India’s prostitution villages | DW Documentary — Transcript

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1. 0:00[Applause]
2. 0:02rajkumari is waiting for customers at
3. 0:04the
4. 0:07roadside she has a young baby to feed at
5. 0:10home and a family to support so far no
6. 0:17luck rajkumari is one of the hundreds of
7. 0:19thousands of Indian women in
8. 0:22institutionalized sex work in a practice
9. 0:25with roots in the ageold cast system
10. 0:33[Music]
11. 0:41just 3 hours away from India's capital
12. 0:43New Delhi is a starkly different world
13. 0:47I'm traveling to a cluster of villages
14. 0:49known for sex work this is G GOI a
15. 0:53village in the district of alare in the
16. 0:55state of
17. 0:58Rajasthan here I'm meet Anita who is a
18. 1:01sex worker at her request we have
19. 1:04changed her
20. 1:07name she says she's of legal age but
21. 1:10doesn't look it Anka is getting ready
22. 1:13for a client her clients include men
23. 1:16from nearby Villages truck drivers or
24. 1:19migrant workers that pass through on the
25. 1:21highways and young men with disposable
26. 1:25incomes she joined the profession 3
27. 1:27years ago and says it was by choice as
28. 1:31it enables her to support her
29. 1:34family I know from my father that my
30. 1:36aunt also worked like this I got into
31. 1:39this field due to
32. 1:43Poverty how much are you earning at the
33. 1:45moment about 60 to 70,000 rupees per
34. 1:49month around
35. 1:51€750 apart from me no one in my family
36. 1:54can find work we were starving we need a
37. 1:57roof over our heads we need to build a
38. 1:59house and my sister needs to get
39. 2:02married do you have any debt I paid it
40. 2:06all off how much was it about
41. 2:09€1,000 oh that's a lot did you pay that
42. 2:12back yes everything within 2 years 3
43. 2:20years having to borrow money traps many
44. 2:24families here in a vicious cycle Banks
45. 2:27do not lend money since they do not
46. 2:29consider sex work as
47. 2:31work so these families turn to local
48. 2:34lenders who charge exorbitant interest
49. 2:36rates making them even
50. 2:39poorer RNA we also changed her real name
51. 2:43is the eldest of a total of seven
52. 2:46siblings due to high debt she also has
53. 2:49to work as a prostitute like her mother
54. 2:52and her
55. 2:53aunt I was 15 when I understood what it
56. 2:56was all about and at the same time it
57. 2:59became more and more clear to me how
58. 3:01poor we
59. 3:02are so I got
60. 3:06in what was the
61. 3:08situation my little siblings always had
62. 3:11to beg for
63. 3:12food we have no real house no land
64. 3:16nothing at some point the money that my
65. 3:19mother earned here as a sex worker
66. 3:21didn't suffice so she had to go to
67. 3:25Mumbai in hotels you can earn
68. 3:28more had to leave us alone to do
69. 3:34so it became clear to me that it was the
70. 3:37only way to make money and essentially
71. 3:39for us to survive one day I finally said
72. 3:43to her I don't want you to do this I
73. 3:46will take care of this I am now the
74. 3:47bread winner of the
75. 3:51family rashna went to Mumbai through an
76. 3:54agent who recruited her by contacting
77. 3:56local pimps in an elaborate sex trade
78. 3:59Network
79. 4:00there are an estimated 3 million sex
80. 4:03workers in India between ages 15 and 35
81. 4:07sex work is legal in India pimping and
82. 4:10human trafficking are
83. 4:12not this is a matter of survival for
84. 4:15many like RNA they are abused in the
85. 4:17system but stay for lack of any other
86. 4:20avenues of
87. 4:23work when I was very young I had a
88. 4:26client in Mumbai who treated me horribly
89. 4:32he wouldn't even pay
90. 4:35me instead he beat me black and blue and
91. 4:40even stole my
92. 4:43clothes I ran after him but couldn't
93. 4:46take them
94. 4:48back it was extremely humiliating
95. 5:00there is a stigma attached to these
96. 5:02Villages as the people here belong to
97. 5:05the bottom of the cast
98. 5:07hierarchy nuts Bia banara and kjer where
99. 5:12these women come from have traditionally
100. 5:14been nomadic tribes they move from place
101. 5:17to place they're scattered all over but
102. 5:20many are in the states of madhia Pradesh
103. 5:22Rajasthan harana and utar Pradesh
104. 5:32before the women were driven into sex
105. 5:34work these ethnic groups worked mainly
106. 5:37as performers dancers jugglers acrobats
107. 5:41and
108. 5:42magicians because of their work and way
109. 5:44of life the British colonial power
110. 5:46viewed these ethnic groups as a
111. 5:49threat in 1871 they were criminalized
112. 5:53under the criminal tribes act which was
113. 5:56only repealed at the time of India's
114. 5:58independence
115. 6:01stereotypes about these tribes still
