Study unearths reality of sex trade in India: low-caste, poor women lured into prostitution - World

National Catholic Reporter, Nov 1, 2002

The caste system and low social status have driven hundreds of women from their homes in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh into the sex trade, according to a recent study on women trafficking in the country.

The study, sponsored by Catholic Relief Services, found that 80 percent of women in the trade came from "socially and economically disadvantaged families." Only 15 percent were literate. It further showed that sex workers in all major Indian cities include a large number of women from Andhra Pradesh.

The research was conducted by Prajwala, a voluntary organization managed by Montfort Br. Jose Vetticattil, and Sunitha Krishnan, a Hindu activist in Hyderabad, the capital of the state of Andhra Pradesh. The findings have been published in the form of a book called The Shattered Innocence.

Many girls ages 12 and 13 are promised jobs and marriage to lure them into the trade, the study found. It also revealed that 80 percent of sex workers ages 12 to 35 in the tourist haven in Goa state come from Andhra Pradesh. Moreover, Andhra women account for 45 percent of prostitutes in Delhi, 28 percent in Mumbai, and 3 percent in Kolkata. Krishnan says the published findings "underplayed the figures" to avoid "greater shock and disbelief."

"The study should be an eye-opener to all," Andhra Pradesh Home Minister T. Devender Goud said at the Prajwala book launch Sept. 15. He commended the "painstaking efforts" made to unearth the facts, which he said are shocking.

Minnie Mathew, principal secretary of the state's Department of Women and Child Welfare, claims that for "every case reported, 100 go unreported."

Vetticattil said the researchers came to know of the trade through networking with 22 nongovernmental organizations in the state. Voluntary groups in Delhi, Goa, Kolkata, Mumbai and other cities helped them gather more details, he added. Crediting Krishnan for the research, he pointed out that the 30-year-old woman was "a familiar face" among brothel owners because she visited them earlier as part of a doctorate course on issues related to sex workers.

Getting into brothels, said Krishnan, "was easy, getting out was difficult" because owners suspected she had come to rescue women of Andhra Pradesh. Most people fail to understand the "cumulative impact of the trauma" that the victims suffer due to the "serious physical, psychological and sexual abuse" they undergo, she said.

According to Vetticattil, the study has helped bridge a divide between the government and nongovernmental organizations. The state government of Andhra Pradesh has donated land for four pizza outlets that are to be wholly managed by rescued victims. Some corporations, he added, have also pledged support for the rehabilitation of rescued victims.

Most Prajwala staff members, Vetticattil said, are rescued women. About 100 such women now work as counselors for HIV and AIDS patients in government hospitals across the state, he said.

A 1994 government study estimated the country has some 2.3 million women prostitutes. Patita Udhar Sabha, an agency working for the rights of sex workers and children, estimates there are now some 275,000 kotha, or houses of prostitution, in India.

Patita Udhar Sabha further said that India has some 1,100 red light districts in the heart of cities and on highways. According to the organization, sex workers and their children--about 5.1 million all over India--live in "subhuman conditions," often with 30 to 150 accommodated in a single kotha.