Reality of prostitution

Child Prostitution: A reality

275000 red light areas in our country and almost 52 lakh childern are involved in this business. almost 20 lakh girls started work in the age of 5 to 15 years. Accroding a report of international organision for migration, almost 5 lakh unadult girls are involved in this business in eastren europ. every year, turnover of prostitution is about 42.5 arab dollar. accroding to paul university research, 7 hundred girls below 9 year old come in india from nepal every year for prostitution. 1 to 2 lakh nepali girls are involved in prostitution in india now. 60 to 80% prostitutes are suffering from many STD. 2.6% nepali girls, 2.17% bangladeshi girls are doing prostitution in india now. 60% prostitutions come from S.T. and S.C. communities.
One chid prostitute have sex 3 or 4 time in a day and income distribute in six peoples. prostitues are living in very bad conditions.

Many surveys have been conducted to find out the extent of child prostitution. Dr. Gilada's paper on perspectives and positional problems of social intervention" shows that,
"70% of women are forced into prostitution and 20% of these are child prostitutes."

Statistics of the survey done show:-

City Population Prostitute Population

Bombay 10 million 100,000

Calcutta 9 million 100,000

Delhi 7 million 40,000

Agra 3 million 40,000

A survey conducted by Indian Health Organization of a red light area of Bombay shows:-

1. 20% of the one lakh prostitutes are children.
2. 25% of the child prostitutes had been abducted and sold.
3. 6% had been raped and sold.
4. 8% had been sold by their fathers after forcing them into incestuous relationships.
5. 2 lakh minor girls between ages 9yrs-20yrs were brought every year from Nepal to India and 20,000 of them are in Bombay brothels.
6. 15% to 18% are adolescents between 13 yrs and 18 yrs.
7. 15% of the women in prostitution have been sold by their husbands
8. Of 200m suffering from sexually transmitted diseases in the world 50m alone were in India.
9. 15% of them are devdasis.

Child Sex Workers: We have already mentioned in the previous section the development model that pushes the. IN this consumerism also plays its role. Their traditional role and place in the social structure is under threat because of non-implementation of land reform and rural development scheme. Increasing economic pressures are compelling them to cater to the needs of new social dispensation. In this regard it may be noted that is some section of rural society in Rajasthan, prostitution has spread on a wider scale as a result of attraction of the glitter of urban life and development of internal and foreign tourism.
It is estimated that here are about 2.5 million sex workers in the country and out of these slightly less than half a million are 768 girl sex workers in the category of children and has put out some eye opening facts. They have found that of these about 48 percent were pushed into in procession by 'friends'. About 33 percent are the victims of relatives' machinations. About 50 percent of the cases were of those who started working here at the age of 14 to 15 years; 42 percent between the ages of 11 to 13 years and the reset were less than this age group when they were pushed into this life of degradation. Some girls of under the age of 7 0r 8 years are sent to learn etiquette. There are some social groups in Rajasthan who have been traditionally contributing to the flesh trade. The practice has been that the girls from these groups have to cater to the base needs of the upper section of the society. One such groups that of Nutts. These people are generally concentrated in the areas of Alwar, Jaipur, Malbalaa, etc. These people live in clusters outside the village. Mahalla is about 13 kilometers from Jaipur on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway (some people also call it Maila). This place caters to the demands of outsiders who visit here specially to exploit their women.

The phenomenon of commercialized trafficking of their girls found an easy acceptability among kollas as Nadeem Hasnain, an anthropologist researched the Socio-economic and cultural variables responsible for the bondage. In his book Bonded for ever (1982) says. "… Centuries of exploitation and extreme degrees of material and non material deprivation and the resultant wretchedness have taken the fight out of them and they can hardly resist the temptation of getting some hundred rupees even at the cost of selling their offsprings and wives. It is an economic battle for life".

Nearly 5000 teenagers and women in a Tehsil of sangli district in South Maharastra wait for the month of June when the Arabs come and the year long poverty and hunger of these women, children, and babies is dispelled over night. The flesh trade flourishes from June to September and makes all the people connected with it happy.

In Rajashtan teenage prostitution is catching up as men sit and smoke hukkas while women fix bargains years after passing of the suppression of immoral traffic of women and children act. The children of the age group between 12 yrs to 20 yrs practice prostitution after school hours. Most of these children are later sold to the brothels of Agra and Delhi.

In big cities women procures are on a lookout for girls and they get girls from Basti, Gonda, Gorakhpur, Shahjahanpur, which are particularly notorious areas. Trilokpur police said that in a period of a year one thousand girls were sold in Doomariyaganj tahsil alone.

During the last 10 years tourism has increased and with it has come the scourge of AIDS. In Rajasthan old forts and havelis are being turned into high class and fashionable, tourist resorts. This has brought the wave of T.V., cinema, and consumerism to the surrounding rural areas also. All these have a combined effect to link these areas to urban child labour and child prostitution market.

It is estimated that about three lakh prostitutes under the age of 16 years in Indian brothels are from Nepal. We are told that a large percentage of prostitution in Pakistan are from Bangladesh. Such facts relate poverty to this type of exploitation.