The Children of Sonagachi __ Natalie Soloperto

The Children of Sonagachi:
An Analysis and Recommendation on How Best to Disrupt the
Cycle of Poverty Responsible for the Trafficking of the Indian
Girl-Child
Natalie Soloperto - May 17, 2015
1
Image: Park, Kibae. Family in Kolkata Slum. Digital image. News Media & Photo. United Nations, 20 June 2010. Web. 17 May 2015.1
THE CHILDREN OF SONAGACHI - SOLOPERTO 1

How can any given stakeholder disrupt the cycles of poverty and exploitation
responsible for the trafﬁcking of female children in Sonagchi, India?
2
Datta, Souvid. India's Shadow. Digital image. www.souvid.org. N.p., 2014. Web. 17 May 2015.2

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Kolkata, known as The City of Joy in The Indian State of West Bengal, is home to some of the
largest red light districts in Asia. Sonagachi being the largest is home to an estimated 11,000 sex
workers, many of whom were foreign-born victims of human trafficking. For the sex workers of3
Sonagachi the issues of brothel-based prostitution, in one of Asia’s most infamous cities, also extend to
their often illegitimate children. Sex workers and their children live with little access to health care,
contraceptive resources, or education, and these children will face the stigmatization of illegitimacy as
they grow. In a highly traditional society, like India, their illegitimacy and their occupancy of a red
light district will ensure that they are ostracized from mainstream society when these children or their
mothers do attempt branch out.
The children of prostitutes face discrimination and social exclusion, as the natures of red light
districts are to remain insular to provide anonymity for those performing illegal sex acts. Children also
face social abuse, neglect, a sense of deprivation, an inability for their parents to provide for their basic
minimum needs, malnutrition and ill-health. Effective intervention will work to increase access to4
infrastructure and resources, and will help end the cycle of involvement in the sex industry for these
girls.The removal of young girls from sex labor in Sonagchi would be most effectively done through
the relationships between, and networks of Community Based Organization (CBOS), Non Government
Organizations (NGOS), and State actors. Intervention takes place on a moderate, individualized scale
within each district. Increased state investment and interaction with these grassroots movements would
facilitate changing ideology, and maximize efficiency of work for these organizations. The main
differences between CBO and NGO intervention are the level of access to vulnerable populations and
the number of resources available to the organization, but beyond these working distinctions the
difference is not notable.
Often in Sonagchi NGOs are centered on providing health services, like contraception, and
sexual education. Though well-meaning and somewhat effective, they face many of the same barriers
that the larger state-organizations face: inability to inﬁltrate the networks of the red light district. CBOs
do not face this same issue as they are often run by the sex workers themselves and can provide more
serious intervention for the children of sex workers and underaged girls who live and work in
Sonagchi. The critical issue is removing these children who are too young to consent to sex, and
empowering their families through alternative means of generating income. Stopping the exploitation
of young girls is critically done before they begin sex work, and is most effectively done with the
empowerment of the mother, and the inclusion of the daughter into education at a young age, or
vocational training if she is older. Plans for reform will successfully remove the vulnerability of the
girl-child and will feature community based organizations, and non-governmental organizations as the
most effective means of change. These operations work through creating a more stable, and secure
living environment by empowering the mothers, and offering alternative means of generating income.
The goal in limiting the cyclical exploitation of Sonagachi’s most vulnerable population, girls, born
Grant, Matthew. "Girl-trafﬁcking Hampers Aids Fight." BBC News. BBC, 30 Nov. 2004. Web. 17 May 2015.3
Howell, Embry M. "The Role of Community-Based Organizations in Responding to the AIDS Epidemic: Examples from the HRSA Service4
Demonstrations." Journal of Public Health Policy 12.2 (1991): 165-74. JSTOR. Journal of Public Health Policy. Web. 10 May 2015

into these brothel-based communities is to ensure that they may leave and participate in main stream
society if willing.
1 - Introduction and Background
A quantitative analysis of the numbers of children born and raised in red light areas (RLA) in Kolkota,
India (formerly known as Calcutta), and specifically Songachi, is prone to inaccuracy. Though
researchers understand that despite the relatively few interactions between these communities and the
formal state, the scale of the problem is quite large. Numbers estimate that up to 10,000 children call
one of Asia’s largest red light districts home. The problem underscores a general inability for the
Indian government to deliver state-led services, highlights corruption surrounding prostitution and sex
work, and demonstrates a well-known but continuing cycle of exploitation. The most important reason
to work on the removal of the girl-child in particular from red light areas is that division of the more
highly publicized child sex-laborer’ and a child growing up in a brothel community is blurred, that is,
if it exists at all. Yet, this phenomena is neither representative of an India-specific policy issue, nor
does it just relate to red light areas in India, globally around 1.8 million children a year enter the
commercial sex trade. Young girls in Sonagachi differ very little from the impoverished girls of5
similar areas and are led by economic deprivation, social exclusion, and lack of resources, like
education. Currently, without intervention, this vulnerable population continues the cycle of sex work
that their mothers also fell victim to. However, this policy analysis will not set out to solve the
monumental crisis of trafficked women in India, however it will endeavor to explore the various
networks created by state, non-governmental, and community based organizations and the effect these
networks have on mitigating this policy crisis. It will also seek to understand how best to reduce the
damage done to these vulnerable populations by disrupting the pertinent cycle of exploitation affecting
primarily the girl-child in these areas.
"Forced Prostitution." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 17 May 2015.5

Potential Framework For the Inheritance of Sex Work
and Its Opportunities for Disruption:

