on the frontlines here fear that it could be even worse, and those I spoke with already put the prevalence figure much higher than the 5.7 million UN number. Some suggested that a more realistic figure was somewhere around 10 million.

It’s easy to understand how the frontline workers see the situation as much worse. Working directly with women engaged in the sex trade is a lesson in the “harsh reality of this world,” says Pavan Kumar, the head of the Bijapur wing of the Corridors project, a non-government organization funded by the U of M that functions within the sex trade. Research shows that HIV/AIDS rates among sex workers in this country are somewhere between 50 and 75 per cent. Not surprisingly, rates of other sexually transmitted infections are also extremely high. Brian Gilligan, the program director for Corridors, shows me a spreadsheet compiling their data of infection rates among sex workers in the six districts, spanning two states, Karnataka and Maharashtra, in which the project operates. The numbers show that for some types of infections, prevalence nears an inconceivable 100 per cent.

The pattern of HIV spread has been unique here in India, in that, according to Gilligan, the epicentre of the crisis lies in the rural areas, at least in this part of the country. In contrast, work in most other parts of the world has generally shown that the virus is spreading outward from the cities. This has perhaps made the virus harder to detect, as India’s rural regions are generally more underserviced than the urban centres, and health care is not always readily available.

THE SEX WORKERS

It is from the rural areas that women — often young girls — are recruited, in some form or other. Some are coerced by husbands or lovers, others tricked into leaving the village with the promise of work and then sold to a brothel, still others enter the trade as a form of bonded labour to pay off debts. But perhaps the most infamous pathway to sex work has been the now-outlawed — but still prevalent — practice of selling or offering young girls to temple priests to become what’s called Devidasi. Many of the sex workers I met in Bijapur were from the Devidasi background. These are women who are brought up in certain temples as “temple dancers.” The Devidasi are part of a tradition that requires these women to perform sexual “duties” for temple priests, and in many cases, for worshippers who pass through the temple. Many are brought from poor families, who may not have the means to look after them, or who can earn a sum in exchange for the daughter; others are given as

ONE OF THE BROTHELS IS DOWNRIGHT FILTHY AND THE SMELL OF SEWAGE IS OVERPOWERING. THERE ARE SEMEN STAINS ON THE WALL AND A PILE OF USED CONDOMS.

an offering, a token of thanks and so forth. Most enter in the realm of the Devidasi prior to puberty. From the Devidasi upbringing, the transition from religious to commercial prostitution appears to be a natural one.

Sex workers frequently migrate to the bright lights of the larger cities like Mumbai, but they will often drift through the rural parts of the country on their way back to their roots, stopping for short periods of time in towns and villages along the way, earning money the only way they know how and seeding the virus at the same time.

The Corridors workers interact with the workers here in Bijapur on a daily basis and know what life is like for them.

“It is a very difficult life for them,” says Kumar. “It is difficult for them to have any dignity. That is part of what we try to do, to allow them some self-dignity.”

The Bijapur component of the Corridors project operates a clinic in the city where the women can come for health care and check-ups, something the physician working there assures me they desperately need. They also provide a dropin centre where women can come to sleep, to wash themselves and their laundry, and to receive some much-needed support and love. At the centre, there is a laidback feeling, and when I ask the women, through Kumar, whether the project has made a difference, they react as if it’s an idiotic question, and then proceed to explain how important it is for them.

The project employs some ingenious methods, several of which have been tried elsewhere in the country with success. The social workers co-ordinate programs and outreach, but it is the “peer educators,” women who have themselves worked in the sex trade, who make contact with the other sex workers. It is they who encourage condom use, who educate on basic concepts of disease, and who publicize the activities of Corridors on the street level. It has proven to be an effective strategy in a country where these women are very wary of any “help” being offered.

Later on that day, Kumar asks me if I want to check out some brothels myself. “It’ll be no problem,” he assures me. “We work with these women everyday, they want you to come.”

The first two establishments we visit are small and dark, with one front room no more than six by eight feet in dimension, with another room behind, separated by nothing more than a rug, where the women bring the “clients.” One of the brothels is downright filthy and the smell of sewage is overpowering. There are semen stains on the wall and a pile of used condoms — a sickly testament to the success Corridors and the peer educators are having — off to one side.

What is most soul-shattering, though, is the stark contrast of the inhuman physical surroundings and the kindness and gentleness of the women. They invite us to sit, on the floor because there is no furniture, no bed, no stool, and we talk with Kumar translating. They want to know where I’m from and we talk a little about where they are from — none are originally from Bijapur. They want us to stay but we move on. At a third brothel that is clearly more upscale, a sadly ironic comparison since “upscale” is still shockingly miserable but nonetheless with some modicum of sanitation, we stop and sit for awhile. They offer us tea and we all drink together. One of the women puts on a comical display of putting on make-up for the night ahead.

“No make-up, no client,” she jokes. Later, as I get up to go she pulls at my sleeve and motions back to the spot on the floor where I was sitting. I sit back down for a while longer and we chat some more as she readies herself for the night ahead.

Much feminist research over the past decade has embraced and augmented the postmodern perspective, arguing that linear models of power relations are far too simplistic to fully elaborate how power functions and where it flows from and too in social relationships and processes. Not surprisingly, some of that scholarship has examined sex workers as a group understood in mainstream feminism as an example of the marginalization of women. Theorists have argued that notions of dispossession and powerlessness do not grant agency to sex workers, and that this is not only an inaccurate but also an oppressive construct.

