Thursday, December 16, 2010

The ambiguity between two ‘R’s-rescue/rehab and an ‘L’-legalize!!


Its just now, that I now bumped into an youtube link shared by one of my classmates and a senior onto facebook, I’m intending to write this piece!!

The speech of Dr. Sunitha Krisnan is so engaging that I actually took an effort to google her and checked out Prajwala, her organization. Listening to her speech, which was by the way took place in Mysore Infosys, 2009 for some event or so, I got nostalgic about my days at Prayas-when I was working with a Government home for adult trafficked victim in Chembur and interestingly it again intrigued my mind towards the most discussed debate: rehabilitation of sexworker or legalizing it. Since my very first real field exposure was with Durbar, which pioneered the venture of legalizing sex work, I always took the position of legalization and argued everywhere for it. But honestly speaking I was never sure. I could see the pros and cons of both the side and answering this question have always been a tough call. Nevertheless, I advocated the “L” word abandoning the “R” word!! I have always asked people, what will they eat? How are you going to rehabilitate them? How many will you rehabilitate?? And that has always been question for me. So I always hated forceful rescue of adult sexworkers working in brothels, which is pretty rampant in Bombay, as I have seen those women-neither they are gonna get accepted back home, nor they have any place to go and eventually they have only place to go is their good old rooms of brothels. Unfortunately our government has a typical tendency of banning something which poses a so called “moral” threat to the society by not creating sufficient means of their survival. The burning example: banning bar dance!! The other day a friend of mine was saying ‘you know these places u will get to see a lot of ‘pros’, the beautiful ones, those who used to be bar gals…’ and I sighed. The gals who used to dance and seldom used to sleep with the guests of those hotels/bars are now exposed to the full fledged prostitution. Thanks to our government. They did big deal for the bar gals. May be the business have been closed. But the people or the situation which drove those gals into the illuminated darkness of bars, are yet alive. If not bars, another B awaits for you gal... brothel!!

Today Dr Krishnan’s speech actually made me ponder over some undecided thouhts. She is a crusader of Anti human trafficking and rescues people from sexual slavery. Yes, for her sex work is actually sexual slavery!! I am afraid that if the sex workers of Durbar get to meet her, those fatty energetic peer educators and she might indulge into a cat fight!! But jokes apart, Durbar always claimed sex work is equivalent to entertainment work and thus sex worker should get the status of entertainment worker, so no rehabs, give us the rights!! Cool demand, but I have observed a distinctive pattern in the lives of the sex workers: drove in to sex work, sold or tricked and ended up in the gullies of brothels. Initially no one was ready to do that. And mostly the pimps are ready to let them go only under one condition, if they can pay off the selling amount. By the time they earn or gather that money by obviously selling the body every evening, they are seasoned with this profession. They can’t go back as Krishnan pointed out rightly, ‘its nice to talk about them, but not nice to take them back home’!! I agree with her, that more painful is isolation, stigma and ostracization because of your victimization than being the victim itself. And that’s how they become truly professional sexworker. Ironically, in my study, no sex worker have ever said that she wants to continue this trade, if given a suitable alternative option and no one likes to see her daughter in this trade. This dichotomy always prevailed in my mind- if it’s an entertainment work, an art, just like any other performing art, then it should incorporate some passion and enjoyment, like artists of circus for example or the magicians; but why this trade is tagged with such agony and pain? I guess the saga of those pains gets muted under the huge and expensive national/ international sex workers conferences, rallies and dharnas!

Rights for the sex workers are important, very important indeed, but perhaps the best possible option would have been rehab of all who are willing to come out of it- a true utopic call, I know. Thus, its better to give them rights than to ban, if not (realistic and client friendly) rehabilitation !!!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

its just awesome, got some unrevealed
truth