Dancing Boys: Situational aseesment report of Young boys traffickign and Sexual exploitation

[Guest guest]

Greetings from PLUS Kolkata.

PLUS has recently conducted a situational assessment study with the

support of UNDP India Country office. The study was conducted among 400

respondents from areas in almost twenty-two districts in three respective states

of West Bengal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh. The primary respondents are young

gender variant boys of feminine demeanor are mostly from West Bengal belonging

mainly in the average age group of 15 to 25 years who migrate to Bihar and Uttar

Pradesh for performing traditional culture. They are called as “launda dancer”.

The laundas of Bihar And UP define and spice up the entertainment

barometer at the marriages in the Hindi heartland. But deep within they nurse

broken hearts and bruised bodies. They are the young torch bearers

of an age – old popular tradition – upholders of the launda naach, an

integral part of the weddings in northern India, especially Bihar and

Uttar Pradesh, where weddings are elaborate affairs with a fair rustic

dose of merrymaking, drinking, music and dance. Here young effeminate

boys dance in marriage procession and ceremonies, dressed in women’s

clothing.

Often live-in laundas end up becoming unpaid slaves, doing menial

household chores, including looking after their man’s children. Thus he not only

becomes his owner’s sex slave but also has to entertain his friends. However

after some years of providing constant physical

gratification and sexual service when they lose or fall prey to some

sexually transmitted disease, they are cast away.

Traditionalist may proudly declare how the dance parties of Bihar and UP are

keeping alive in age old tradition through the launda naach

ceremonies, hard facts call for urgent intervention and rehabilitation of these

talented young impressionable boys who risk daily humiliation and even death,

while providing casual moments of cheap entertainment.

Please do write to us for full text of the report.

Thanks

Agniva Lahiri

Executive Director

People Like Us( PLUS)Kolkata

254, Bonomali Banerjee Road

Kolkata - 700082

Tele: +91.33.2402.9305

Mobile: +91 9830510527

e-mail: <plus@...>

Moderators note: Full text of the report is available at the following url.

http://www.crin.org/docs/dancing boy.pdf