How Prerana has helped thousands of girls get out of inter-generational sex trade save the girl child from prostitution
It was in June 1986 that human rights activist and social worker Priti Patkar began work in the red-light area of Kamathipura, Mumbai, which was then the largest sex trade centre in Asia. Her work was part of a field project for Nirmal Niketan, College of Social Work. The same year was born her NGO Prerana, which has so far given a new direction to the lives of 15,000 children of sex workers. Patkar, winner of many national and international awards, gives a first-hand account of life in a red-light district, what it means to be the child of a prostitute and how Prerana (meaning inspiration) has been helping thousands of girls and boys get out of inter-generational sex trade:
When we first visited
Kamathipura, we saw innocent and defenceless children caught in a vicious cycle
of exploitation generation after generation. These children were being groomed
for sex trade from early years. By the time the girls were 12 or 13, they were
ready to be sold while boys were recruited into allied activities like trafficking,
pimping, becoming bouncers or gate boys.
During our visits to the lanes and brothels of Kamathipura, I remember seeing three generations -- young girls, their mothers and grandmothers -- soliciting customers.
This was one of my first encounters with intergenerational trafficking of children into sex trade.
Unlike many communities in South Asia, which dread the birth of a girl child and idolise sons, the birth of a girl child was celebrated in red-light areas.
A girl child was a sure, free and unrestricted recruit into the sex trade and could also be used as a pawn with the local money lender if required.
In those days, the perpetrators of the sex trade had no fear of the law. Raids and rescues were hogwash, conducted by the police to maintain the facade that the law was being implemented. The intention was not to check the illegal trade of children for commercial sexual exploitation. Many Police officers did not even know that the The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956 had been amended in 1986.
The deeper we looked
into their lives, the more we realised that every child born in the red-light
area would end up in sex trade. It was necessary to protect the children born
to prostituted women, focus on their future and how they could be supported.
That is when Prerana was born – to break this cycle of exploitation and
inter-generational trafficking.
During our interaction with children from these brothels, they would say, “I don't get food when I am hungry if my mother is with her admi or customer...I hardly get time with her, but she has all the time to sleep with strange men.”
These children complained that in the evening, they had to run errands for their mother’s customers like bringing them cigarettes, beer, food or carrying the TV and VCR from the rental shop to the brothel. (Those days, VCRs had to be rented on an hourly basis for watching movies). These children would get paid for these “services”.
But they did not go to school because other children would make fun of their mother’s profession. “I run behind taxis to get customers for my mother and other women. I then get a tip. Sometimes some men just give money to all the children; they think we are beggars,” a girl told me.
They grew almost on the streets, exposed to every possible vice that existed in the ecosystem of the red-light area including pimps, brothel keepers, corrupt petty policemen, procurers, bootleggers, alcoholics, drug peddlers, drug addicts and shady customers.
All of this was a part of their normal environment, which to an outsider, would be the most non-conducive way for a child to grow and develop. Born with the stigma of being illegitimate, these children had been shunned by society.
In Kamathipura, about 15 women and 20 children would be huddled in a dark, ill-ventilated, dingy room of 12 feet by 12 feet that was almost always stinking of human fluids. A single toilet was shared by about 20 people.
Children below 2 years
of age, who were dependent on their mothers and did not have an older sibling
to care for them, slept below the cot on which the mothers would entertain the
customers. They would sleep oblivious to the noise around. We later learned that
these babies were mildly drugged or intoxicated.
Priti Patkar, Co-founder and Director, Prerana. Pic: Prerana
“This way, they
don’t disturb us when the customer is around. We need to make money and can’t
take the wrath of the gharwali (brothel owner),” a sex worker told me.
The older children would sleep
on the pavement, where sometimes there were brawls. Their plight was
compounded during monsoons. In cases where children shared the sleeping
quarters with their mother, they would often see their mothers in sexual acts.
There were instances where the children were made to clean and settle the rooms
for business purposes at their mother's behest, while they got dressed for
soliciting customers.
They also saw their mother being ill-treated by the brothel keepers, pimps, admis and other customers.