1A. The Status of The Indian Girl-Child:
The Indian state guaranteed basic human rights for children when it ratified the United Nations’
convention on the Rights of the Child. Under these protections all Indian children thereby have the
right to education. Research shows education to be a highly deterministic factor in the health and
future of the girl-child especially, as a woman’s level of education can help determine the age at which
she marries, the health of her pregnancy and of her child, how many children she has, and critically for
the girl-child, whether or not those children will be educated. Moreover, it is the main tool with6
which the state can enfranchise each citizen into a secure economic future, and personal development.
The Indian state has gone so far as to specifically ratify the rights of women and the girl-child saying
that any form of gender based discrimination violates the fundamental human rights guaranteed by the
constitution. Yet, Indian girls are still kept from school en masse, often based on traditional ideology
surrounding the worth of sons in relation to the worth of daughters. This ideological oppression
manifests itself in very real ways; 67.6% of Indian woman are literate upon reaching adulthood.7
On the subject of exploitation extensive laws do exist in India. The Department of Women
Development and Child Welfare launched and carried out the campaign at the district level. Similarly,
in West Bengal, the government supported the creation of advisory bodies under the Immoral
Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA) at the state and district levels. The legal, and legislative, and
governance systems are all forced to combat the ingrained sexism that gives rise to a social
understanding of the girl-child and her mother being of diminished worth if it hopes to effectively
combat sexual exploitation of the girl-child on any level, let alone those whom are born of sex workers
and immediately to a life of fewer resources and increased rates of poverty.
Furthermore, in accordance with the fundamental, and inalienable rights listed in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which the state of India pledges to follow, children also have the right to
freedom from labor, and exploitation. In 1986 the Juvenile Justice Act empowered the Indian state to
create a system for the protection of children, it was further ratified in 2000 and is considered
progressive in terms of Indian legislation. This act focused on neglected children and hoped to develop
opportunities for “development and rehabilitation of what are defined as ‘neglected juveniles’. Under
the act a distinction is made between other children and the children of prostitutes and more generally
children found in a brothel” (121). However, this legislation later highlights structural inequality8
within Indian legislation as sex workers are degraded. The women are considered “fallen” which thus
makes them unfit for motherhood (68). The state thereby is responsible for creating a system in which9
its inadequate response to the human rights abuses which women and girls suffer can be justified and
manifests through legal discrimination, so as to be later accepted as a standard operating procedure.
"Girls' Education and Gender Equality." UNICEF. The United Nations, 1 May 2015. Web. 17 May 2015.6
"Statistics." UNICEF. United Nations, 27 Dec. 2013. Web.7
Gangoli, Geetanjali, and Nicole Westmarland. International Approaches to Prostitution: Law and Policy in Europe and Asia. Bristol: Policy,8
2006. Print.
Gangoli, Geetanjali. Indian Feminisms: Law, Patriarchies and Violence in India. Aldershot, Hampshire, England: Ashgate, 2007. Print.9

One reason that this act can present an issue for the enfranchisement of these communities by
state resources is that no other requirement is needed to remove children from the care of the woman in
question. Few women will either come forward as a recipient state resources, or seek state help for fear
of potentially losing a child. As a law, it presents a second problem: inefficiency. It demonstrates the
inability of the state to solve the crisis of children in Sonagachi, as most children are almost never
removed from red light districts by authorities unless they were trafficked and found by parents. The
infrequent removal of children stems from a failure by the state to mobilize local actors in the area, and
a failure to create a system where a child can be removed from neglect, or from dangerous
environments and placed into an improved home. This is all despite the removal being an explicit
resource for local actors in Indian law. Here, the law both fails to protect the family, and demonstrates
a hole in the state’s ability to reinforce it.
1B. Current Complexities Surrounding the Status of Sex Workers and Their Children:
Life for the prostitutes of Sonagachi, who tend to these men, is characterized by poor access to
health resources, limited financial resources, a lack of civil society and cohesion, and poor
relationships with state actors and limited integration in any sort of public, or civil life (Meeting
Community Needs for HIV Prevention and More: Intersectoral Action for Health in the Sonagachi red-
light area of Kolkata). The disenfranchisement of the women and girls living and working in the
Sonagachi red light district presents multiple policy issues for the Indian state, all of which remained
largely unaddressed by the official legislative body and, local state actors.
The social exclusion guaranteed by the insular nature of the red light district serves to make
more vulnerable the girl-child to sexual exploitation from both the every-day man, underground
authority figures, like pimps, and mainstream authority figures, like police officers. These local
authorities are salient in category as they are often responsible for purchasing sex, or raping women.
One such example being Sonagachi’s police men. If enrolled in school, the drop out rates are often10
much higher for the children of sex workers, than those of parents whose jobs are not in the sex
industry. The negative socialization faced in this environment ensures that most of the children effect
most negatively the girl-child as she grows in a red light district, often leading to her inclusions in
prostitution from an early age to help procure income for the family. In combination, the practices of11
social neglect due to stigmatization, administrative exclusion on the part of the local government, and
enforcement of the sex work cycle all combine to create a system that encompasses girls from a young
age in a seemingly inescapable poverty, whether born into brothels or trafficked there.
Moreover, it is important to note when discussing sex work that two different theories emerge,
the feminist theory which equates all sex workers with coerced women and external exploitation, and
Nair, P. M. "Trafﬁcking Women and Children for Sexual Exploitation: Handbook for Law Enforcement Agencies in India." ALA Bulletin10
40.14, Handbook (1946): n. pag. UNICEF. The United Nations Ofﬁce on Drugs and Crime. Web.
"Impact of Support Services Provided to Children of Resident Prostitutes in Kolkata Brothels." Impact of Support Services Provided to11
Children of Resident Prostitutes in Kolkata Brothels (2009): n. pag. Jayaprakash Institute of Social Change, 30 June 2009. Web. 12 Apr.
2015.

