The biggest brothel in Asia, My Indian Life S2 Ep 9 - BBC World Service podcast — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Hi guys, this is Kalki Koechlin, and you're listening to the YouTube version of My Indian Life.
2. 0:06The podcast brought to you by the BBC World Service.
3. 0:08You can comment on this episode below. Or you can just watch, or you can just listen.
4. 0:19Sonagachi - a warren of narrow streets and winding lanes in central Kolkata, home to at least 11,000
5. 0:26sex workers. Maybe Asia's largest red light district. And this is Leena who grew up living
6. 0:34right next door. So all these houses here which you can already
7. 0:38see on the side street that's all Sonagachi – so can you see that that? That whole corner
8. 0:42there and these houses with all the saris flying. And at night to come in there you
9. 0:48can see actually purple lights and red lights, and in the buildings the lights on so all
10. 0:53psychedelic, yeah. And we were always told <> don't go at the back, don't look at the
11. 0:56back. That was a big taboo so everyone had there was an underlying thing that you are
12. 1:01not supposed to look there. But in this episode, we are going to look
13. 1:06there, however dark what we find may turn out to be.
14. 1:11This is My Indian Life from the BBC World Service, your podcast about being young and
15. 1:16Indian in the 21st Century. I'm Kalki Koechlin, and this is episode eight: the Biggest Brothel
16. 1:25in Asia. This story is brought to us by our producer
17. 1:42Ishleen Kaur – Ishleen, tell us about it? Hi Kalki – hi everyone - so you know, Kalki
18. 1:48when we were researching about stories we might cover in this series - I just kept finding
19. 1:53myself drawn to this one. This weird, scary, famous place in Kolkata?
20. 1:58That’s right. And I found out about one woman in particular who I knew we had to talk
21. 2:03to for the podcast. She was born and raised in Kolkata, and grew up right next to Sonagachi.
22. 2:10Her curiosity and fascination with this neighbourhood really shaped her life as an adult – and
23. 2:16in turn, today she’s trying to change the lives of women caught up in the sex industry.
24. 2:21And you went to see her in Kolkata? I did… and let me tell you, it was a real
25. 2:25eye-opener! Just Rs 500 and I will give you a nice girl…
26. 2:28At first glance, Sonagachi feels like any other busy market place – people are talking,
27. 2:33doing business, buying pakoras from roadside tea stalls, groups of men sit around playing
28. 2:38cards. And then you start to tune into the conversations people are having, and hear
29. 2:42exactly what it is people are selling. I pass a woman talking to a man – a customer.
30. 2:53This is Sonagachi, she says. Just 500 rupees, come to the room. I’ll give you a great
31. 2:59girl. And if you like it, come again. The streets here are lined with a few colourful
32. 3:05bungalows, jammed in between tiny single room cubicles, barely big enough for a bed. Look
33. 3:12through their doorways, and you see women fixing their make-up, brushing their hair,
34. 3:16some in traditional dresses, and a few trying to hide their faces.
35. 3:22As I walk down the street with my microphone, some men look at us suspiciously – others
36. 3:28don’t seem bothered at all. Sonagachi – the whole neighbourhood - is in effect one huge
37. 3:34brothel. And for me, it felt surreal, and a little
38. 3:39uncomfortable to be there. But for the person I was going to meet Leena Kejriwal, a photographer
39. 3:45and artist, a mother and a campaigner, Sonagachi is home.
40. 3:51So though I was here, we were of course were never told what will what will be at. And
41. 3:57at some moment of time when we used to see some figures and girls standing on the road
42. 4:01outside, you were always told, you’re not supposed to look there. So you always wondered
43. 4:06what was it I was not supposed to look at and you know, very, very curious about what's
44. 4:10going on behind the house. But there were many anecdotes and things you know, like little
45. 4:14girls are caught and kept here. And this is told to another little girl. So I think these
46. 4:20were feelings which just didn't leave me, what probably these girls could have felt.
47. 4:26But that wasn’t just an urban myth - some girls ARE trapped in Sonagachi – and has
48. 4:33she got older, Leena began to realise what a dangerous place it could be for a young
49. 4:38woman. One evening I'm in high school, and I'm studying.
