All India Conference of Entertainment Workers inaugurated at Kolkata, India

[Guest guest]

All India Conference of Entertainment Workers

25.02.2007 (Day- I)

February 25 Rabindrakanan: All India Entertainment workers Conference's opening ceremony was held at Rabindrakanan in presence of distinguished dignitaries from all strata of the society. We had Mr. Rathindranath Dutta; Honorable Sheriff of Kolkata, Dr. Dennis Broun; Country coordinator UNAIDS, Mr.Ananda Grover ; Lawyers Collective, Dr. S.Jana; Chief Advisor to the DMSC, Mr. C.H. Rangasbhat; Deputy Director-Information & Public relation, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh. Ms. Arati Sen; renowned educationist, Mr. Krishna Sarkar, (Ex-counselor, Ward No:18), Ms. Lakshmi Sarkar; Social Activist, Ms Bharati De;Programme Director Durbar, Ms. Gouri Das; President DMSC, & Gobindo Saha from Amra Padatik.

At the beginning of the inaugural session distinguished guests were facilitated by the members of Amra Padatik and this was followed by a choreography presented by Komol Gandhar; the cultural wing of DMSC.

Our special guest Mr. Rathindranath Dutta lit the candle/lamp and hoisted the flag to inaugurate the programme officially.

The inaugural speech was given by Ms Bishaka Laskar; the Joint Convener of the All India Entertainment Worker’s Conference followed by the speech of the Programme Director of Durbar Ms. Bharanti Dey, The focal theme of her speech was on the “Right to entertainment” and she concluded that like other different forms of entertainment, sexual pleasure is also a form of entertainment, which cannot be denied.

Dr. Dennis Broun expressed his pleasure for being here with DMSC. He congratulated Durbar for its contribution towards HIV/AIDS Prevention Programme and promised that UNAIDS will continue its support to DMSC in times to come.

Mr Anand Grover from Lawyers’ Collective’s said that DMSC must be appreciated for the fact that they have taught the sex workers to live a life with dignity.

Mr. Rathindranath Dutta appreciated Durbar’s initiative to unite the sex workers to fight for their rights. He added that in the previous days the sex workers and their children were unable to secure their status in the fear of humiliation but now they can raise their voice for rights on their own.

Dr. Jana in his speech congratulated Durbar for this unique endeavor to organize the All India Entertainment workers conference, which according to him is one of its kind.

The inaugural session was followed by a symposium on “Right to Pleasure as a fundamental Right” which was chaired by Dr. Dennis Broun. The speakers were Mr. Anand Grover, C.S. Rangasbhat, Ms. Arati Sen, Mr. K. Sarkar, Ms. S. Sarkar, Dr. Smarajit Jana, and Ms. Bharati Dey.

Today almost 200 representatives from Maharastra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh participated in the conference and we also had Mr. Dallas Swendeman, University of Callifornia, USA and Ms. Ham from GAATW with us.

(When the copy will go to press, representatives from Lawyers Collective, Delhi would be running a parallel session on “Immoral Traffic Prevention Act (ITPA)” at the open forum along with representatives from DMSC would be running an open session “Human desire and sexual pleasure”.)

The post-lunch sessions started around 2.30 p.m. with an open discussion were participants shared their experiences on the topic titled “Human desire and sexual pleasure”. The coordinators of this session were Ms. Sadhana Mukherjee and Swapna Gayen. As a special guest we had the presence of Mr. Sudhansu Sil; MP, Mr. Hannal Mollah; MP, Mr. R. Chowdhury from Indian Institute of Human Rights. On behalf of DMSC Ms. Sarmistha Ghosh, Padma Majumdar, Arpita Majumdar, Tuktuki shared their views.

Mr. R. Chowdhury stated that human desire and sexual pleasure derived from a biological point of view where he analyzed the psychosexual interpretation of Sigmond Freud and sex workers’ act as a safety valve for the society.

Aripita Majumdar highlighted five basic desires of human beings and the sexual desire is one of them, She differed her opinion from Mr. Chowdhury by saying that unfulfilment of sexual desire can create complications in human behaviour.

According to Sarmistha Ghosh the purpose of this conference is establish the Right to pleasure and all entertainment workers must take active participation in this conference.

We came to know about some governmental action plan for the development of sexworkers and their children from Mr. Sudhansu Sil.

Ms. Bharati Dey is of the opinion that in our society there is a need to create an enabling environment where one can exchange their views on sex and sexuality and through sexual services sex workers provide sexual pleasure to their customers.

Being a representative of a lesbian community Tuktuki said that this is the high time to speak about right to give and take sexual pleasure.

Padma Majumdar and Sadhana Mukherjee also harmonized the same rhythm. Among audiences Subhra Mitra, Subir Mukherjee openly speak out their mind about this issue.

Special guest Hannal Mollah expressed his views on fundamental rights of citizen guaranteed by the Indian constitution but often marginalized community deprived to get this due to their socio economic condition. He also supported to amend the existing IT(P)A and welcome sex workers to raise voice against it.

The parallel session held simultaneously at the open forum where representative from lawyers collective Ms. Arti, Ms. Tripti, Ms. Dipta, Mr. Raman & Mr. Anand Gover participated. This session also attended by Dr. Jana and the focal point of discussion was on IT(P)A and the views of Parliament's standing committee along with Ministry of Women & Child Welfare regarding the proposed amendment of the various sections of IT(P)A and its impact on sex workers life.

As Ms. Arti appraised the way DMSC and lawyers collective along with other organizations raise their voice against IT(P)A which followed by a broad picture given by Ms. Tripti on the same issue. She also explained different section of IT(P)A and the need to repeal those section which goes against the existence of sex workers. Mr. Anand Grover stress the point to create pressure directly on CPI(M) Government which could be reflected on the Central Government decision.

Mr. Mrinalkanti Dutta proposed to present a module to the finance minister of Government of West Bengal.

Dr. Jana & Mr. Grover exchanged their opinion about whether buying sex could be stated as a democratic right or not and public interest litigation could be move before the court. All together they decided that before the monsoon session of the parliament the lawyers collective and DMSC will lunch a massive campaign to repeal this undemocratic and draconian IT(P) A. The lawyers collective has proposed to arrange a meeting on 31 March, 2007at Delhi with all other concerned organization.

Thus ended the scheduled programme of Day I at the conference.