The Red Light District of Baina:

[Guest guest]

The Red Light District of Baina: Human trafficking a cause of concern

in India

Armstrong Vaz (armie)

Prostitution is illegal in India but the trade survives despite the

threat of the HIV virus and the perils of the trade. The trade goes

on in some of the areas that are unofficially designated as red light

districts. A recent United Nations' report expresses alarming concern

over HIV infections in India. With 5.7 million infections, India has

become the most-afflicted HIV/AIDS nation of the world, surpassing

South Africa's 5.5 million.

In the western state of Goa, one such area had been unofficially

classified as a red light district until the state government

demolished it in 2004. Figures collected in 2005 indicted that around

40 percent of the sex workers in the state were HIV-positive. The

report revealed that Goa has the highest level of trafficking of

women and children compared to other states.

, his wife Shanti and their 3-year-old son Krishna enjoy the

sun and surf on the beaches of Goa. They have returned after a five-

year stay away. and his family have come back to their roots

where the offshoots of their small family sprouted.

is a Belgium citizen. Shanti traces her roots to the southern

state of Karnataka and was until five years ago a sex worker in the

red light district of Baina in the port town of Vasco in the state of

Goa. But her life took a new twist when her last customer in the

course of time became her husband.

Shanti has been fortunate. Others have been less fortunate. Many of

Shanti's former colleagues continue to be exploited and to lead a

life of misery.

Human trafficking has been a cause of concern throughout the world.

India figures among the 39 countries placed on a special watch list

that demands attention from the concerned countries under a 2003 U.S.

law.

Goa was one of the beneficiaries of a two-year, U.S.-government-

funded program by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Similar programs took place in the states of Maharashtra, West Bengal

and Andhra Pradesh.

The program sensitizes the police and the other law enforcement

agencies in dealing with the problem of human trafficking.

Five years earlier, Shanti used to earn anything between 100 and 500

Indian rupees a day as a commercial sex worker. She endured and

wishes to reach out to some of her old friends. She was on a visit to

her old place of business.

A host of changes had taken place in the city. In 2004, the state

government had demolished the illegal cubicles where Shanti and her

colleagues operated on Baina Beach.

Some of her colleagues had been deported back to their home states of

Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Others have eluded the

police and continue to operate in the port town. Some have even been

successfully rehabilitated back into society. There are those who

have died due to aids. And there are those who are carrying the HIV

virus.

During her visit she met Gauri. Gauri, like many others in the trade,

has no choice about whether her customer must use a condom. Numerous

workshops have passed the message to the sex workers in the state,

but they are in precarious situation. If they insist that the

customer use a condom they run the risk of losing the business.

A 2004 behavioral surveillance survey at Baina found out that only 69

percent of the customers used condoms regularly while having sex with

commercial sex workers. Educating the commercial sex workers has

focused on free condom distribution and creating awareness of the

dangers of having unprotected sex with customers.

They know they are at risk when a customer does not use a condom but

that is a peril of the trade. Gauri's plight started when she was

dedicated to the Goddess Yellama in the southern state of Karnataka;

having attained puberty, she was trafficked to Baina for prostitution.

Prakash Kanekar, project director for the Goa State AIDS Control

Society (GSACS) is a concerned man. With the demolition of the Baina

cubicles his task has been rendered more difficult.

The commercial sex workers have moved all over the state and are not

just confined to one area. He admits that the trade has gone where

tourists arrive in large numbers.

" It is now extremely difficult to identify a commercial sex worker, "

Kanekar said.

That explains the plight of the state. Girls are constantly

trafficked to meet the demand created by a flourishing tourism

industry and the numerous ships that anchor in the port city of Baina.

The 2004 Goa Children's Act set up a children's court in response to

an increase in child abuse. The law underwent an amendment in 2005 to

categorize sexual abuses -- grave sexual assault, sexual assault and

incest.

Grave sexual assault includes offenses such as making children pose

for pornographic films, making children have sex with each other and

deliberately causing injury to the sexual organs of a child.

Since the court was set up, the state has registered 140 cases -- 132

involved sexual abuse.

Goa first made headlines in 1991 when the first case of a pedophile

racket was cracked by the police. Freddy Peats, a 71-year-old

Eurasian, was arrested and subsequently sentenced for his role -- he

ran a racket under the guise of a home for destitute children.

©2007 OhmyNews

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?

no=342461 & rel_no=1

[Guest guest]

Dear Forum

I am concerned that such poorly researched articles as " The redlight district of

Baina: Human trafficking a cause for concern in India " are published.

[/message/6858]

I have been engaged with the sex workers of Goa and Baina since 2003 and the

organsisation I worked with for a decade before that. Our research showed that

the demolition of Baina not only had devestating effects on the women's human

rights, rights as basic as the right to shelter and right to work, but also

rendered women engaged in sex work in Goa more vulnerable to male violence,

police raids, HIV, and sexually transmitted infections than during the time that

Baina thrived as a redlight area.

Gender Based Violence HIV and STIs remain high amongst the women engaged in sex

work in Goa after the demolition, but now, as they are constantly hounded out

from one place to another, they have no access to the solidarity and support of

friends or HIV prevention and care services that were available in abundence in

Baina.

I am concerned about the irresponsible use of terms such as " trafficking of

humans " to describe all and any movement of people, especially women, for work.

It is this type of irresponsible use of the terminology of trafficking and

sensationalised reporting of HIV amongst sex workers that set in motion the

wheels that eventually led to the demolition of Baina, rendering thousands of

women and children shelterless and homeless amidst the monsoon rains of 2004.

To continue with this rhetoric is to endanger many more women working in

redlight areas throughout the world and to create armies of women constantly on

the move.

There are also some factual errors that require correction, such as prostitution

is NOT illegal in India.

All women including those engaged in " prostitution " have rights. In order to

protect them against the " perils " of the " HIV virus " let us not stigmatise or

scape goat them further by falling prey to this anti-trafficking rhetoric.

Instead let us listen to what the SWs themselves have said so many times in the

many collectivised and unionised forums. Let us fight for their rights as human

beings, their right to work, their right to avoid male violence, and their right

to access the appropriate health care for themselves and their children such as

reproductiuve and sexual health and prevention and quality treatment of

occupational hazards such as HIV.

To paraphrase one of our friends, " We just want to be treated as human beings,

neither criminals to be incarcerated nor victims to be rescued "

am Shahmanesh

Clinical Research Fellow

Goa

e-mail: <bamaryjoon@...>