50. 4:44It's two o'clock at night. And I just hear this blood curdling scream. I was 17. And
51. 4:52I was alone. I didn't know what to do. There's nothing I could do, because I'm here and I
52. 4:57heard somebody probably scream in that whole maze of buildings, no clue about where that
53. 5:04scream came from. And it was shut within a second like the scream came for approximately,
54. 5:09I would say, two or three seconds, really loud and really heart wrenching. And then
55. 5:17you could make out it was clamped. I think these are stuff which you know, just making
56. 5:22so sensitive to this issue. I still think about it.
57. 5:28Well, that was Ishleen reporting from Sonagachi. And now she's back here with me in the My
58. 5:35Indian Life studio, along with Leena who we met in that report. Hi, Leena.
59. 5:41Hi Kalki. Great to meet you, Leena. Before we go into
60. 5:44the details of Sonagachi can you tell us about your campaign and what you're trying to do?
61. 5:48Okay, so it starts with me being a photographer as a creative person and kind of trying to
62. 5:54understand spaces within a city. And one such visit takes me into a red light. And it's
63. 6:00an it's an experience which doesn't leave me and I realised like I'm really sensitive
64. 6:04to the plight of the young girls standing there. And I more than ever wanted to talk
65. 6:09about that in my artwork. So from a photographer, I went on to be an installation artist, and
66. 6:15then a public artist - because I wanted to talk to the public. That set me out to actually
67. 6:21create an artwork which transcended language barriers, which would catch the attention,
68. 6:26generate curiosity, empathy, and all for the young girl. So I created this silhouette of
69. 6:31this girl, which came out from one of my portraits of the young girls, I was mentoring in a red
70. 6:36light, in the city. And it turned out to be a very powerful piece of work, which I titled
71. 6:42‘Missing’. And why the name Missing?
72. 6:45Well, missing because when I was delving into the whole topic, and I realised the horrific
73. 6:50stats of trafficking in India, how 16 million were being trafficked, and how 51% of them
74. 6:57were young girls, and how the age of a girl getting traffic was dropping from 14-13-11-9,
75. 7:02and that 7-year- olds are being fetching the highest prices in the dark web of trafficking.
76. 7:09That's when I realised that way back in 1990, Amartya Sen had for spoken about India's missing.
77. 7:16And that title was something that struck me and I just realised that Missing would be
78. 7:20an appropriate title for the project. Lena, tell me what is it that you're trying
79. 7:24to do with Missing? What I really wanted to do because I spent
80. 7:28many years in the red light with my friends working there. And I saw that they were having
81. 7:32such a tough time keeping second generation prostitution out, let alone the first, because
82. 7:37every day there was a new girl standing there. And that only happened because of the demand
83. 7:41which the public makes, and people who are willing to buy her. So I wanted to create
84. 7:46a dent in that demand, I wanted to create a mass awareness amongst the population to
85. 7:51say, ‘hey, don’t you want to know where she's coming from? Who is she? Do you really
86. 7:55think she wants standing there of her own will?’ So Missing primarily wants to shake
87. 8:00you wants to create a kind of a silent argument in a public space, and make you think about
88. 8:01these young girls who are going missing into the dark world of trafficking.
89. 8:09Ishleen you met a few women and kids at Sonagachi? That's right – and it’s really shocking
90. 8:14when you walk around the streets of Sonagachi, you see just as many children as you do adults.
91. 8:21And these are the children of the sex workers, born and raised in the brothel – many are
92. 8:26not going to school. But Leena took me to visit a charity called
93. 8:30Hamari Muskan which is trying to bring a degree of structure to their lives. They get a basic
94. 8:35education – and therapy too, to help them through what is a very traumatic life. And
95. 8:40as I saw, they learn karate too. Paromita is a child psychologist who works
96. 8:50for Hamari Muskan – and she told me about the work they’re doing.
97. 8:54It’s very important for us to provide a safe space to all the children. We want to
98. 8:59stop second generation prostitution. We work with the community gradually to bring about
99. 9:07the social change because it has been a generational thing, and we cannot eradicate it in a few
100. 9:15years, but what's very important for us that the children that we are working with. We
101. 9:21want them to have a safe, dignified life. Paromita introduces me to some of the children
102. 9:31– they are all between 11-16 years old years old.
103. 9:34Many of them tell me they don’t feel safe. A young girls tells me he avoids going out,
104. 9:43because he gets nasty comments [about his mother].
105. 9:48Another one tells me, she feels nervous every time she steps out in Sonagachi.
106. 9:53And a 15-year-old-girl, wearing a plain kurta and neatly braided hair tells me she wants
107. 10:02to bring change to Sonagachi. She says she knows many girls her age have
108. 10:07become sex workers – but they have bigger dreams.