While this argument has most often been made in the context of the industrial, firstworld countries, some have discussed it with the so-called third world as the backdrop. In her paper Lifestyle as Resistance, Veena Talwar Oldenburg writes about “courtesans” during the 19th century in the Indian city Lucknow. Oldenburg argues that these women were able to earn a decent living and indeed exercise some autonomy in the space they created through their role as sex workers. Granted, Oldenburg was discussing a unique set of circumstances, and certainly there are a number of

ACCORDING TO A UNITED NATIONS REPORT RELEASED IN 2006, INDIA NOW HAS MORE HIV CASES THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY ON THE PLANET, A NUMBER THEY PEG AT 5.7 MILLION, OR ONE IN EVERY EIGHT GLOBAL CASES.

critical incongruities between the conditions of the sex workers in the Bijapur corridor and the courtesans in colonial Lucknow. Further researchers influenced by Oldenburg’s work have continued to make an effort to dispel the portrayal of sex workers — those traditionally and typically depicted as worse than trash and whose lives are an endlessly unraveling misery — and instead recognize their agency under admittedly difficult circumstances.

Walking through the back alleys with Kumar, though, and stepping into the hovels called brothels, it is difficult to see on the raw level of the street where exactly that agency lies. I find myself wondering how it can even be conceivable that these women can live one day with the dignity talked about by the Corridors social workers.

U OF M INVOLVEMENT

Current U of M involvement in this part of India is the brainchild of Shiva Halli, a longtime professor at the university, currently with the department of community health. Halli grew up dirt-poor in a small village in Northern Karnataka that has formed the epicentre of the AIDS crisis here. He still has family there. The region and its suffering clearly means a lot to him. “Five years ago, no one in the countryside knew anything about HIV or AIDS,” he says.

Halli, who says that his heart has always been in India, decided to do something about it. Although driven by a strong sense of social justice and a love of his homeland that is almost palpable, Halli had personal motivations as well. It was five years ago that his nephew died in this part of the world of AIDS, though at the time it seemed that no one knew what to do. This was akin to a calling for Halli, who decided that he must do something to address this emerging tragedy. Five years later, he still speaks passionately about the work in India.

“These women are some of the most dispossessed in our country,” he says. “The goal of our work is to give them the help they need to empower themselves.”

The project’s approach is multipronged. As well as providing the clinic I visited with free condoms, and peer-delivered education, there has been and continues to be considerable research, much of it done through the University of Manitoba, into the various components which contribute to the overall transmission and spread of the disease. But Halli seems most excited of all at the notion of providing the tools and the means to allow for self-empowerment.

“I see our work here as something like technical support to allow the women themselves to gain empowerment and the means to organize,” he says. He goes on to describe how some sex workers are collectivizing as a means of standing up to the police — who can be another brutal dimension to the problem according to Halli and Kumar — and pressing for legal rights. There is also discussion, Halli tells me, of moves by some of the collectives to press for legalization of the sex trade. I ask him what he thinks of legalization as an option.

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” he replies, adding that he personally thinks it’s a good move. “But,” he says, “At the project we try very hard not to set an agenda for the sex workers. It is their lives and their decision. We are there merely to facilitate and provide support.”

Halli maintains a callously realistic view on the overall picture, although one imbued with a compulsive sense of humour. When I ask him about other campaigns in the country, and particularly those which emphasize fidelity among husbands to cut off demand for sex workers — attempts to incorporate the ancient Kama Sutra (essentially a guide to human sexuality) in the fight against HIV has produced the slogan “Many Postures with One is better than One with Many” — he stops and snickers.

“Sex work has been in all societies forever. It’s almost as if it’s a genetic part of males, this infidelity,” he chuckles and then becomes serious. “If it helps, that’s good, but we don’t think that stopping the demand is a realistic goal.”

In any case, by the looks of it, the Corridors project is involved on many fronts already, and it certainly appears that these focuses ensure a gigantic mountain to climb.

QUIET HEROES

The likes of Shiva Halli, Pavan Kumar, Brian Gilligan and others — both Indian and Canadian — who work on projects like this one have a way of restoring a person’s faith, even as encountering the reality of the sex workers here deeply challenges basic ideas of humanity and human nature. In a different way, the women, the so-called sex workers, with their inexplicably gracious hospitality, their humour, their humanness, are in themselves a forceful assault on widely held stereotypes and indeed on the very structures on which social trappings are hung.

A change in attitudes of the larger society that surrounds these women and the countless thousands of others like them seems like a hopeless challenge. Kumar, in his gentle Gandhi-like manner, shakes his head mildly.

“Before I worked with sex workers I also wondered what was wrong with these women, why they didn’t find other forms of supporting themselves. Then I realized that they had very little choice.” He gestures to them women who have gathered out on the street in front of one of the brothels and says that people need to realize that they are human beings who deserve respect, just as he himself has learned.

And so the work goes on, fuelled by a joint effort between a handful of Canadians and Indians working sideby- side on the frontlines alongside the women at the heart of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The struggle against HIV/ AIDS and the struggle for dignity are one and the same for these women. For them, it is a struggle for life and death.

The men and women that I met who were doing this work all came across as dedicated to the cause. It shows in everything they do.

“Since I started doing this work, I derive no greater satisfaction than helping these least fortunate people in the society,” says Halli. Whatever the motivation, the work being done is both needed and appreciated. And with the people I met who were involved, it will no doubt continue.