another that acknowledges the potential for legalization and free choice. Though economic
opportunities may be limited for sex workers and their children, constant victimization also denies
women and girls the ability to overcome the structural barriers by “equating wealth with choice and
coercion with poverty”. The latter’s victimization has influenced Indian state-led policy initiatives,12
legal frameworks for dealing with sex workers, police response and social ideology.
All of the aforementioned factors combine to ensure that the cycle of prostitution and
exploitation remains alive and well from mother to daughter; to become pregnant in Sonagachi is to
provide the district with a new generation of sex workers. Effectively pregnancy will buoy the system
by maintaining the district’s business and system of oppression. The cycle of girls being raised in
Sonagachi and inheriting prostitution is the result of poor economic conditions and inaccessible health
infrastructure, coupled with high demand for unprotected sex by clients. Although the latter appears, at
first glance, to most effects the older women working in Sonagchi it truly manifests agelessly. As sex
workers age and lose their youthful appearances, these older women become less desirable to their
clientele and will rely on the incomes that their daughters, and the younger trafficked women bring into
the brothels and households.
In Kolkata the average amount of children had by sex workers per household is 2, with about
75% of sex workers having at least one. Some figures depict the number of children born into these red
light districts being as high as 10,000, though it is likely to be higher. As the girl-child grows she will13
be faced with the impacts of her negative socialization, reinforced exploitation, sexual abuse, external
stigmatization, and the necessity to contribute to her household, or brothel’s earnings. She may enter
the trade at ages as young as 9 or 10 and work until she is no longer desirable at, or around age 30. Due
to the early involvement in sex labor, the children of sex workers are often encompassed in efforts to
decrease poverty, and increase participation among these women. It becomes impossible to separate
girl-children from adult sex workers, as in their vulnerable state they move fluidly from category to
category at a very young age. Separating the needs of the mother, and adult sex worker, from the needs
of the child ignores a pernicious danger which the child will be exposed to as soon as she is born
female: sex work, its stigmas, and its ills, like poverty, are all handed down from mother to daughter.
Magar, Veronica. "Rescue and Rehabilitation: A Critical Analysis of Sex Workers’ Antitrafﬁcking Response in India." JSTOR. University of12
Chicago Press, n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2015.
Sen, P.13

2- Problem Analysis: Causes of Inheritance
2A. A Secondary Visual Representation
Of the Sex Work Cycle14
The Cycle of Sex Trafﬁcking And the Pathway to Freedom. Digital image. Sudara. The Princess Project, n.d. Web. 17 May 2015.14

2B. Economic Poverty
Acute poverty is the most often occurring reason for joining sex work in Kolkata. Due to the
inability to enfranchise these girls into the immediate area surrounding Sonagchi, and the mainstream
society, sex work appears as an immediate solution to the consistent problem of poverty. In one case,
young women, incapacitated both by poverty and by various types of gender discrimination and
oppression that manifest in Indian society, enter the sex trade wrongly believing that prostitution will
provide them with economic freedom and freedom from marriage. These young girls may willingly
make the decision to enter the sex trade due to financial stress. However, in most cases these girls are
attached to madam’s, brothel owners, or beholden to their own mothers who can no longer support
themselves as they have become “undesirable” to the clientele. In the latter cases entering the
commercial sex trade is not optional, and the desired economic empowerment will happen only to a
very small faction of sex laborers, the madams. While the power structure of these brothel
communities grows wealthier by way of the exploitation of these women, the average worker is unable
to save money, or to generate enough income to escape the poverty in which she lives, and
undoubtably will live for the rest of her life. The bare minimum in economic security provided these
girls becomes a work trap which continues to hold them in poverty and in sex work.
One reason for the apparent attractiveness of selling young girls into sex work is that virgin
girls are offered comparatively high sums for their bodies. A young girl can charge around 2,000
rupees ($40.00), while an older woman, her mother, may only be able to charge between 20 and 300
rupees ($.40-6.00). While the mothers age and can no longer support themselves, the younger girls,15
often beginning as early as twelve, must engage in sex work to provide complementary incomes.
Successful mitigation efforts will recognize the intricate dance between choice, and necessity that these
women and their daughters face. Though nothing legally stops sex workers from leaving the sex trade,
the socio-economic barriers, and the stigmatization of their pasts as having lived in Sonagchi will bring
enough of a deterrent to their leaving the red light district. Sex workers are left with a temporarily
lucrative means of survival, and apparent freedom from the male dominated household, though they
are being exploited, and in many cases forced into sex work.
For some women and girls the freedom of being able to support themselves is only achievable
through sex work. To stigmatize their choice, or to deny its existence altogether is to rob them of what
little autonomy said women may have over their lives at all. Creating a society in which women are of
inherently lesser value is to diminish their capacity to seek the ability to be self sufficient by other
means. Successful efforts at intervention will recognize that the women and girls of the red light
district must be given a way to support themselves in a different manner while still removing them
from the sources of exploitation. All of these factors are those which combine to create situations that
extend the life of the brothel based community, through the high drop out rates of girls in school, the
lack in opportunity to enfranchise the girl-child into education and society, the denial of the rights to
autonomy of the sex worker and the stigmatization of the sex workers through the the often state led,
legal victimization of these girls and women. Unkind social experiences, unwilling state authority such
Magar, Veronica.15