109. 10:10She tells me her dream is to be an advocate for young girls in her neighbourhood, so they
110. 10:14don’t have to enter this profession. Many children live with their mothers in a
111. 10:19single room home – the same room where they have sex with their customers, often in front
112. 10:24of the children. They witness violence and many children say they go to bed at night
113. 10:30not feeling safe. They don’t have a childhood, Paromita says.
114. 10:34When a child grows up in a red light area, they are exposed to a lot of experiences which
115. 10:42are adult experiences. They see a lot of things, they hear a lot of things, which are stimulating
116. 10:49and violating, but it’s also very much enmeshed within their lives, within their space. The
117. 10:58trauma that they have, there are boys that we have experienced their mothers leaving
118. 11:05them behind, with nobody. We have children who are just growing up living with one family
119. 11:13one day, living with another family another day, so it definitely kind of impacts their
120. 11:19well-being. Leena, what do they mean by the kids don't
121. 11:30have a childhood? Well, see you're growing up in a space which
122. 11:35doesn't give you the basics which a child needs. They don't even have a point where
123. 11:40they sleep, which is their bed. They don't have sleeping timings. They don't have wake
124. 11:45up timings. They're constantly moved, shoved, pushed around to make space for their mother
125. 11:51to do her job. And relationships they are like, I mean, an uncle could become the father
126. 11:58soon. And the father could be somebody whom the mother banishes out thrown out. So there's
127. 12:04nothing sanctimonious. And, and that's like the basic threads of what our childhood or
128. 12:08a child needs, and they don't receive it. And one other thing that we’ve really seen
129. 12:12in the space is that when they do this play, in these therapy sessions, they've actually
130. 12:18enacted abortions at that early age of five or six. They've seen things which a normal
131. 12:24child doesn't see. So there's really no normal childhood.
132. 12:27Right and do they even get an education or go to school?
133. 12:31No, it's only the few lucky ones who get under the wings of an NGO which works there, that
134. 12:36they are able to at least have an option of, you know, of a brighter future.
135. 12:40So while there are NGOs, like the one you and Ishleen went to, that are trying to give
136. 12:45kids in a brothel, a better life, what do you think needs to be done on a bigger scale?
137. 12:51What do you think that it is you are doing? So, like what I said, when I set out with
138. 12:56Missing, it's this bigger demand which we want to curb, so it has to be systematic awareness.
139. 13:01We also realised that at the same time, there was this really big hub in the remote West
140. 13:07Bengal, from where 44% of India's trafficking victims are coming out of and that’s the
141. 13:11Sundarbans. The Sundarbans the largest mangrove forest
142. 13:15in the world, right? Yes, it's known for that. Yeah. People know
143. 13:18it for the Royal Bengal tiger. They know it for being a heritage site, but there is this
144. 13:23whole other side of it, which we go to which people don't see.
145. 13:27Why do you think such a huge number? Because when I went there I realised it's
146. 13:31so remote. The distance between one house to the other is huge. Like, you could actually
147. 13:37end up not meeting anybody for days. And they're very poor. So they're struggling with even
148. 13:42getting the food on their plate. And that makes them really intensely vulnerable to
149. 13:46traffickers who come in. And traffickers when they come in they lure you with love, traffickers
150. 13:52lure you for money, for work. So sometimes parents do set their girls free in the hands
151. 13:58of agents, saying that they're going to give them work in a city.
152. 14:01Not knowing the nature of the work… Not knowing the nature of the work, and so
153. 14:04I've kind of recently stepped into the Sundarbans to kind of create a systematic awareness project
154. 14:11there and go into schools, because that's where you catch them young, because it's children
155. 14:16generally do come to school up to a certain age. And Sundarbans is where we work now,
156. 14:20which is why I wanted to show Ishleen what is happening there.
157. 14:27Letter from Pakistan Travelling to the Sundarbans, made me realise
158. 14:34that Leena really wasn’t joking when she said these communities are remote. It took
159. 14:39us over 4 hours to cover a distance of just over 100 kms - and that’s cause during the
160. 14:45monsoon the roads get REALLY bad. It’s truly a wild terrain and does have
161. 14:50some breath-taking views, and spotting a monitor lizard on the road like we did …I mean literally
162. 14:57breath taking…It is actually as thrilling as it is serene.
