Sex workers seek better life

NEW DELHI: It was just another rescue operation that the police keeps conducting to free minors from Delhi''s infamous redlight area -- G B Road. Another episode reconfirming all the old patterns of poverty, exploitation, helpless and a strange submission to one''s suffering.
On Saturday, the police raided several brothels in G B Road, rescuing seven alleged minors from human traffickers."In one of the brothels, several girls were packed into six by two feet underground compartments. When we asked them why they were hiding, one of the girls said she was changing her clothes," said Roma Debabrata of STOP, an NGO working against trafficking.
Among the youngest girls rescued is Anita (15), three-months pregnant after unprotected sex with a customer. She says although she knows about AIDS, most of her clients do not use protection. "They beat us up if we insist that they use a condom," she says.
Sixteen-year-old Seema does not agree. She feels the customers leave you alone if you "behave yourself". Incidentally, she too has a two-year-old son from a customer. She has no hopes for her future or for her son. Those working with sex workers say two-year-old Vivek will probably start arranging beer bottles for his mother''s client by the time he is five.
But as always, dark clouds also bear a silver lining. Even as the police officials were deciding what to do with the girls, two of the major women decided they wanted to leave G B Road. "There are 10 ways of earning a living. If one gets to opt out, why not?" asks Meena (28).
Meena had both come to G B Road from Kolhapur. The straight road may not lead them home as yet, but at they have some hope -- the hope for a better life.