as state schools, or hospitals use this stigmatization to justify the denial of state supported basic
necessities.16
2C. Poor Distribution of Health Resources
Another critical barrier that prevents the sex workers and their children from participating in
society is lacking access to health resources. There are only 48 government hospitals in Kolkata which
operate under the Department of Health and Family Welfare, meanwhile there are 366 private
institutions. Though this number is higher than average for India, it means that within the third most
populous city in India, there are approximately 62 hospital beds for every 10,000 residents.17
Specifically for residents of Red Light Districts the state-provided healthcare available to these women
in Government Hospitals proved to be highly inaccessible. Many women, faced with option of18
missing a full day’s work in order to obtain and attend an appointment opt for closer, private doctors
who usually rely on the woman’s description of her own illness rather than any scientific or laboratory
based health examination.
One such reason that Indian women have such a difficult time accessing proper healthcare is
that they have historically faced intense bodily scrutiny based on sexist ideology. Regardless of
proximity to red light areas women and girls institutionally lack access to sanitary supplies during
menstruation; in many cases they are forced to use rags and bury them in their backyards when they
have finished with them. Girls are taught not to touch sacred idols, or cook because the food, or idol
will be defiled by their impurity. This stigmatization of the natural bodily cycles women go through19
during their lives extends into the health system, and as we will see later, the legal system. The
discrimination in the healthcare system is present as the Government funded healthcare system
incentivizes the sterilization of women by providing anywhere from USD $5.00 to $30.00 per
sterilization treatment to the hospital and woman. The lack of institutional support for the needs of20
women within the health care system in India is critical to assisting the cycle of poverty that
encompasses women and girls within Red Light Areas.
Malnutrition and poor access to prenatal care for pregnant women within red light areas is
especially prevalent and problematic. The adolescent birthrate in India is approximately 32.799 per
1000 females aged 15-19. Any adolescent female giving birth is already at an increased risk of21
undergoing natal complications as she is unlikely to have fully developed properly due to malnutrition
and her young age. In developing countries complications with pregnancy is the single largest killer of
Sen, P.16
India. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Government of India. International Institute for Population Sciences. Health and Living17
Conditions in Eight Indian Cities. N.p.: n.p., 2005-2006. Print.
Sen, P.18
George, Rose. "The Taboo of Menstruation." The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Dec. 2012. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.19
Singh, Abhishek, Reuben Ogollah, Faujdar Ram, and Saseendran Pallikadavath. "Sterilization Regret Among Married Women in India:20
Implications for the Indian National Family Planning Program." Sterilization Regret Among Married Women in India: Implications for the
Indian National Family Planning Program. Guttmacher Institute, Dec. 2012. Web. 17 May 2015.
"Human Development Reports, India." United Nations Development Programme. United Nations, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.21

adolescent girls, and this is especially prevalent in states where health care is poor and inaccessible,
both of which apply specifically to the women and girls of red light districts (Maternal Mortality). If an
adolescent girl becomes pregnant in Sonagachi, or falls ill while pregnant, the increased likelihood of
complications and an unhealthy or dangerous birth means that she is exposed to a higher maternal and
infant mortality rate than the average woman in developing countries.
Furthermore, the sex work of Sonagachi’s women and girls presents a secondary health concern
for the government. Sexual safety of the community had previously been particularly nullified by a
sense of competition between women for the patronage and attention of the men who pay for sex, their
clients. At the intersection between health and and competition the World Health Organization notes
that health would often be sacrificed in order to please, or continue to please a customer. If a customer
demanded unprotected sex, the sex worker in particular had little room to demand a condom be used in
return, and little information as to why they may be necessary to prevent the spread of disease. A rise
in HIV/AIDS was prevalent within Kolkata within the early 1990s; though it affected only 11% of the
population in 2002.  22
Furthermore, the inaccessibility in the health care system extends to a lack in testing for HIV/
AIDs which still remains a problem for Indian women, especially those who work in the sex trade.
Without proper testing and notification practices, a pregnant carrier of the disease will unknowingly
pass it onto her child who will need exponentially more medical care as he or she grows. All of these
factors to keep women and girls in poverty as their bodies are both sold as commodities on the market,
and restricted in terms of health access. Without proper institutionalization of the health system, and
without proper access these women and girls will always cope with a higher mortality rate for both
themselves, and the lives of their children. The rate of transmission though higher amongst men in
India in the early 1990s has steadily been superseded by the rate of infection amongst women in
India. A UN Report in 1998 documented that 43% of all infected with HIV/AIDs in India were23
women and girls over the age of 15 and has steadily been increasing. Furthermore, women die at an
increased rate of the disease compared to their male counterparts. That same study concluded that 1.3
million of the 2.3 million women infected died of the disease in comparison with the 1.2 million of the
2.5 million men infected. When this disease affects the more vulnerable population within red light24
areas whose voices are already disenfranchised from participation, and whose bodies are already
bought and sold it creates a deadly environment in which women will not be tested, and will not
receive medical attention and, as a result, will surely pass it from customer to customer, child to child.
She cannot escape from the sex trade if she is suddenly burdened with a sexually transmitted disease
the stigmatization of which will force her live in isolation in any other community, or if she is
burdened with the necessity to provide for a child at a young age.
Sinha, Murli M. "Sex, Structural Violence, and AIDS: Case Studies of Indian Prostitutes." Women's Studies Quarterly Vol. 27.1/2 (1999):22
65-72. JSTOR. Women's Studies Quarterly. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Pallikadavath, Saseendran, and R. William Stones. "Women's Reproductive Health Security and HIV/AIDs in India." JSTOR. Economic23
and Political Weekly, 27 Sept. 2003. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Pallikadavath, Saseendran, and R. William Stones.24

2D. Poorly Instituted State Laws
The HIV/AIDS epidemic that swept the world in the late 1980s, and 1990s helped elucidate the
struggle of sex workers in India, and transformed a largely invisible group into a legitimate policy
concern, specifically for health and wellness programs. Starting in 1988, in effort to combat the rising
numbers of HIV/AIDS the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly briefly attempted to legalize and monitor
red light districts as well as remove all underage girls from the business. It lasted until 1994 and
required the compulsive registration, and health testing of all sex workers every three months.
Furthermore, the attempt at legalization necessitated that the head of the brothel would compile and
display a list of the registered sex workers along with their ages, the legal age for the engagement of
sex work was set at 21. 25
This tactic largely failed due to an inability by the state government to monitor successfully the
largely disenfranchised community where networking and connections are introverted and do not
extend to the immediate area. The attempt at legalization could not surmount the barrier of health care
because it could not provide the sex workers, or their children with appropriate testing measures.
Moreover, the infrastructure in place was not ready for the demand that surfaced when sex work was
decriminalized. The World Health Organization deemed the registration and health testing process
violated human rights guidelines by presenting yet another systemic barrier to the regulation of sex
work; many of the women who tested positive for HIV/AIDS were not informed of their diagnosis and
were given no care by the state. Being that they were not informed, the registration and testing process
became an invasive measure through which the government could document and control the bodies of
women effectively stigmatizing all prostitutes as seeming carriers of HIV/AIDS (504).26
A second barrier is presented by the local authorities acting on behalf of the Indian state. Today,
after the failed attempt at legalization and regulation of sex work, police forces are in charge of
enforcing laws at a district level. Often when presented with a vulnerable community as a whole,
which also features a subset community of the more vulnerable children of these women, the ease of
exploitation, combined with the lack in accountability proves too much to resist. The exploitation of
these women and their children by police forces has been constant, and acts against the safety of these
populations.
This violence continues today enabled by state laws which give the police the ability to remove
underage girls, as well as underaged sex workers during “raid and rescue operations” carried out by
local law enforcement. The government of West Bengal is responsible for the Immoral Trafficking
Prevention Act (ITPA) which is enforced on a district level through the Department of Women
Development and Child Welfare’s creation of district advisory boards. When this is successful at
rescuing underaged girls in West Bengal they will be taken out of brothels under the ITPA and “ put
into NGO-run short-stay homes and given health counseling and vocational training”. These27
operations consist of the identification of brothels, underaged girls through decoy customers, and then
Gangoli, Geetanjali. "Prostitution, Legalisation and Decriminalisation: Recent Debates." Economic and Political Weekly 33.10 (1998):25
504-05. JSTOR. Web. 11 May 2015.
Gangoli, Geetanjali26
Magar, Veronica.27

