Pune: Sex workers to get drop-in facility

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CSWs to get drop-in facility

With $8.5-m Gates' grant, centres to open by March

Anuradha Mascarenhas

Pune, February 20: FOR the 5,000-odd commercial sex workers (CSWs) in the city,

here is some relief from the daily drudgery. With $8.5 million grant from Bill

and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pune will have drop-in centres — a one-stop centre

for taking care of CSWs welfare —by March.

With $20 million each slotted for Mumbai and Thane, the Gates Foundation's

India-centric project on preventing AIDS has allotted Pune and 10 districts —

Ahmednagar, Raigad, Kolhapur, Latur, Beed, Nandurbar, Yavatmal and others —

their share of $8.5 million. While care and support of HIV patients is not yet

the thrust of Gates Foundation, the prevention programme has been given a major

boost with the creation of drop-in centres.

`We want to build an enabling enviroment to reduce the risk of the infection,''

says Arvind Kumar, deputy country representative of Pathfinder International, an

NGO identified by the Gates Foundation to carry out activities in Pune and other

districts.

Kumar said the funds have just arrived and the drop-in centres will be launched

in March. As part of TIGRIS — targeted intervention for groups at risk — drop-in

centres will be set up at areas that have a sizeable chunk of CSWs. Pune

operations have been initiated at Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) clinic

at Budhwar Peth and at Swargate, Shivajinagar and Pune Railway Station.

`The proposed centres are designed to give the CSW her space, understand their

issues, health needs, set up income generation activities, teach her to write

and even start a self-help group,'' says Kumar, adding that it is a step beyond

the regular programmes of promoting condoms and creating awareness about

HIV/AIDS.

These centres will try and answer some of the questions like: is there a creche

or a day care centre to leave her child? If she has problems with the

brothel-keeper, can she solicit a lawyer's opinion? And if she wants to read and

write and also save some money, is there a way out?

``Project TIGRIS will answer all these questions,'' says Tejasvi Sevekari of

Saheli and People's Health Organisation (PHO), an NGO that is currently working

with CSWs to introduce the drop-in centre concept.

As for the centre, it will offer a range of services — from legal aid to

awareness about civic rights, to literacy classes and how to procure a ration

card or a voter's identity card — and also give counselling. Support groups that

include Men Having Sex with Men (MSM) and others will be identified to

understand each other's problems.

WHAT'S A DROP-IN CENTRE?

A one-stop centre which will address all the needs of the commercial sex workers

— from legal aid to awareness about civic rights, literacy classes to how to

procure a ration card or a voter identity card and even get some counselling

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