Eighteen-year-old Sania (name changed) works at a private garden in Mumbai, tending to the plants and sweeping it clean every day. She earns `3,000 a month, and lives in a women’s shelter in Trombay. Very few people know that she was rescued from a brothel at the age of ten, and has spent each day of the last eight years trying to forget the horrific experience.
Sadly, Sania, a Bangla-desh native, is among the luckier lot who were rescued by the police within a couple of months of being forced into prostitution.
“I cannot go back home because I was brought to Mumbai by a relative and sold to a pimp at such a young age that I do not remember my own addre-ss properly. My family, on its part, has made no effort to trace me,” she said.
Every year, the Mumbai police’s Social Service Branch (SSB) rescues hundreds of girls from the illicit sex trade that flourishes in the grimy underbelly of Mumbai. However, their rescue is only the beginning of a long and arduous journey to a life that might someday bear semblance of normalcy. The Mumbai police does not have any mechanism for rehabilitation of rescued sex workers, and so has to rely on tie-ups with NGOs that look to help these exploited girls. This occurs in several steps and those who are lucky enough, manage to pull their lives together.
Counselling
The most traumatic impact of being forced into prostitution is the mental agony. Most of the young girls are runaways, who ran from home after disagreements, and once they are stigmatised as being a sex worker, are unwilling to go back home. The older ones — mostly from poverty stricken households — have been led to believe that selling their bodies is the only way to earn two square meals a day, and this belief is deeply ingrained in their minds by the time they are rescued. Hence, the need for prolonged and intensive counselling arises.
“The counselling period, which can be anything between one to three months is to draw them out of their traumatised state of mind, so that they are more receptive to the idea of starting life anew,” said Vasant Dhobale, assi-stant commissioner of pol-ice, social service branch.
Triveni Acharya, who runs the NGO Rescue Foundation, adds that the girls also fall prey to addictions like alcohol and drug abuse. Many girls have said during their counselling that being drunk or drugged is the only way that they could endure sleeping with one man after another, and grew heavily depe-ndent on it. Freeing them from these is as challenging as freeing their minds from the stigma.
At the end of the counselling period, a report is submitted to the court. If the girls are willing to go back home, and if their families are willing to accept them, they are sent back immediately.
“Even reuniting them with their family is no mean task. Many of the families are unwilling to accept them for fear of disgrace,” said B.G. Shekhar, deputy commissioner of police (Enforcement).
In March this year, a girl rescued from a bar that was fronting for a brothel, hanged herself in the women’s shelter in Govandi. Following her rescue, she had spent a week at the shelter, and was steadily slipping into depression on seeing some other girls being reunited with their families while her family refused to accept her. Finally, she hanged herself.
Training
Once the girls are ready to turn over a new leaf, they are trained in various trades like making paper plates or imitation jewellery and embroidery. Thus comes the second challenge, as the girls, who have spent months or even years under captivity have lost their learning capacity.
“It is relatively easier with minors as they learn faster, and we are able to train and get them employed. However, they are always conscious of the fact that they have a history that they have to keep concealed at all times,” said Ms Acharya.
In such cases, even casual questions about their past, like “Where were you working before this?” become awkward and has to be answered guardedly. The continuous lying does not fail to take its toll, and results in depression.
Rehabilitation
Even after learning trades and getting jobs, the rescued girls tend to stick together, staying at designated shelters. NGOs then try to rehabilitate them by either finding suitors willing to accept the girls. While some girls thankfully find suitors, others often spend their lives in shelters, earning between `100 to `150 on a daily wage basis.
25-year-old Reshma (name changed) fled her Uttar Pradesh residence after a fight with her family, leaving behind a husband and a daughter. She fell victim to the lures of a pimp who promised her fast money, and sold her to a brothel instead.
“When I finally mustered the courage to contact the Rescue Foundation and managed to be rescued a year ago, I found that I could not face my husband and daughter,” Reshma said. She still lives in Mumbai and works at a private small scale-manufacturing unit.
The Unlucky Ones
However, in spite of best efforts by both the establishment and NGOs, there is a percentage of girls that turn back to the flesh trade. Unwillingness of the families to accept them plays a major part, as the girls find that all the counseling and training is useless if they have to live with this stigma for the rest of their lives.
Then there an even more unfortunate section of the girls who contract diseases like HIV and AIDS and are simply trained for jobs that ensure minimum contact with others, while they lead a lonely existence till they finally die.
Sania, Reshma and countless others like them can consider themselves lucky to be at least out of the flesh trade if not with their families.