raids to remove them. However, according to the 2003 National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)
these raid and rescue operations also open up the vulnerable, captured girl-child to corrupt officials,
and often lead to monetary or sexual extortion or coercion. Repeat trafficking becomes a possibility if
the girl is already in sex work, as well as the beginning of her career if she is not. If the girl is arrested
and bailed out by the Madam of her brothel, she then becomes deeper in debt to the system which
holds her captive.
Police in India show a consistent pattern of violence against women regardless of their
profession, though it is only exacerbated by the inherent sense of power and privilege the male
dominated society instills in regards to sex workers in legislation, in legal practice and in legal rhetoric.
The demonstration of this embedded ideology in the famous Rameezabee case of 1978 “in which
Rameezabee a working class woman was raped by police after being arrested on a false charge of
loitering. The police then slapped a case of inciting girls into prostitution on Rameezabee” (505).28
In addition, the judgement of a case of custodial rape against a married woman, which took
place afterwards, in combination with the judgements of the Rameezabee case revealed that only
“chaste women are to be treated as reliable witnesses” and that the “testimony of any woman can be
dismissed if she is ‘proven’ unchaste, i e, a prostitute” (505). This precedent of the state’s, and local29
authorities’ domination and involvement in the sex trade comes ideologically from the subordination
of women. In areas such as Sonagachi as this means that “sexual commerce rests on structural
inequalities between men and women and that male domination is intrinsic to [it]…men have,
according to Carol Pateman, ‘a patriarchal right of access to women’s bodies’ thus perpetuating
women’s subordination to men” (1340).30
Though well-meaning, current procedural, and state led responses to sex work and trafficking
place limitations on the movement of women, and increase stigmatization of sex workers by
associating them, their children, and their lifestyles with poverty, coercion and immorality, and disease.
This is dangerous to the women themselves, and to girls as it denies any ability to choose, and denies a
very critical reality in red light districts; some underage prostitutes, and children of sex workers view
the area as their home, they make strong relationships with other sex workers, and prefer the relative
levels of economic freedom that sex work gives them. Though exploitative, these red light districts are
communities for the children of sex workers, and provide value for their efforts that the state cannot,
and has historically refused to provide. When the girl-child enters school, if she is even able, the
negative socialization provides a reason to drop out around the age of twelve, or thirteen after which
she will likely become a sex worker. For all of these reasons the state fails at its job of encompassing
the child.
Weitzer, Ronald. "SEX TRAFFICKING AND THE SEX INDUSTRY: THE NEED FOR EVIDENCE-BASED THEORY AND LEGISLATION." The30
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (1973-) 101.4 (2011): 1337-369. JSTOR. Web. 11 May 2015.

3- Methods of Intervention
3A. An Overview of Various Intervention Opportunities
As a case study Kolkotta, and more specifically, Sonagchi is in some senses an anomaly; it
presents the largest audience to study, and is one of the most well known. Due to its fame, multiple
NGOs and CBOs count Sonagachi amongst its target areas. For example, a documentary following the
lives of several of the children living in these brothels won the Academy Award for Best Documentary
Feature in 2004. Zana Briski, the woman responsible for the documentary, Born Into Brothels, moved
to Sonagchi in 1997 and spent the next four years building networks and attachments to the children
and women of the area. As will be explained later, her work spawned an NGO which has been
influential in removing target groups from the sources of exploitation, and empowering mothers.
Briski’s involvement story follows represents the public interest in these shadowed areas, however, she
like Sonagachi, represents a successful anomaly.
Many of the NGOs that operate in Kolkata and specifically Sonagachi are working within the
areas of public health, and sexual health, however some are community based and led by the sex
workers themselves. The roll of these Non-Governmental Organizations is to provide service-based
intervention, like condom distribution and health education, whereas community based organization
and individuals rely on the connections built within communities to mitigate poverty and provide
opportunities to the women and girls on individual levels. However, this analysis does not necessarily
mean that the only way to intervene and disrupt the cycle of trafficking within red light districts, and
within Sonagchi is only through NGO, or CBO support. In Sonagchi one of the most successful ways
to gain access to households, brothels and families in red light districts is through health organizations
as they aim to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS within red light districts.
One problem with many non government interventions is that it is ineffective at gaining large
scale access to the women and children of Sonagachi, despite their often generous resources.
Furthermore, these anti-trafficking programs, and efforts run in red light districts are scarcely able to
address the structural barriers that will engulf the children in the cycle of poverty and sexual
exploitation. In addition, NGOs are ineffective at combating or mitigating poverty, police violence
which plagues Sonagachi. Problems arise when these community based, or nongovernmental
organizations meet the barriers put in place by their immediate outside world, and when NGOs become
too big to effectively infiltrate these areas. Yet, where NGOs succeed, CBOs have little participatory
rights in women-and-child development rights and state/local responses to sexual exploitation.

