In an interview with 51勛圖's Culture Editor, , the co-founder of the Mumbai-based NGO , Robin Chaurasiya, argues for the legalization of sex work in India. This is last of a two part series. Read part one .

Anna Pivovachuk: I would like to ask you more about problems the girls face. What are the issues surrounding sex work in India and how does that impact the children?

Robin Chaurasiya: There are stereotypical views on this subject, and I want to make it clear that we, as an organization, are pro-sex workers' rights. We believe that women working in the sex industry should be given the exact same rights as somebody doing housework, or being a doctor, or any other career. They should have access to the same level of health care and education, and that is the only thing which is going to make the red light areas a human rights zone. Growing up in that area, because of the stigma and marginalization attached to the community, is the reason why all the issues surface: the terrible schools, the fact that there is no mental health care in the red light areas. In fact, all of our girls have faced some type of sexual abuse, but it is something that kids across India – and all across the world, to be honest – are facing at such a high rate and people don’t realize or acknowledge it, because it is so unspoken or unknown. The sexual abuse that goes on in the red light areas, goes on in the upper class households as well.

In regard to their situation: Of course, they are harassed on the streets and they face a lot abuse. I blame society for this marginalization, and for anything that these girls suffer — not the clients, not the mothers. I’ll be very honest, aside from two mothers of the two girls who have severe mental health issues, everyone else is an amazing and wonderful mother – some of the most amazing mothers I’ve ever known. And in many NGOs, these girls are taught that a prostitute’s daughter is only going to be a prostitute, and they teach these girls that what their mother does is terrible, and you need to turn away from your community. And they are trying to operate on the opposite side of the spectrum – to teach them to talk with pride about their communities. But it doesn’t come overnight.

How do you get to a point where you understand that your mother has made the ultimate sacrifice to put food on the table, to make sure you have access to a better life than she had, and sacrificed more than any other hard-working parents out there? Many of our girls’ mothers have been trafficked at the age of nine, 12, or 15 and given birth very soon afterwards. When they find themselves in circumstances where they become mothers and suddenly have to provide financial support, they have very few options. Domestic work and daily wage jobs (construction, etc) do not provide enough salary for a woman to take care of several children; so sex work is often the best option.

If society is a system in which these girls and women aren't given any opportunities to learn skills to sustain themselves, sex work is often the only option available. We want our girls to understand these situations that society has created for these women — that wasn’t something of their own doing. This is why Kranti is so adamant about the legalization of sex work; if society has created a situation where sex work is the only option, you can't make that option illegal.

Another problem is what is known as the devdasi system, which was a tradition where a girl was "dedicated" to a temple. She would grow up and live there, take care of the temple, and serve as a sex worker for the religious leaders (though many would claim this didn't happen in the "olden days"). Today, the system of dedication still exists, but these women often end up in sex work after leaving the temple as well. 

Pivovachuk: What are the public attitudes to sex workers in India? 

Chaurasiya: It’s very negative. There are quite a few organizations that do awesome work. But the general public — if you were to talk to someone on the street — I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t even say this, because I was very pleasantly surprised. The girls have boyfriends from the area, and when they tell them about their past, the boys are generally very understanding and don’t stigmatize or ostracize the girls for it. But the girls can talk about their experiences in safe places, like NGOs or conferences where they are the guest of honor or are giving a speech. But this doesn't mean that they can walk out into the street and tell the whole world. Because the mentality is still that you are less worthy, you should be lower on the totem pole, an you deserve less.

Pivovachuk: What do you think is the first, most effective step to take in order to combat this?

Chaurasiya: Prostitution needs to be legalized.

Pivovachuk: What will it change for the women?

Chaurasiya: The most important thing it will change is that when you are working illegally, you don't have access to things like healthcare, or even opening a bank account, creating a voter’s ID, and getting a loan. If you have HIV and you go to a health clinic, a doctor will immediately question your treatment. Doctors in the city, and especially government hospitals, will find any excuse not to treat a sex worker. They also harass her and say things like, "you asked for it" or "you should have expected this." They'll often find ways to discriminate against sex workers in a way that cannot be officially recorded — saying "your file is missing, please come back tomorrow" or other such things. 

If you don’t have the ability to defend your rights, what do you do? Some of our girls don't have IDs that they would need to be able to attend school; if you are in an illegal profession, how do you fight for the right to put your child into school?

The police are another problem. They harass prostitutes, take bribes from them – 1,200 rupees a month in order to keep out of jail. This money could go to put your child in a better school. These are all the components that affect not only the current situation, but also the next generation. If you had legal rights, it would be a different story.

