Male and Female Sex Workers letter to Kerala Chief Minister. Mr. A.K. Antony

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

The letter below is self explanatory. We are planning for an agitation in

all the four southern states of India on the same day, same time to draw the

attention of the authorities. The letter's content could be changed

according to the need and reality of the states concerned.

In Kerala, there is no brothels and we have only street based sex workers. And

also the family planning programs found success in Kerala, so the use of condoms

are high. Considering these differences the content of the letter should be

modified. But the reality of police torture and arrests are almost the same.

Again there will be differences in the behavior of the police in the

northern states. Again, the brothels of Bengal and Bombay are quite distinct

and characters different. So there are similarities and differences to look

for.Keeping all these in mind we all should draw a common program possible.

We are circulating this letter, which we drafted in the local language,

Malayalam, for your perusal and discussion.

Please respond.

Love

Maitreya & Dr Jayasree

Members of Support Group, Sex Workers' Forum Kerala

maitreya@...

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To

Mr. A.K. Antony

Chief Minister

Secretariat, Thiruvananthapuram

Kerala, India

Sir,

We, the male and female sex workers of Kerala, are providing all the support

till date to the AIDS prevention program, which started 5 years back.

Before the advent of HIV/AIDS neither the government nor any other agencies

have given any attention to our life or our problems. We know that these

programmes are meant neither to sustain our lives nor to prevent us from

getting infected but to ‘save’ others (our clients) from getting infected.

On the contrary if the concern was for us you would have provided female

condoms, which we easily could have wore to protect us. It has been

projected without any basis that this disease is transmitted by us. In fact,

husbands and housewives constitute more than 97% of the HIV infected persons

in the state.

In spite of this stigmatic and prejudiced position the projects take, we

supported them because we are more socially conscious than the project

personnel. But, deep in our heart we hoped that these activities

at some point will reduce the torture and denial of our existence by the

police and the society at large.

We, with our knowledge, did our best in controlling and containing the spread of

HIV in Kerala, which you could easily verify from the reports submitted by the

projects.

Do you know sir, what your government did give us in return? Even those

facilities, which were provided, like the drop-in-centers, in the initial phase

of the projects were denied now.

Neither the arrest nor the torture by the police or the punishment awarded by

the courts not only decreased but increased in some places. When we complained

to the project people about this absurd situation they expressed their inability

by saying “We cannot do anything” “There is no provision in the project” “Keep

mum and do your work”.

The police keep on arresting us and courts merrily send us to the prison or

fine us to keep the exchequer full. And the project people keep on expressing

their inability.

This is the paradox; while the department of health makes use of our

services in one hand, the home department on the other treats us as

criminals. We are intrigued why these departments could not communicate

properly? Does it mean that the Government is only interested in the funds

flowing from foreign countries?

We know one thing that these arrests will definitely destroy the AIDS prevention

projects. If the number of HIV+ persons increase in the state, the Government is

solely responsible for it.

It brings out sharply that the Government is not interested in the health of

the people either. Even before the AIDS prevention projects came into

existence we knew that condoms stopped unwanted pregnancies, so used it

regularly, which clearly can be seen from the low prevalence of HIV+ persons

among the sex workers.

So this program did not benefit us even in that sense also. Still we co-operated

with the projects to teach general public ‘safe sex’. Who else will talk on

sexual matters and carry condoms? Nuns, housewives, doctors, health workers?!!

Thus along with sexual services we provide people with health services also.

But we are sorry to say that when we act with responsibility the Government

treats us with disdain. They arrest, torture and punish to reward us. To say the

least, we are fed-up.

We request you, as you are the highest authority, to stop this. We also

take this opportunity to request all other leaders in politics, literature

and culture to support our cause.

If these arrests and harassment are not stopped in the coming 2 months, we‘ll be

forced to do a sit-in in front of the State secretariat. If still nothing

happens we hereby declare that we will be forced to withdraw our co-operation to

the AIDS prevention projects.

Male and Female Sex Workers Sex Workers’ Forum Kerala

Anasooya, Barton Hill Colony

Kunnukuzhy PO, Thiruvananthapuram

Kerala, India - 695037

Tel:+91-471-558381

E-mail: jayasree@...

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