116. 6:04persist in society and makes it almost
117. 6:07impossible for them to start other
118. 6:09professions or means of
119. 6:15livelihood I went to meet male members
120. 6:18of a family from the
121. 6:24community there's a lot of
122. 6:26discrimination no one wants to give us
123. 6:28decent jobs
124. 6:30that would mean we could climb up and
125. 6:31out of our
126. 6:32misery people don't want that so there's
127. 6:35no
128. 6:40change how do you determine that how is
129. 6:43this noticeable in everyday
130. 6:51life they won't even stand or walk next
131. 6:54to us because we belong to a low
132. 6:56cast They tell us to go away but it's
133. 7:00getting better as more and more of us
134. 7:01push to go to
135. 7:06school otherwise they wouldn't let us
136. 7:08come near their
137. 7:12homes in school nobody would sit next to
138. 7:14me I wouldn't even show my ID card
139. 7:17fearing retaliation and humiliation
140. 7:19because of our
141. 7:21cast some children here don't know who
142. 7:23their father is of course the mother's
143. 7:26customers don't give names but this is a
144. 7:29problem because in many places you can
145. 7:31only be officially registered with your
146. 7:33father's name so these kids fall through
147. 7:36the
148. 7:38cracks but women have been able to
149. 7:40challenge some gender roles by becoming
150. 7:42the primary bread
151. 7:45winner those who make money are strong
152. 7:48our women are strong they support the
153. 7:51family they call the
154. 7:57shots the women are ahead of us here
155. 8:00they are immensely
156. 8:03respected these women are able to bring
157. 8:06income to the families build properties
158. 8:08and make homes they can pay off Family
159. 8:11debts which not many women in India can
160. 8:14do some eventually leave the village and
161. 8:16move to the country's major Urban
162. 8:18centers to Delhi Mumbai or Kolkata some
163. 8:21even as far as
164. 8:24Dubai husbands fathers and brothers of
165. 8:27the sex workers are involved in enabling
166. 8:29this trade and contributing to the
167. 8:32family economy they act as pimps but
168. 8:35also do house Tores and raise
169. 8:43children but there are women who are
170. 8:45completely on their own this can be
171. 8:48difficult especially when they get older
172. 8:50snata only had one daughter who also
173. 8:53worked as a sex worker then she died
174. 8:56probably from a sexually transmitted
175. 8:58disease
176. 9:01I don't have any other kids she died she
177. 9:04got very
178. 9:08ill most of the women we spoke to would
179. 9:11like to move on from this life Anka
180. 9:14dreams of marriage when she's done
181. 9:16helping her
182. 9:21family rashna does everything to give
183. 9:23her child a decent education which she
184. 9:26hopes would weigh her way to Freedom
185. 9:36however something is slowly changing in
186. 9:38The
187. 9:39Villages I meet goodu nagar a teacher
188. 9:43who is supported by an NGO working to
189. 9:46end sex
190. 9:49work today's lesson is about
191. 9:52grammar he believes a good education
192. 9:54will help the women find safer ways of
193. 9:58employment group of words which gives a
194. 10:01complete sense is
195. 10:13[Music]
196. 10:20called this has already worked for a few
197. 10:22families one girl even managed to get
198. 10:25into the police force in je the nearest
199. 10:28major city
200. 10:30another family has several children in
201. 10:33medical professions one boy is a left
202. 10:35technician two girls are study one is
203. 10:38going to become a
204. 10:40doctor in these families no woman works
205. 10:44as a sex
206. 10:50worker nagar belongs to the same tribes
207. 10:53his relatives were in the sex trade
208. 10:55too he wanted to break the cycle he
209. 10:59started by teaching himself to read and
210. 11:01write and then his
211. 11:11relatives our nomadic way of life was
212. 11:13one of the reasons it was too difficult
213. 11:15for us to escape our misery I have four
214. 11:17brothers none of whom went to school and
215. 11:20some of my sisters are still illiterate
216. 11:22I was lucky after I had taught myself a
217. 11:25few things a social worker from an NGO
218. 11:27helped me today I have an official
219. 11:29degree and can work as a
220. 11:37teacher there are stories like this but
221. 11:40few and far between members of the
222. 11:43community are trying to change the
223. 11:45destiny of the Next Generation
224. 11:49It's
225. 11:51s n I'm Nancy and I want to be an air
226. 11:55hostess one day why an air hostess it's
227. 11:58my dream dream because you want to fly
228. 12:07yes our desperate hope is simmering that
229. 12:10through education and knowing their
230. 12:13rights these women can leave the
231. 12:15shackles of the past