The fact of the matter is that most people don’t go into sex work for the sake of it – they are trying to feed a family, take care of others or themselves as best they can. If you created a situation for these women where sex work is the last option, after having been denied proper education, training or care, why do you make it illegal? No one is proposing the sale of teenage girls; but with the amount of time the police spend hunting down women who are in this trade willingly, this money and time could instead be invested in making sure that 14 year-old girls are not trafficked. Right?

Pivovachuk: Many people fear that legalizing prostitution will actually increase trafficking. What do you say to that?

Chaurasiya: People say that all the time: If sex work is legalized then people will start smuggling teenage girls, or that this will become legal. No one is suggesting legalizing trafficking. No one is suggesting the sale of people, whether they are women or men, or boys working in factories – no matter who they are. So many people don’t distinguish between trafficking and sex work, and there needs to be a big differentiation between them. There is no data that definitively shows that the has brought an . There is no evidence anywhere to suggest that or easier if sex work is legalized.

The only way to end issues relating to sex work – if you actually want to end the industry – is for every girl in the world to have access to education, jobs, and money. That’s the only solution: every single girl. And when is that going to happen?

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright © All Rights Reserved

The post Kranti Mumbai: Empowering Girls From the Red Light District (Part 2/2) appeared first on 51勛圖.

In an interview with 51勛圖's Culture Editor, , the co-founder of the Mumbai-based NGO , Robin Chaurasiya, talks about the disadvantages that children of India’s sex workers must endure in this patriarchal society. This is the first of a . 

Anna Pivovarchuk: How did the Kranti project begin? What was the initial idea behind it?

Robin Chaurasiya: I’ll be very honest, I never say that I am the founder of Kranti — there are a lot of founders and a lot of people deserve credit for the ideas. One person doesn’t innovate on their own; ideas come from so many different people – experiences too.

I spent six months volunteering at the Rescue Foundation NGO in 2008, which is basically India’s biggest anti-trafficking organization. They apply the rescue, rehabilitate, repatriate model, taking girls out of brothels. They are in the works for a month, six months, one year and there’s no exit plan besides going home or getting married off – there’s nowhere else for these girls to go. Skills that are taught there are very stereotypical, based on the notion that girls are only capable of cooking, cleaning, and making jewelry. That is where I met Bani Das, who used to work for the NGO for five to six years; and I guess what really upset me about being there was that I just felt like I was sitting in a house full of wasted potential.

To me, the most thought-provoking aspect of this work was when I talked to the girls – 15-16-year-olds — who would say that they wanted to become activists, they wanted to lead organizations; and eventually I began to question why there isn’t an alternative model. So I went back to do my Master’s, and for my thesis, I came back to India and did my research on the different NGOs that all had the same model. And then, a few of us got together and we just said: “OK, let’s do it.” That was almost three years ago.

Pivovarchuk: So how do you tackle the social issues you are trying to combat?

Chaurasiya: We have created our own social justice curriculum where we look at 20 different issues in India, from class, religion, gender and sexuality, environment, capitalism, ability, mental health, and how these play out in the country. Most of our girls are Dalit – the untouchable caste – or Muslim, which are two most marginalized communities. So looking at how the system came to be, what the current situation is, what we can possibly do about changing it, and what you can do to change it.

One of our girls is attending Bart College in the US this year, and she is the first girl from an Indian red light area to be studying abroad. (She is studying psychology, and wants to come back to India to open a mental health clinic in the red light area, where there aren’t any.) So this takes us back to the issue of expectations. All of us who have worked with other NGOs have seen how low the expectations for these girls are. There is this mentality that their life is already heading down the wrong path, so this is the best you can do. We are going to teach you tailoring, we are going to teach you how to cook – all these unsustainable skills. was with us for a year and a half, and now she is off to a university in the US. Why has not a single child gone abroad to study in the last 20 years? What is missing in those people’s expectations that they don’t actually think these girls can accomplish anything?

Pivovarchuk: How does this reflect on the general situation in India concerning women?

Chaurasiya: Patriarchy looks different all over the world. But the way it looks here, is basically that a girl is born and throughout her entire life she is socialized to clean and cook – those are the most important skills for her to know. Since a young age, she is taught that one of these days she'll get married, and go to go off to her husband’s home and that's it. There is never an investment in girls as someone who might have to take care of the family, to be an economic asset. If we spent the same amount of energy that is currently being spent on preparing girls for marriage as on preparing them for an independent life, everything would change overnight.