Children were exposed to this traumatic and frightening experience from the age of three, and by the time, they would be six or seven, they knew much about sexual life and were vulnerable to the ways of the sex trade.
We met a handful of children
who had dropped out of school. We learnt that the school also exposed them
to children of “respectable” families, and they had begun to realise that they
were not “socially respectable”.
If they got involved in fights or quarrels with their fellow mates they would be frequently condemned as “offspring of a prostitute”. Due to poor environmental conditions, lack of adequate nutrition, defaulting medical advice and treatment, these children also suffered from frequent illnesses like fever, cold, dysentery, diarrhea, ulcers, scabies, tuberculosis, anemia and the like.
In one of the discussions on child rights at a conference, I was asked to share my work in the red-light area and our intervention strategies. I shared our plan to start a Night Care Centre (NCC) -- a night creche for these children that could be our starting point to disrupt the intergeneration cycle of sex trade. NCC was designed to be a comprehensive programme to ensure the safety as well as their right to life, development, and participation.
Prerana helps children with formal education and also physical development through constructive play. Pic: Prerana
It aimed at creating an
enabling environment that would promote emotional and social development,
cognitive and language skills, foster the culture of participation, and prepare children
for future school. Once in school, we would ensure they are helped with formal
education, and also physical development through constructive play.
It would also address
the health needs of children including immunisation and nutrition, and seek
the views of mothers and children in the NCC’s functioning.
A few of the participants had questions on my presentation.
I was asked if we would be encouraging prostitution by starting services for children of prostitutes.
“Weren’t we absolving prostitutes from their responsibility of child care?” someone asked.
“How appropriate is it
that developmental funds are directed to provide services for women who are in
the sex trade? Weren’t they in the sex trade to make easy and quick money?
They can afford to send their children to boarding schools. What guarantees do
we have that these children will not end up in the sex trade eventually despite
the support provided?”
These were the many
questions that we were faced with. For many in that room perhaps it was
their first exposure to understanding the plight of these children. It was the
first time for me, as a young professional, to defend the programme. I explained
to them that it was the child and his/her needs which was the center of our programming,
and the mother’s background did not matter.
Three-pronged strategy
that changed lives
Non-discrimination was the cornerstone of the programme. I explained to them that the NCC had been designed through an interactive process, by speaking to several women in Kamathipura. The NCC was both needs-based and rights-based and addressed the three Ps - Provision, Protection and Participation. The mothers had participated in conceptualising this programme which was a safe part-time home to keep children away from the dangers of the brothel.
In 1988, the world’s first NCC to provide shelter to children of sex workers in red lights areas was set up in Kamathipura by Prerana.
This was the
beginning of practising a child-centric approach in our programming.
Alongside, we were trying to enroll every child in school. But just putting
them in school wasn't enough and we had to support them through counseling.
So our strategy has been three-pronged -- NCC, Institutional Support Programme (ISP) for children who need a safe place and Education Support Programme (ESP) to help them in studies after school hours.
The ISP is designed for
children whose mothers were HIV positive or cannot look after them due to any
other health or legal reasons. We never looked at setting up a separate school
because we didn’t want to discriminate against them further. The right to
inclusion is important to break any stigma. Also, while there was a need to
disconnect them from redlight areas, we never advocate breaking their
relationship with mothers.
All these three
strategies, along with counseling and constant support from Prerana, have helped
give a new direction to the lives of 15,000 children so far, of which about
9,000 are girls.
Once you provide a strong safety net to children, all of them are able to make choices. We put them on a path to make their own choice without feeling pressured. Some of them have taken up finance, social work, sports, and even dance as a career while others have got into management, or done BSc in computer science etc. A lot of them are employed in the service sector. They have chosen a path of dignity and we have been able to break the cycle of inter-generational sex trade.
/30-stades/media/agency_attachments/C8R8KLQ6iqxfzqUhMFYv.png)
Follow Us/30-stades/media/post_banners/OMnLppy7NoE29c8RF6Lt.jpg)
/30-stades/media/post_attachments/dkyYjAsfnKTpSEhlYeIX.jpg "publive-image")
/30-stades/media/post_attachments/lB0hHCobSdFIHpBjHmYM.jpg "publive-image")