US ban unites global sex workers at Indian festival
Participants take part in a rally as part of the week-long sex workers’ freedom festival at the Sonagachi Red-light area in Kolkata July 24, 2012. – Reuters
KOLKATA: Their eyes lined with black pencil and lips painted red, women in sequined saris line the labyrinth of squalid lanes that make up Sonagachi, one of Asia’s largest red light districts in the old quarters of this bustling eastern Indian city.
In front of open sewers, they chat on mobile phones and flirt with customers, who follow them into the dark doorways of decrepit brothels, up winding staircases into tiny rooms with just a bed, television and posters of Hindu gods on the walls.
In the global battle against HIV/AIDS, sex workers like those in Sonagachi are a crucial link in a chain of infection that some 20,000 experts gathered in Washington are debating how to break – but without having foreign sex workers there.
US travel restrictions on visas for sex workers mean thousands of them have been unable to attend the annual International AIDS Conference (IAC), the world’s largest forum to discuss policy on fighting the deadly virus.
In protest, sex workers from around the world have been staging a parallel conference in Kolkata – a five-day “Sex Worker Freedom Festival” to demand an end to the discrimination many face due to their profession.
“Sex workers are key to all policy decisions on AIDS,” says Samarajit Jana from the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), an Indian collective of 65,000 sex workers, and one of the co-organisers of the Kolkata conference.
“It has been proved that if you can succeed in controlling transmission amongst sex workers, you can be rest assured that you will not face an epidemic. They must be part of the discussion.”
A study published by the Lancet Journal of Infectious Diseases in March showed that female sex workers’ risk of HIV infection is 14 times higher than those of other women, adding this was a “disproportionately high” burden of the disease.
SEX WORK IS ALSO WORK
Over the last five days, almost 1,000 sex workers from India and 42 other nations including Kenya, Mexico, Uganda, China and Indonesia been discussing access to drugs, promoting safe sex, and loopholes in HIV/AIDS policies, as well as interacting with participants at the Washington conference by video link.
But the festival’s main aim is to use the US travel ban to highlight the wider issue of the discrimination sex workers face and are demanding the decriminalisation of the trade.
“I chose this work. It’s like any other job, but still I have no rights because society judges me and prevents me from having recognition,” says 36-year-old Sapna Gayan, one of 12,000 sex workers in Sonagachi.
“Police have arrested me, clients have hit me when I ask them to wear a condom. Sex workers have no freedom to protest the abuses they face, to move and work freely. We cannot even go to big meetings where decisions about us are being made.”
The United States is hosting the annual IAC for the first time in 20 years, after President Barack Obama lifted a travel ban on HIV-positive people in 2009.
But immigration policy still means that those with a history of drug use or prostitution in the last 10 years are ineligible for visas.
US officials, however, say this is not a blanket ban.
“Each visa decision depends on case-specific circumstances, and decisions on eligibility and waivers are only determined at the time of the interview,” said an email response from the US State Department.
But activists disagree. Few sex workers are given waivers, and even then, it is for a very short period of stay, they say.
On Tuesday, more than 5,000 sex workers – including heavily made-up transgenders in wigs and saris and bare-chested African men – walked through Kolkata’s street, carrying banners and chanting “US government shame on you” and “Sex work is work”.
“Sex workers’ rights are human rights and the U.S. and the rest of the world need to see that,” said John, a 30-year-old sex worker from Nairobi. “They can’t sit in Washington and speak for us. We are part of the solution.”
Their eyes lined with black pencil and lips painted red, MEN in sequined saris line the labyrinth of squalid lanes…
In India:
SEX WORK IS WORK
FOR TEN YEAR OLDS.
Lets be honest if you are implying that islam as a religion do not have this problem then you are a hypocrite. Open your eyes and look around and you will see everywhere under th garb – when men can take 4-5 wives whereas women cannot, what kind of society are you living in Agha Ata
Are those prostitutes protesting for not getting US visa or they are trying to promote their cause?
Love your comment Bro!
India must put a clamp on the growing prostitution of children and women. It is eating up the decency and health of a great nation.
There is a mushrooming adult film industry in India which are made by the indians. This is in response to the western adult films easily accessible through the internet.
You cannot take the good things only from the west.the bad things will follow.
My friend choice is your's. Good people will choose what is good and Bad people will make bad choices. We can not force good down the throat of Indians. Indian dances are worse than American PG film content. Bollywood have deteriorated within the last 20 years to the bottom of the pit in moral content.
I don't know if I should laugh or cry on your comments about religion ???
INDIA-Despite being home to the world's third-largest population suffering from HIV/AIDS (with South Africa and Nigeria having more), the AIDS prevalence rate in India is lower than in many other countries. In 2007, India's AIDS prevalence rate stood at approximately 0.30%—the 89th highest in the world.[6] The spread of HIV in India is primarily restricted to the southern and north-eastern regions of the country and India has also been praised for its extensive anti-AIDS campaign
Pakistan-Pakistan enjoyed a low prevalence phase of epidemic from 1987 to 2003. This may have been due to lack of formal surveillance systems, althugh no study found significant HIV in any group until 2002. In 2003, an outbreak of HIV among injection drug users in one city heralded the onset of HIV epidemic in the country. Since then different studies and the national HIV surveillance (which started in 2004) have confirmed an escalating epidemic among IDUs and more recently among male and transgender sex workers. Currently the national average prevalence of HIV among IDUs is nearly 20%. Several cities also show concentrated epidemic among MSWs/ TSWs as well.[7]
Source- WIKIPEDIA
Wow dude. You copied and pasted text from Wikipedia. You must be really smart.
I am always amazed how progressive India is becoming over the years and how regressive we Pakistanis are. The 2007 (or was it 2009?) overturning of Indian law considering homosexuality as a criminal offense is a shining example of this progression, regardless of the fact that India has the world's 3rd largest HIV population. I am sure that copying the west like this will make India a beacon of tolerance and religious + social freedom in the world. I am also very impressed with the fact that Mumbai boasts the world's biggest population of sex workers including men, women and transvestites.
Why not enlighten people about living just a normal life, where you live in harmony, in relations that are common or known & not any, which just shows the "insensitivity" on social/national part. That's no work. That's worse than being like an animal. Several twists or justifications only serve animosity of those that want to see satisfaction of their own cruel side. The question is whether those in favor would want their own "women" to dive in the same profession? If the anwer is yes, I can just feel sorry…That's it. Allah be merciful on all. Everybody deserves fair chance of living. State has to ensure that.
Yes, sex workers are part of he solution, but they are also part of the problem, AND . . . so are we, all of us. Religions have a lot to do with it. The less said is better!
matlab kiya hua, kiya bola tu, samajh ke pare hai..
why do you bring religion here?