When intending to intervene, the state fails as it is too heavy handed with little accountability;
it operates without the trust of the women who cannot participate in it. The legally led criminalization
of sex work leads directly to a stigmatization and victimization of the women as it both recognizes
trafficked women as legitimate victims of a crime, and simultaneously robs them of their ability to take
ownership of their bodies and autonomy over their economic situations. Many of the structural barriers
can only be overcome through the funneling of state resources into these areas, and it is for this reason
that the recommended intervention on the parts of all three organizations, state, NGO and CBO be
followed so as to eradicate the barriers which maintain the poverty and exploitation itself.
3B. State Resources
One central problem surrounding the inability to enfranchise the children of sex workers are an
active mistrust between sex workers and government representatives. Paradoxically the attempt to
decriminalize prostitution had disastrous affects for the women within these communities as such
government infrastructure, like health resources and police forces, were ill-equipped to enact changes
in both ideology, and in health accessibility. Although either decriminalization, or legalization is
employed by Germanic, and Nordic countries and has arguably been seen as successful, its success
seems hinged upon effective governance and documented population. However, this does not mean the
government cannot act effectively to enfranchise young children and their mothers within Sonagachi,
or any other red light area.
One method through which the government could intervene positively to disrupt the cycle of
poverty is investment in in the working conditions of these women. Should red light areas receive state
attention and government resources in order to nullify the poverty in which these populations live, the
government could actively work to reduce the stigmatization centered around the poverty of families
living there. Investment would look like efforts to improve housing, or even to construct new housing
with more rooms as children often must inhabit the same rooms that their mothers work in, thereby
exposing them firsthand to sex acts as they grow, mature and develop. Developing more space would
help ease the exposure to sex work which contributes to their negative socialization. It would also look
like better access to hygiene and increased access to food, like improved sources of water for example,
rather than well pumps which are often used (505). Both of these improvements would result in a31
comparatively safer, and more secure development, physically and emotionally, of children within
these areas.
Endeavoring to better the quality of life for these women and their children means that they
will be freer from an impoverished mindset within which they begin to believe that sex work is truly
their only option. To have resources is to have state support. It would show that, though the rhetoric
within the legislative, and legal systems may not be inclusive for prostitutes, or feminist by any means,
the state is capable of giving credence to the human rights abuses which take place within the insular

communities that are currently untouched by said state’s arms. By demonstrating state support through
the investment of resources the state will legitimize the ongoing struggle for human rights by these
women. Mitigating the leftover stigmatization of the caste system, and of these women being of a
comparatively lower class through poverty reduction goals will mean creating a more socially
inclusive environment. If the government begins to remove their taboo, there will be one less obstacle
between these children and free, unrestricted movement to areas not dominated by the life of
Sonagachi.
3C. Intervening and Reorientation of Police Forces:
Another measure in controlling and limiting the damaging effects poor government intervention
has on vulnerable girls is exercising more control over local forces of authority. Police are often
customers of the brothels and clients of the sex workers and are often in league with local gangs and
work to protect the industry of a certain area. With comparatively few human rights groups, and few
state groups focusing on the experiences of girls and women within red light areas and few police
officers, or court officials willing to hear the testimonies of unchaste women, it is not clear how often
these violent interactions between police and sex worker take place. However, what is known is that it
is not uncommon for police forces to accept bribes in exchange for protection of higher ranking
women, or men responsible for sex workers in brothels.
Currently, the state agenda often negatively impacts rescue efforts by creating a fanfare surrounding
“rescue and removal operations” that is not present with CBO led removal of girls and women. When
police forces remove girls from brothels it is often against their will, and with the consequences of
state, legal action being taken against them. The fear and mistrust of the police, and local government
ensures a dysfunctional and predatory relationship between red light districts and police forces. The
state can learn from CBO methods of removal, often once an underage girl is identified, the removal
procedure is often undertaken with consent and ease. CBOs in these cases only identify the proper
authorities after the rescue has taken place. Currently CBOs often prefer not to involve the police, or
state resources, as they often compromise madam-organization relationships.
The World Health Organization has described these complex power systems between sex
workers and forms of authority as resulting from certain “gatekeepers” that sex workers must deal with
on a daily basis: “Sex workers are surrounded by a complex web of"gatekeepers" including owners of
sex establishments, managers, clients, intimate partners, law enforcement authorities and local power
brokers who often have control or power over their daily lives”. Gatekeepers, for example, may32
exert control by dictating the amount charged by a sex worker, whether a sex worker should take on a
particular client and even whether the sex worker can or cannot insist on condom use. Some
gatekeepers may exert control through subtle means such as holding a debt, emotional manipulation.
Most often, however, it is through overt means such as threat of, and actual sexual, physical violence,
physical isolation, threat of handing them over to legal authorities, and forced drug and alcohol use”. 33
"Violence Against Sex Workers and HIV Prevention." A UNAIDS Initiative: A Global Health Coalition (n.d.): n. pag. World Health32
Organzation: Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS a Critical Intersection. World Health Organization. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
"Violence Against Sex Workers and HIV Prevention."33