The truth of India is also very different from what they try to teach kids. For example, Bani, one of our staff members, was married off at the age of 18. Her husband brought her to Mumbai from Calcutta, and when she had her first baby, he just disappeared. She took the baby back to her parent’s home, and came back to Mumbai to work. Within a year of that happening, her father passed away and she brought four of her younger sisters, her mother and her daughter to Mumbai and has supported them for the past seven or eight years. Her sisters, who are all younger than her, have all got jobs, and they are earning decent wages — and that is something a woman has accomplished. When we see the reality of India, there are a lot of women like Bani; and yet India still teaches girls that all they will be expected to do is take care of a household. We, at Kranti, don’t discourage our girls from getting married, but we try to create a deeper understanding of patriarchy and to be able to challenge all these societal norms – the caste system, religious discrimination, birthrights.

Pivovarchuk: You encourage your pupils to give back to the community. What have they been engaged with?

Chaurasiya: One of our requirements is that each of the girls is required to create a project that is implemented somewhere. So last year, some of our pupils went to Nepal to teach marginalized girls about gender issues, self-esteem, sex education. This gives them the ability to understand that they can impact the world, make a difference in someone else’s life. We run workshops, our girls speak at NGOs about abuse, sex workers' rights, trafficking – things that they are experienced experts at. One of our girls has become well-known for providing training to people working with marginalized youths. She has been flown across India to speak at conferences, and this has done wonders for her self-esteem and her ability to travel alone.

Mobility is a major factor for empowerment. So many women and girls around the world are trapped in their homes. For the majority of girls in India — not the elite, upper classes urbanites — being a girl means you are not allowed to go out without your father or brother, and you have to be home by six or seven. We make a conscious effort to break all of those rules. Sometimes, when we invite our girls’ friends out for a movie, if we have a spare ticket, their parents never let them go out. This is the city they were born in and where they grew up; it should be their home, not a prison.

One of the things that we always do is take girls on fieldtrips to visit sex workers' unions, to see women who are sex workers, who are amazing illiterate leaders of their communities, really powerful leaders. To show them also that you don’t have to go to university – that is not the end goal here. The end goal is that whatever field you choose, whether it’s being an architect, or a sex worker — whatever it may be — that you do the job with a social justice lens perspective. 

Pivovarchuk: Tell us about how Kranti is run, and how it is different from the traditional NGOs?

Chaurasiya: Our vision, or core belief – I don’t really believe in those words – but our mission is essentially to empower girls from Mumbai’s red light areas to become agents of social change. We believe that if marginalized girls from these communities have access to the same education, opportunities, leadership training – not only are they going to be just as good as leaders as those from the upper- or middle-class, but they are going to be far better leaders. They are going to be more compassionate, more innovative, and more entrepreneurial because of their life circumstances and all the things that they’ve overcome. So basically, Kranti works to create those opportunities.

Our basic programs include different types of education: some of our girls have been out of school for years; we have a girl who is 15 and illiterate; we have an 18-year-old who has studied for only two years in her entire life, and so we have to be flexible with the type of education we offer. So aside from formal education, there are a lot of girls who are in open schooling, meaning they can take their exams separately and outside of school and prepare for them whenever they're ready. One of our girls has to catch up on five to six years of math in the next two years. One of our girls has studied in five or six different languages throughout her six years of education. So these are the common issues we battle with. Of course, most of our girls go to the local government school in the red light area, which is a disaster of a school. You know, there are kids from every single part of India, speaking every single language imaginable; yet you are expected to learn the local language here, which is not even Hindi but a whole different language altogether. That is very challenging for the children.

A big component of our curriculum is therapy; we have a part-time therapist and every girl gets a one hour session with her per week, plus the staff do a development session where we learn how to be good caretakers for girls who have faced sexual abuse and trauma, and learn to respond to their needs. Some of our girls are on different types of medication and some of them have personality disorders — things that are usually associated with childhood sexual abuse. And that has honestly turned out to be one of the most important components of our work, and probably the one that we focus on the most.

We used to think that education was the solution. But if I had to pick one thing that has made most difference, it would be therapy. Because for the girls, it is impossible to sit in school when they have a lot of other mental issues to deal with.

In the end, this whole process of no longer blaming yourself for your abuse, of becoming a leader rather than a victim, somebody who can take charge of your own life – the end of which, is therapy. When you come to love yourself, when you finally overcome your trauma, that is when you become someone who is really empowered and able to share your story and think of yourself as someone who can be an inspiration to others.

*[Read the on September 20.]

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect 51勛圖’s editorial policy.

Image: Copyright ©  All Rights Reserved

The post Kranti Mumbai: Empowering Girls From the Red Light District (Part 1/2) appeared first on 51勛圖.