------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Documented by Goa Desc Resource Centre Ph:2252660 Website: www.goadesc.org Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Press Clippings on the web: http://www.goadesc.org/mem/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------- The shadow of death over Baina - 2 -------------------------------------------------- by Joaquim Fernandes
A few months back, there were around 2,000 sex-workers at Baina. Now the number has dwindled by half, thanks to the police action of preventing customers from entering the red-light area, according to Jankibai, resident of Baina's red-light area for thirty years, mostly as a sex worker but now as a brothel-keeper. She says many workers are starving.
This has raised doubts in some quarters that the police clamp down could be the government's ploy to force the sex workers out of Baina by April. April is the month the High Court has directed the government to submit its compliance report on Baina after acting on the recommendations of the Justice Kamat Inquiry Committee.
Seated in the Baina-office of ARZ, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) working against trafficking, Jankibai tells you she is willing to stop the trade if she gets a decent job and a house to live in. But she is fifty and like most of the others in the trade, she is unschooled and unskilled.
How the government will keep its promise of rehabilitating these women by meeting these demands remains to be seen. Besides Jankibai, also present in the room are Priya and Champa, two young sex workers and three elderly ladies; volunteers from another NGO, who were sex workers before but have now left the trade.
Priya, 20-year old mother of one is quite confused about the planned clearance. But the other lady, the volunteer is sure and specific. "Give us permanent jobs in Konkan Railway, free housing and free medical facilities. And make sure no one points fingers at us and calls us names," she says. "Don't give us just ten kg of rice at election time and then dump us."
Champa feels differently. "We need some money now," she says. "So just take out the police for some more time. Then we will leave the danda (profession)."Champa and the others have a big grouse against the police. "They used to collect Rs 50 from every customer to allow him in. Now they don't allow even that. But if you want to stop, then stop all accesses. Don't favour some and deprive the others."
They relate a recent incident. A young man from Karnataka, probably a college student, was buying cigarettes near one of the entry points.They are not sure if he wanted to enter the red-light area, but the police called him and beat the daylights out of him. Then they made him squat there in his underpants.
Champa gets angry on remembering this. "It was not necessary to beat him that way and make him sit in his underpants. What izzat (respect) will he have in front of the girls?" she asks.
You tell them that health authorities have named Baina as the main source of HIV/AIDS in Goa and that the disease has destroyed many young lives and families in the state. They take offence. It is the men with loose morals who are to blame.
"The men roam all over the world, then come and give the disease to us. The girls are frightened now. We go for blood tests every other month. We insist our customers use protection. Or else we don't entertain them. There are some gentlemen in town who give speeches about the bad effects of Baina and how it should be closed down. Then in the night, they come to us."
But they, the women, have ethics. "Often young boys of fifteen come to us. We warn them this `line' is bad and drive them away. "They are also willing to follow rules. "Let the government give us guidelines; don't solicit customers on the streets, remain confined to this area and so on."
And they warn against the forced closure of Baina. "If they drive us away, those men will approach the wives of the gentlemen in the city and attack their daughters. It has happened before."
Alarmed at the tightening police stranglehold over Baina, the Forum of Justice for Baina, an alliance of organisations like ARZ, Positive People, Bailancho Saad and many others recently wrote to the Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Parrikar to stop the isolation of the sex workers, the denial of their means of livelihood and the human rights violations at Baina. They want the problem to be addressed in a systematic, studied manner.
Mr Arun Pandey, the co-ordinator of ARZ, says "A proper socio- economic survey of Baina needs to be done. Simultaneously, the girls should be provided with counselling and made aware of the alternatives before them."
"We wrote to about 80 organisations in Andhra Pradesh and they responded positively with various services they were offering like skill development, income generation, provision of shelter, education of children, health services etc. If proper intervention is not done by the state, the girls will disperse to other parts of Goa and spread the problem all over the state," he adds
When you ask Champa what she will do when she grows old, she laughs in your face. "I don't know. I will think about it then," she says. Her prayer now is simple but urgent; allow us today our daily bread and let the police forgive us our trespasses. (Concluded) --------------------------------------------------- The Navhind Times 25/2/04 page 1 ---------------------------------------------------
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