These gatekeepers are the measures by which Sonagachi remains insular and its problems internal and,
historically invisible to the central government. The stigmatization favors gatekeepers and allows them
to continue using violence as a means of enforcement. The disruption of this cycle means increased
participation on the part of the central government in local affairs to ensure that corruption can be
limited and accountability raised.
Rape is a persistent problem amongst police officers and women within India and its
prevalence among working class women provides support for the claims of sex workers which often go
unheard by state legislatures and courts. Resulting from limited accountability, it is not uncommon for
women and children to be beaten and raped during police raids on brothels. The state capacity to fix
this abuse of power rests with increasing accountability through a series of checks and balances within
the police force. The government could do this by allying itself with various NGO or local CBO
groups to create anonymous channels for sex workers to complain of police brutality, and for these
complaints to be verified and compiled. The first step to eliminating police brutality is to show that it is
no longer anonymous.
The Human Rights Watch reports within the context of rape and police inefficiency that “One
key is establishing a mechanism for police accountability. Currently, police often refuse to register
complaints, or recommend that families ‘compromise’ cases, citing the ‘shame’ it will bring to the
survivor in the community. As a result, survivors of rape either do not come forward to report the
offense or feel pressured to give up their fight for justice midway”. Acting on these complaints34
would require diverting resources, and the creation of a task force responsible for ensuring that sex
workers are treated with dignity and respect while the police carry out their jobs.
The World Health Organization reports: “Laws governing prostitution and law enforcement
authorities play a key role in the violence experienced by sex workers. In most countries, sex work is
either illegal or has an ambiguous legal status (e.g. prostitution is not illegal, but procurement of sex
workers and soliciting in public is illegal). Sex workers are therefore, frequently regarded as easy
targets for harassment and violence for several reasons. They are considered immoral and deserving of
punishment”. When dealing with policy the state role of the Indian Government should be the35
empowerment of the various groups already working to disrupt the cycle of oppression within
Sonagachi, but furthermore to institute programs which sensitize police officers, and local authorities
to the legitimate needs of these woman and girls. One solution that worked well in Argentina is
allowing for sex workers to create unions through which they can lobby local authorities and
governments to increase protection of the women against violence and harassment from various
gatekeepers in their areas who work to enable the system of oppression.
However, without forming new legislation, redirecting current resources, or creating new state-
led initiatives, one way the state could create a stronger support system for women and children of the
red light districts in Kolkata is to create a system of increased accessibility within the police force for
Kashyap, Aruna. "Fixing India's Rape Problem." Fixing India's Rape Problem. The Daily Beast, 10 Jan. 2013. Web. 11 May 2015.34
"Violence Against Sex Workers and HIV Prevention."35

women reporting sex trafficking, or for women who are being handled by the police office. Replacing
the men in charge of interviewing, cataloguing and reporting sex crimes with women, preferably those
who were at one point involved in the sex industry themselves, or whom work with or for CBO groups
will lend the local police forces increased legitimacy amongst sex workers, and will create a safer
environment for those who are taken from brothels, or arrested for sex work. In this sense, it is possible
for the government to learn from the CBOS present in Kolkata by employing the networks of local sex
workers, and working with the red light districts to create a relationship of mutuality, rather than one of
predation.
3D. Non-Governmental Organization
In this area, NGO intervention is successful at creating medium-scale infrastructure in
individual circumstances. Though they do not have the resources of the state, in small scale
intervention, and through multi-faceted cooperation they can create large scale impacts. The best case
study in Kolkata that shows the proper ways to approach small scale intervention is perhaps the case
that brought international focus to the issue of children in brothels, and to Sonagchi in particular. NGO
activity is centered around health administration and services and intervention services, such as
condom distribution, assertiveness training, and peer education on the dire crisis of sexually
transmitted diseases within sex work. 36
The absence of effective government intervention in health resources provides NGOs present in
India with a definite market, and a definite need for their services. One such organization is PATH,
which began its work in India in the 1990s with the USAID-funded Program for Advancements of
Commercial Technology—Child and Reproductive Health. The specific focus of which was37
maternal health, and natal health for children and toddlers by “strengthening routine immunization
services and introducing new vaccines (including hepatitis B vaccine) into India’s Universal
Immunization Programme”, as well as aiming to strengthening the capacity of the private sector to
provide immunization, and high quality child and reproductive health products. One capacity of an38
effective NGO is the pinpointing of services that are not being delivered by the private sector, or by the
government sector and to efficiently and effectively begin providing the services needed for vulnerable
populations like women and children. However, PATH’s success in India is also demonstrative of the
best way NGOs can make lasting effects: teaming up with the Indian Government and private sector to
create and manage long term task forces and projects which will overtime lead to increased availability
of the humanitarian services provided by the NGO at the time. An NGO’s proper goal in the area with
which it works is to no longer be necessary.
Another major function of NGO work is the provide international spotlight, and increased
awareness of social problems and vulnerable populations. The publicity garnered by Born Into
Sinha, Murli M. "Sex, Structural Violence, and AIDS: Case Studies of Indian Prostitutes." Women's Studies Quarterly Vol. 27.1/2 (1999):36
65-72. JSTOR. Women's Studies Quarterly. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
"Our Work in Asia Spans Nearly Four Decades." PATH: Asia. PATH, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.37
"Our Work in Asia Spans Nearly Four Decades."38

Brothels led into the creation of a well funded NGO: Kids With Cameras. The aim of this particular
NGO is the empowerment of the children born into these areas, to foster an environment in which
children could learn and develop a sense of self worth. Through print sales and exhibitions the NGO
hopes to raise money to put towards the education of several children from Sonagchi. Kids With
Cameras presents a case study on NGOs best accomplish the goal of empowering children in red light
districts and assisting in the prevention of exploitation. As of 2010, Kids with Cameras plans to break
ground in constructing the Hope House in the suburbs of Kolkata which will house up to 100 girls
from these red light districts.
The Hope House demonstrates a successful multi-pronged approach to service delivery that
will also give long-term solutions on a small scale to around 100 girls, and their mothers. It offers a
perfect template without the administrative bureaucracy and lack of accountability that often slows the
state system as it responds to the crisis of the girl-child in red light districts. The goal of the Hope
House is to educate these children through high school in cooperation with another successful NGO,
the Buntain Foundation. The latter is focused on medical intervention through Mercy Hospital in
Kolkata. Together Kids with Cameras and The Buntain Foundation have laid out a three step process
for stabilizing the lives of individuals in the surrounding area. The first phase is to offer a Mobile
Health Clinic which will specifically cater to the needs of women and children in the red light district
so as to prevent disease from spreading, and to ensure the safety of the children of women with few
resources to care for them. This outreach clinic hopes to succeed where the state has failed, in
providing resources without stigmatizing, mistreating, rejecting or shaming the women of the red light
district. In this way, its resources will allow a smoother delivery of medical services to these women
and children. The second phase hopes to create working relationships between the mothers and
daughters as the daughters live and go through education with the Hope House while being mentored
by nursing students who live with the Buntain College of Nursing. Finally, the Hope House plans to
empower the women connected to it by offering alternative means of solvency to the mothers of the
daughters living at the school, by building a close-proximity laundry facility on the adjacent property
in which the mothers can work alternatively. Working to empower women, and remove girls from the
situations which provide negative socialization and hinder their development, and by providing them
with new skills with which to earn a living breaks the cycles of economic impoverishment, and
inheritance that trap these girls in sexual exploitation.
Moving beyond the scope of Kolkota, the grassroots group Apne Aaap Women Worldwide
works out of India and publishes a monthly journal called The Red Light Dispatch. The group is a
registered charitable trust in India, has consultative status with the United Nations and is registered as a
501(c)(3) in the United States. Its goal is to raise awareness and to publish the voices of women who
go often unheard, many of whose stories begin as they enter their teenage years, either having been
kidnapped, sold or born into these brothel systems. Within their first published Dispatch they
illuminated the struggles of women as they age in these Red Light Districts saying: “When I became
twenty or so, the clients became less. The demand was for younger girls. The brothel manager said she
could not provide a roof for me any longer. I then became an “adhya.” An adhya literally means half. I
was allowed to keep half of what I earned but had to pay rent for my bed and for my meals. In the
meantime, I had two girls and one boy. I did not know what to do next. We never had enough to eat or

