To hell and back

"I was told that the others were working girls. I didn''t know what a brothel looked like. That night, Shashi gave me tea, and I slept. The next night, she asked me to strip in front of a strange man. I refused. I screamed for help, but in vain. The next day, the same man came and raped me again," says 13-year-old Asha (name changed), who was rescued from a brothel in Mumbai two years ago.
She was brought to the megapolis by a neighbour from Raipur, a village in Madhya Pradesh, on the pretext of getting her a domestic job, only to be sold to Shashi, a brothel-owner, who operated at Mumbai''s Kennedy Bridge.
Acting on a tip-off, social workers and policemen from D B Marg swarmed the brothel and rescued Asha on November 22, 2000. Bombay Times accompanied the police team on the raid. The rescue operation was planned in 15 minutes by Senior Inspector Subhash Salvi on instructions from the then Deputy Commissioner of Police Jai Jeet Singh. Asha was found concealed in a drum in a latrine outside a kholi (room). Asha insisted she was not underage and that Shashi was an aunt whom she was visiting. The gharwali (brothel-owner) maintained that Asha was her niece and that she had arrived in Mumbai a few days ago. However, after over two hours of questioning by the police and a social worker from the Young Women''s Christian Association, Asha broke down. "Please don''t hit me," she pleaded.
This is not just Asha''s story. Thousands of cases remain undocumented as the population of minor commercial sex workers (CSWs) rises steadily. Not only that, it''s a hidden population as the nexus between traffickers, brothel-owners, police and politicians is thorough and covert.
Government of India estimates put the number of minor CSWs at 400,000. At least 25,000 of those children are in metropolitan areas. The Control Advisory Committee on Child Prostitution estimates this number to be 100,000. In addition, unofficial estimates reveal that India has 2 million CSWs, of whom 20 per cent are below the age of 15. The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that every year 1 million children are trafficked into prostitution in Asia. A report published by a state-run organisation, Planning Urban Integrated Development through Education (PRIDE), states, "Approximately 200 girls and women in the country enter prostitution on a daily basis; 80 per cent of them are either tricked or coerced into it."
PRIDE estimates that there are 10 million CSWs, including minors, in India. "Children as young as 9 years of age are purchased for up to Rs 60,000 at auctions in Mumbai''s red-light district of Kamathipura," says a child rights activist. Trafficking is not uncommon in Mumbai. Young women and children are kidnapped, tricked, coerced, lured and/or given false promises by an organised group of people who use recruiters from villages to do the job.
A social worker explains how trafficking works: "Children as young as seven are lured to the city by village traffickers. Specific children are targeted _ those facing abject poverty, or alcoholism in the family, physical, mental or emotional abuse, those with step-parents, those from lower castes who have been ostracised by society, victims of child marriages, etc." Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi are the destinations of choice for the traffickers.
These days, Asha lives in a Catholic home in Mumbai, attends classes and tries to get on with life. Bombay Times was refused an interview in order to protect her identity. Says her counsellor, "She''s like your typical city kid _ aggressive, a go-getter, energetic and smart. She''s spirited, a quick learner and always full of questions. She''s on the road to recovery, slowly but surely. Given the right kind of environment, and psychological help, she will be able to get over this experience."
Elaborating on the modus operandi of brothel-owners, a source from a government remand home for minors, says, "Once the child is sold, it is up to the gharwalis. The key lies in breaking the spirit of the minor, by psychologically traumatising them. Most times, children are starved for three or four days and beaten into submission. After the spirit is broken, they succumb to the demands of the gharwali, after which they are positively reinforced. Everything from clothes and money to food and make-up is provided to them. They are allowed to spend freely. This is where the child''s trust is rebuilt by the oppressor. Materialistically, here, the child gets all that she has only dreamt of until now."
A psychologist explained, "This is a typical case where the oppressed goes to any extent for the oppressor. Sometimes, when girls are rescued, they get angry at the social workers who rescue them, or are terrified by policemen. These minors are very confused, they keep changing their story for months. They never talk about their experiences at the brothel in detail. In addition, due to the police''s insensitivity, the girls refuse to talk. The children require a lot of individual counselling time before their true story comes to light. The truth might take months or even years to come out."
Says DCP Rajnish Seth of the Mumbai police, "As no adequate facilities have been provided, rehabilitation is not possible. It''s a vicious circle _ we send them to the remand home, they get released, and they return to the brothel. They are not accepted by their families, and are ostracised by society. Even if we can rehabilitate one CSW, the effort is worth it."