163. 15:05So, it was quite a journey and we arrived in one of the villages where Leena is doing
164. 15:11her work, warning people about the risks of sex trafficking – and how it can be stopped.
165. 15:18So we came here to first start doing awareness because premising primarily works on awareness,
166. 15:24prevention through awareness. So we did our school awareness programme where we go into
167. 15:28schools and we are telling people how you can get trafficked, who can traffic you, what
168. 15:32can you play as a role as an bystander? And what is trafficking? Because I feel it's something
169. 15:38which some of the survivors whom I met in my early days, and I didn't know this happens,
170. 15:43people live in this area, the young girls and I just grow up playing the field and enjoying
171. 15:49themselves in school, and not even knowing that somebody might lure them into trafficking.
172. 15:53So there were a few said that, so that's why even the government with the new anti-trafficking
173. 15:58bill has put awareness as an important space there. So we came here to do a really systematic
174. 16:03rural awareness programme. I had gone to fill water and somebody, some
175. 16:19boy, he snuffed me and made me unconscious and kidnapped me. I was in 2 places, 2 months
176. 16:26in one place and one month in one place. This is Ismat – she grew up in Kultali in
177. 16:32the Sundarbans and told me about how she was trafficked.
178. 16:39He would beat me, he broke my thigh bones, he abused me - and then one day I got hold
179. 16:45of a client’s phone and I called my father, and my father called the team here for rescue.
180. 16:54Now back home, in the safety of her family, Ismat is working with Leena to warn young
181. 16:58girls – and the wider community – on how they can prevent more girls being kidnapped
182. 17:03like she was. t's been a really good journey with her. I
183. 17:07first met her when she was still going through her court case. Because she had actually taken
184. 17:12her trafficker to court – the trafficker was from within the community. She was actually
185. 17:17a person who actually did embroidery and one day she had gone to this house to deliver
186. 17:22some of her goods. And when she went in somebody from behind, shut the gate and hit her on
187. 17:28the head. And three days later, when she opened her eyes, she was in Delhi or Ghaziabad, some
188. 17:32far off space. And because she was this ferocious woman who fought, you know, for her freedom,
189. 17:39they really treated her badly. They broke her legs, they hit her on the head. I mean,
190. 17:45she literally can show you her stitches even now. But she was one of the few lucky ones
191. 17:49who got rescued in a police raid. So she was able to come back home. And now she's come
192. 17:54a long way. We've now made her kind of a community leader in her space. So I’m really happy
193. 18:00with how it’s going. Leena finds herself in a tough spot. With
194. 18:07a market where numbers of girls trafficked every year are going up and the age going
195. 18:12down. She says it's a very sensitive space and her biggest challenge is to get big corporates
196. 18:17to get involved, and encourage women working in this space. Money being the biggest restraint
197. 18:23– and society being the second. Do they ever feel that we failed them?
198. 18:31Oh, constantly. They're actually in this ball of frustration, anger. And because once they've
199. 18:37come out, they're thankful. But beyond that, then they start getting hurt about what happened
200. 18:41to them and the anger sets in. And it's also about how society looks at them. I have another
201. 18:47survivor who's come back, and now she's fighting for her in her case. And her mother just shifted
202. 18:52to a better house, because we supported her. But the people around her house are treating
203. 18:58them so bad, just because she's been a victim. And then also your stories of girls who go
204. 19:04back. There are so many of them who go back into the dark world because they at least
205. 19:08feel that somewhere they can have a life. Because here there’ll be constantly abused
206. 19:14and become victims again and again. And at the same time, they are still economically
207. 19:20very poor. While in this dark space, which after a year or two when they are given more
208. 19:26freedom, they start feeling ‘oh at least they can call something theirs’ – be it
209. 19:31the money they can start saving, be it from stuff which they never imagined that they
210. 19:36would embrace. There is this really tough cycle which they have to go through and not
211. 19:41many survive it. It's quite important to highlight what Leena
212. 19:45mentions here. How, because of lack of any acceptance by society, women go back to that
213. 19:51dark hole. Yes, because even though you and me are sitting
214. 19:54here and talking about it, there are so many others who will see yeah? And then they'll
215. 19:59just flick their heads and probably look at something else or talk about something else
216. 20:02because nobody wants to go deeper in this conversation. So it's something which I think
217. 20:07it's has to become a part of everybody's language, just like how you would talk about saving
218. 20:13the world. I mean, there are more little girls getting trafficked today than ever before,
219. 20:17you say in the history of mankind actually. So until it doesn't become something very
220. 20:19conscious level of, you know, understanding amongst all our, the way we live, just like
221. 20:21how we all are going green, organic, literally, we all have to talk about how are we responsible
222. 20:28of the fact that these girls are becoming victims because of demands. Because of our
223. 20:32passive acceptance. Nobody expected seven year olds to fetch such high prices and now
224. 20:37people raise - ‘oh, really bad’ - but it's all happening because nobody's doing
225. 20:41anything about it and they letting things happen.
