Sex Workers for Humanity’s Rights

Sex Workers for Humanity’s Rights

Representation submitted to the AP State Mahila Commission

On the occasion of International Human Rights Day

2020 has been the year which has made us realize more than ever before that perhaps, we are less than citizens of this country. We were born in this country; we grew up knowing that we are Telegu, speaking the language, eating the same food, dancing to the music, loving the same food as all of you. Even when we were steeped in poverty, even when we were forced into prostitution – some by poverty, others by traffickers, some others out of their own volition. we still believe that we are women of this land,  that our children are of this land. We have often been treated as “untouchables” by the day and sought for sexual services in the dark, our children have been treated as isolated in schools by other children from ‘decent families’. But never had we ever imagined that we would be so unworthy that in the face of starvation and death, when the Government of India, the Government of Andhra Pradesh would promise to feed all its citizens and protect them from dying, we would not be amongst those who could also stand in queue to receive the same love, the care and the protection- the “citizenry rights” in this sovereign country .

We vote, during every election. Every time we stand in the polls, we hope that perhaps, there will be a leader in this state, in this country, who would listen to us, understand us and believe that perhaps we have suffered enough. We are not just women whose only needs begin and end with condoms to prevent the spread of HIV AIDS. We are not just women who are victims of trafficking who can be rescued and put into shelter homes for rehabilitation. But we braved against all odds and became leaders in our community organisations.Many of us were peer educators and sincerely involved in AIDS work. It helped in only society, but also gained credits worldwide as a successful model for prevention of AIDS and was showcased to in many fora.We just wish that we could receive the same services and space as everyone else – health services, protection services from the police, services of financial inclusion including the right to bank accounts, ration cards for subsidised food within our community settings. It is sad that when the country came to a standstill with the lockdown, when we also could not earn through sexwork or any other sources, the police reached to us to maintain surveillance to ensure that we do not take customers and risk the spread of Corona, but no one tried to help us get rations for ourselves and our children. We were left to fend against hunger all on our own, a woman without any weapons to battle against Asura.

When we heard the Supreme Court direct all governments to give us rations without any questions or demands for identity proof, we were relieved. As Vimukthi,and Me and My world network of sex-workers and survivors of trafficked women we have been pleading with our Andhra government to help us. We kept hearing about APSACS trying to find out the exact number of sex workers who should be given rations. Days passed onto weeks, and onto months, but nothing seemed to move or work. So, the Supreme Court’s concern for our survival seemed like a beacon of hope. We were also hopeful when the National Human Rights Commission suggested that we be considered as informal workers. It seemed to be a gesture of respect, of recognition that we exist. We heard that some activists got very concerned that this recognition would increase trafficking in children and women for sexual exploitation. NHRC, later modified their advisory and accorded their sanction of our labour as workers in Covid19 context.

Vimukthi stands against sex trafficking, child prostitution and sexual exploitation of any persons. This activism, this fight is personal for us. We are the victims as well as survivors of exploitation of many kinds, not just sexual, but psychological, economic, social and political.

• We have taken to sex-work to survive. We were trafficked, sold and forced into it. Many of us were victims of debt bondage, our families were in debt and we were traded to pay off that debt,and have been through many such miseries in our lives. . Some of us took to sexwork – to survive, for ourselves and our children and elders in our We are the symbols of India’s collective failure to provide livelihoods, income security, protection from exploitation.
• We survived through sexual slavery We paid off ‘debts’ and by this time, we had children and we tried to find some control, some freedom and tried to work for a future for our children. Our primary concern, as mothers, is to protect our children and ensure them a better future than what we have suffered.
• While society has extracted a heavy price from us, it gave us only stigma, shame and blame, and disgust. We never benefitted from any anti poverty programmes. Even when the Ministry of Finance announced a committee for financial inclusion of sex workers and victims of sex trafficking, and we were excited, we heard that neither sex workers nor trafficked survivors were invited into the committee, we were represented by some NGOs who claimed to speak for us. we like to urge you to consider that  “Nothing about us Without us”
• What we were offered in name of Rrehabilitation was to be rescued and put into shelter homes, which are nothing but closed institutions, cut off from our families and the rest of society. These shelter homes are expensive to run, and not many shelter homes have the financial ability to provide quality care and service. The education and ‘trainings’ offered in these homes rarely provide us with “employable skills” except in NGO run units which pay poor salaries and treat us as indentured labour. For some of us who have been through that experience, we feel trafficked twice, once into brothels, and then into shelter homes.
• Till date, no state in India, has a rehabilitation policy for victims of sex trafficking or sex workers who are victims of violence. Sometimes, we are promised ‘immediate relief’ of Rs 10,000 post rescue through some government order. Then there are these schemes where NGOs are paid to run shelters. There is a Public Interest Litigation in the Calcutta High Court where survivors of sex trafficking have made a similar demand for a Rehabilitation policy for victims of sexual exploitation, that would clarify how Panchayats, district administration, health service providers, banks or other financial institutions, can provide us services within existing schemes and provisions for our protection and empowerment. We fail to understand why these same activists and NGOs who are so concerned about trafficking fail to see the link between our security and the security of our children, who are most vulnerable to trafficking.
• All of the above, are ways in which we are exploited in every possible way. Notwithstanding the fact that instead of protecting us from further violence, we have to pay extortion bribes not to be arrested for soliciting or on some other pretext. This corruption and extortion is common to all sex workers across India, not only to goondas and pimps, but to the corrupt officers in police and government as well.
• We stand against those brothel owners, managers and pimps -the traffickers may be men or women- who use debt bondage to enslave women and children in prostitution. We believe that decriminalizing sex workers should not be used by pimps, brothel managers, madams or brothel owners to gain legal protection. They are not sex workers. Considering them as sex workers and equating them with us is like treating zamindars and peasants as the same group, the feudal masters and bonded labour as the same class. So, decriminalisation of sex workers, our recognition as workers does not automatically decriminalise madams, brothel managers, pimps and traffickers. ‘Prostitution of others’ and profiteering from prostitution of others is and should remain criminalised. Sexwork is not trafficking and both should not be conflated. it should be  This is something many anti trafficking activists like Sunitha Krishnan and Ravi Kant fail to understand. Fighting trafficking is our life struggle, we are its worst victims and if the State wants to fight trafficking, we are its best allies.

