In Protest Against Ousting the Sex Workers in Kerala

[Guest guest]

Dear Reshma Bharadwaj and the Forum

Re: Ousting the Sex Workers: An Invisible land Issue in Kerala

Or we can also call it an outstanding hypocrisy which is going to endanger

people's health.

Here in Kolkata, local MPs of CPI(M) stand by the sex workers in their fight

against ITP(A), which is essentially aspiring to stop sex work although in an

indirect way. Here the leaders of the same party, which is ousting the sex

workers in Kerala, support various endeavours of sex workers. Nowadays

everywhere authorities engaged in HIV prevention are adapting rights based

approaches as the best way to prevent HIV/AIDS.

It has been repeatedly proved in the country and in the abroad that stigmatizing

and marginalizing sex workers is potentially threatening to people's health, it

hinders comprehensive HIV prevention programme among sex workers.

Reshma is absolutely correct when she says 'ownership of land is an exclusive

right of certain particular sections belonging to particular castes, to

particular jobs and conforming to acceptable moral standards.' It is also our

experience that democratic rights are allowed till one is conforming to the

authority in all respects. The only way to achieve it is to fight jointly.

Durbar, being the first and largest organization of sex workers is in solidarity

with you and stand by you. Here in West Bengal, in the early days of Durbar a

similar move to evict sex workers from a particular place in North 24Parganas

was undertaken by the local promoters, under the disguise of various accusations

against sex workers. We could successfully resist it. Our strategy was advocacy

at higher level and resisting the promoters at local level by mobilizing local

sex workers as well as sex workers from other fields. We can still remember the

win had a tremendous effect on the sex workers.

Dear Reshma, we would like send our protest and plead to the higher authority of

the state, would you kindly send us the names and email address of the relevant

authorities. We believe we can make them understand the issues of sex workers'

life. We also other appeal to the members of this forum to protest this callous

and undemocratic cleansing by a so called democratic organization. We also

suggest you to hold public meetings and media advocacy. We are always ready to

stand by you and help you.

Once again in SOLIDARITY

DMSC, Kolkata

West Bengal

e-mail: <dmsc_taah@...>