226. 20:47Leena says it's imperative to have a dialogue. It's important to realise what's happening
227. 20:56and come to terms with that reality. It needs the involvement of the government, corporate
228. 21:02NGOs, and committed individuals to achieve the overall objective of ensuring a better
229. 21:07future for this neglected section of our society. What caught my attention with our conversation
230. 21:15with Lena is when she spoke about public apathy. I might feel ‘how am I responsible for sex
231. 21:22trafficking?’ But even in our attitudes, towards sexuality in our consumption of porn,
232. 21:28how we have younger and younger children being sexualised on social media, how we don't talk
233. 21:33about sex at home with our parents, or even sometimes with our own partners, can all have
234. 21:38a butterfly effect on the demand for sex trafficking. And I think that's something we can all take
235. 21:43home with us and think about more deeply. From me, Kalki, and all of us, thank you for
236. 21:51listening to My Indian Life. And do let us know what you think of this podcast. If you
237. 21:57have an interesting story to tell, or you know somebody who has inspired you, and you
238. 22:02think his/her story needs to be told, I would love to hear from you.
239. 22:07All you have to do is send an email to My Indian Life at BBC dot com.
240. 22:11You can tell us what you think of this story, or any of our others. Our producer Ishleen
241. 22:16has been looking at some of your recent messages.
242. 22:19Hello everyone. Here’s what you’ve been saying on email and social media about our
243. 22:24latest episodes. Last week we spoke to Arushi and Arun, about
244. 22:28their amazing work, cleaning up the environment. Keerthi from Germany emailed us to say, I
245. 22:34am a huge fan of your show and I absolutely love hearing each episode.
246. 22:36The latest episode "Saving the Planet" has deeply motivated me. I’m learning about
247. 22:41climate change and sustainability every day and I think it’s us youth who should bring
248. 22:47change in our society. I'm inspired to contribute and I'm sure many others will do so too.
249. 22:53And a couple of weeks ago we spoke to Ilma Afroz, about her amazing journey from growing
250. 22:59up in a small village in UP, to studying at some of the world’s top universities, to
251. 23:04an international career in Paris and New York – and her decision to give it all up to
252. 23:09return to India to become a police officer. Harshad says: it’s really motivating to
253. 23:15listen to My Indian Life – a podcast which inspires us at every moment. Ilma’s episode
254. 23:21was inspirational to listen to. And Param is a fan too: This is so beautiful!
255. 23:27It gave me goosebumps! And we’ve had some amazing emails from you
256. 23:31about our interview with Drag King, Bidisha – a singer and performer with a male alter
257. 23:36ego - a Persian Prince named Badshah. Bindu says: the Drag King episode made me
258. 23:41super emotional, it was stupid of me to listen to it at work as it was tough to hold back
259. 23:46tears. Three years ago I realized that I’m bisexual, and that I am attracted to women.
260. 23:53Listening to Bidisha’s experiences as a teenager was like looking into a mirror.
261. 23:58Thank you for making a show like this and most importantly for bringing people from
262. 24:04different walks of life to share their life story with the world.
263. 24:08Thank you for writing Bindu. And if you’re yet to experience these amazing
264. 24:13stories, fear not! You can find them all wherever you get your podcasts – so go and download
265. 24:19them now. And please keep your emails coming – the
266. 24:22address is My Indian Life at BBC dot com. Or you can share your comments on social media
267. 24:29using the hashtag My Indian Life. In our next episode…
268. 24:36Everyone’s been talking of Mars, nobody’s been there, so I want to be the first human
269. 24:40on Mars... That’s our next episode: The Boy Who Dreamed
270. 24:44of Space. My Indian Life is an original podcast from
271. 24:51the BBC World Service. I’m Kalki Koechlin. Our producers are Ishleen Kaur and Prabhjit
272. 24:56Bains. And thanks very much to our editor, Richard Fenton-Smith.