wear. The children would roam the streets when I was with clients. There was no room for them to
sleep at night. My own earning was coming down. Then I found a steady client, a Babu. We got
“married”, and I moved in with him…” (1). With their scope of resources and limited government39
reliance NGOs have the ability to maneuver through legislative inefficiency while maintaining an
ability to generate often radical change in ideology. NGO work is crucial to illuminating the human
rights abuses within these areas, intervening in large scale service gaps, and reaching a larger audience
than smaller community based organizations. Together with the government they are able to better
understand disenfranchised populations by often not responding to, or adhering to local cultural or
social stigmas.
3E. Community Based Organizations:
The option yielding the least amount of push back is community based organizations, or CBOs
as they are sex worker-run. They work to curb the violence suffered by sex workers, their children, and
trafficked girls, the stigma of sex work, and the poverty of red light districts like Sonagachi. These
CBOs present an effective way to address HIV vulnerability, but also to stop trafficking and
exploitation of young girls as they are not fully capable of consenting to life as a sex worker, and are
the most vulnerable population in Sonagachi. As they work to prevent the spread and control the
problem of HIV/AIDs amongst vulnerable populations through structural interventions, these
organizations made of sex workers are now leading anti-trafficking efforts. Rather than raiding
brothels, they often subtly identify individuals and provide them with ways to mitigate the poverty that
has entrenched them into a cycle of abuse. Though, these individual interventions do not address the
structural barriers, and in many cases provide unsatisfactory, small scale social solutions to the
overarching problem of sex work, trafficking and exploitation of the girl child.40
One of the methods that make CBOs so effective is the working relationship with the madams
that these women have. After years of HIV/AIDs prevention in red light districts, these organizations
take advantage of these relationships in removing girls. In the best possible scenario, the madam
relinquishes the underage girl understanding that there are possible laws, and legal outcomes that will
hurt her and her business. When the madam refuses and the relationship is not enough to safely rescue
the underaged girl in question from sex work, the police are often involved to apply the necessary
pressure to the madam. Out of every nineteen cases the CBOs undertake in removing underage girls
from sex work, sixteen are successful. “Efforts to reduce violence and repression at the community
level include organizing and mobilizing sex workers to fight for their civil and human rights. The
World Health Organization documented “the Sonagachi project in India has organized sex workers into
AAP, Apne. "The Red Light Dispatch." APNE AAP WOMEN WORLDWIDE AN INITIATIVE TO END SEX TRAFFICKING 4.1 (2011): n. pag.39
Web. 11 May 2015.
Magar, Veronica.40

collectives and promoted sex worker solidarity as one way of fi ghting violence and injustice towards
their community”.41
CBO groups hope to fill the gap between NGO services, and ineffective government action by
trying to limit underaged trafficking, the girl-child has limited or no ability to say “no” to police or
madams, and the CBOs hope that the peer education they provide to volunteers and their participation
will decrease sex trafficking and exploitation of underage girls, many of whom are born into Red Light
Districts like Sonagachi. The dynamic networks of women created within these CBOs serve to inspire
other sex workers to join searching for both empowerment, and improvements in their qualities of life.
They work to identify young girls being led into exploitation, and hope to bring about a larger
community-wide movement to remove young women, who are too young to consent, from exploitative
circumstances.
4- Conclusion:
Though human trafficking and underaged sex work is a global crisis, it can be dealt with in small ways
which lead to increased well-being in the most vulnerable communities. Within India, a lack of
infrastructural support has spawned newly innovative, private sector work which aims to decrease the
likelihood that sex workers will contract STDs/STIs, and will live in constant poverty, the problems of
which will be inherited by the next generation of girls born within these areas. Sex labor, though a
potential option for some women depending on the philosophy through which the work is interpreted,
does not provide poverty relief, enfranchisement, or opportunity for women or for girls, and leads to
decreased life expectancy, social exclusion, continual poverty, and significant decreases in well-being
which are not becoming less relevant as India develops further. The best plan of action the Indian state
can follow at this point in both its infrastructural, and ideological development, is to connect NGO
capacity, CBO trust, and Government resources into a network of committed individuals and
organizations hoping to decrease the poverty which inevitably leads to repeat exploitation and the
creation of new red light areas. Through the creation of such networks, the reduction of poverty,
education of children, the girl child in particular, and the gradual reduction in stigmatization will be
possible and will yield desirable results.
"Violence Against Sex Workers and HIV Prevention." A UNAIDS Initiative: A Global Health Coalition (n.d.): n. pag. World Health41
Organzation: Violence Against Women and HIV/AIDS a Critical Intersection. World Health Organization. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

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