COVID and the lockdown has crushed us. Many of us have been forced to take loans from money lenders who are charging us exorbitant rates of interest. While we know that banks and mainstream financial interest charges 8 to 12 percent per annum, we are paying 20 to 50% or even more PER MONTH. This will surely turn us into indentured labour when we are going to be unable to repay. The money lenders who lend money to women like us also have agenda on how they will extract the money if we fail to pay back. We are told that there are laws to govern and control private money lenders and the interests they can charge. But like many other laws that are meant for benefits of the poor and marginalised people like us, this one also has not seen any implementation or use.

To the Government of Andhra Pradesh and the Government of India, we beseech you –

•  Do include us (CBOs of sex workers & survivors of trafficking) in your plans and welfare benefits. Our poverty, our vulnerability, our marginalisation is a mark on your honour.
• Give us equal rights as all other citizens of this country – rights to ration cards, bank accounts, Jan Than yojna benefits, Aadhar cards, the right to form SHGs and access to financial inclusion benefits.
• Recognise that we are vulnerable to exploitation not only by brothel managers and madams and pimps, but also corrupt police officers, private money lenders and corrupt NGOs, create a policy for our empowerment, protection and our rights to be heard.
• Decriminalise us, criminalise all who profit from our vulnerability.
• Please create state and national policies for our protection, empowerment and economic rehabilitation – especially to break the chain between the sex worker becoming a madam, when she gets older.
• Do not put us in shelter homes, please adopt community based rehabilitation approaches instead. We don’t need to be put in shelter homes to be rehabilitated. It does not work for us.
• The Victim Compensation scheme has not benefitted us at all. While many of us are trafficked victims, we have not received any compensation. We need legal aid, assistance from good lawyers who can help us file claims and help us get compensations that are proportional to the injuries we have suffered. The DLSA in Andhra Pradesh needs to be directed to implement the scheme and make this possible.
• We want a common law for all forms of human trafficking. The Immoral Traffic Prevention Act has failed to combat sex trafficking in the last 64 years. Section 370 does not criminalise forced labour. Bonded Labour Act focusses on punishment of principal employers but says nothing about traffickers who traffic people for forced labour. We need the new law to formalise AHTUs across the country.
• We need the Andhra government to notify all AHTUs across the state and ensure that each AHTU is functional – has officers with independent charge who will manage investigations. The AHTUs need to urgently look into how traffickers, money lenders, brothel owners/ managers and pimps are exploiting vulnerable women and families, including sex workers to build an influx of trafficked children and women into sex trade now and in the immediate future.
• We urge the Andhra government to create a state monitoring body or include us in such a monitoring committee to partner with the government to ensure the implementation of all laws and policies pertaining to trafficking, and protection and empowerment of women in prostitution so that they are not compelled to become madams or traffickers themselves, so that they are able to protect their children from being forced into prostitution.

 Appeal to the State Women Commission, AP:

1. Commission a study on rehabilitation status of survivors of trafficking, and use the findings to make recommendations to the state for clarification of rehabilitation policy for survivors of human trafficking in AP. The study can also study how victim compensation scheme has been implemented, how it may have been accessed and benefited survivors of trafficking, or barriers therein. This will also help draw SLSA AP’s attention onto what it should do towards rehabilitation of survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
2. The issue of citizenship and right to open bank accounts for women in prostitution should not rest only upon residence proof. This is a matter to be clarified in policy between the revenue department and the banking system, and the government should remove barriers in opening bank accounts by these women. At the same time, the issue of these loan sharks charging exorbitant rates of interest and the nature of debt bondage should be verified by the Commission and corrective measures should be taken.
3. The SWC may draw the attention of SCPCR in AP on the issues of children of women in prostitution, their distress and call upon for attention to building their protection and security.
4. The Commission may want to address the issue of extortion, corruption and role of law enforcement agencies governing these red light areas. If verified by the Commission facts stated in this report, the Commission may draw the attention of the AP state police to set up monitoring systems to check corruption linked to prostitution and trafficking. At the same time, the Commission may also wish to draw attention to the notification of AHTUs.
5. The Commission may wish to study the security issues of migration for adolescent girls and young women, which makes them vulnerable to trafficking, and look at making recommendations to the state on how to provide safe migration services and check traffickers.
6. The Commission may seek explanations from the Public Prosecutors’ Office and the AP state police on reasons for the low conviction rate, and also set up an independent commission to analyse reasons for the same, and make recommendations.
7. HELP would like to propose to organise a consultation on why AP should move from a shelter home based rehabilitation approach to a community based rehabilitation approach, to explain to the stakeholders – primarily DWCD, NGOs and other stakeholders, on why it needs to be done, how it can be done and what will it require for this to happen.

Let 2020 not only be the worst year in the history of humanity and for sex workers. Let us make this year be the year of Humanity Rights, and we, members of Vimukthi, and me and my world pledge to ourselves, our society and our country, that we shall do everything in our power in that fight for Humanity, and against all evil, vested interests.

Smt. Meharunneesaa                                                              

State convener – VIMUKTHI

Smt. A.Bhanu Priya         

Convener – ILFAT (India Leaders for against trafficking) 

Smt. Devi

 Convener –State Chapter   Me and My world network