Fighting for the 'right not to be a prostitute'

I spent about 18 months on the research and more on the actual shooting and production. Throughout this period I spent a great deal of time with the women inside the brothels. I wanted the documentary to be fair. I did not want to be a voyeur peeking into someone's life and then walking away. So I came to a deal with the women in the brothels; they could ask me as many questions as I asked them. This generated many discussions on feminism and women's empowerment. The women began to talk to each other as well. They had always felt so isolated and scared, but doing this project together they began to open up. They soon began to tell me not to go away but to do something to help them. However I told them that ultimately I could not do much; they had to do something for themselves. I told them I could be a facilitator. As a journalist I have seen all types of human suffering—war, famine, drought, natural disasters—but I had never, ever seen this type of exploitation of one human being by another. I could not just walk away. Twenty two women in prostitution and I set up a community based organization in 1998. And that is essentially how Apne Aap ('self-help' in Hindi) was born.

1. It sterilizes the inherently exploitative nature of prostitution and invalidates the women's traumatic experiences of subjugation, degradation and pain.
2. It also naturalizes the sexual exploitation of women and children and makes it socially acceptable.
3. The term 'sex-worker' makes it convenient for governments to ignore the structural social, economic and political policies that force women into prostitution. Very often governments, policy makers and buyers of prostituted sex argue that women choose prostitution as a work option over working in sweat shops, domestic servitude or other forms of hard or cheap labour. They forget, or choose to make invisible the fact that for women, other higher income options are limited, and prostitution and pornography remain among the more highly paid occupations available to women. They also fail to consider that economic and social policies make other lucrative employment unavailable to women and that gender discrimination and occupational segregation funnel women into particular occupations.
4. Calling prostitution 'sex-work' categorizes it as a kind of work, yet it cannot be categorized as work because it disconnects the self from the activity. Prostitution always involves penetration of the body. Apne Aap members see their sexuality as an integral part of themselves, and feel they are selling themselves when their bodies are sold for sex. To cope with the experience, many women in prostitution detach themselves emotionally from their bodies- effectively segmenting themselves, or entering into out of body experiences. So beside risking disease or death they suffer from the deep psychological trauma of alienation from their own bodies. There are also other differences between work and prostitution; a) While labour movements can and do guarantee certain minimum conditions and standards for workers, providing for energy and time needed for the worker to be a fulfilled human being, prostitution inherently cannot do so. For instance, all labour movements strive for minimum wages. In prostitution there is no guarantee of minimum wages, as the price of a woman varies with age, time of night, and location. Moreover, in brothel-based sex there is no such thing as minimum wages. For the first five years the brothel owner owns the woman or child, keeps her like a bonded slave and spends an amount to keep her in a subsistence condition. For the next five years, she may keep half of what she earns and later she is allowed to keep all that she earns but her earning capacity diminishes. b) All labour movements aspire to certain minimum working conditions. In prostitution, all women face violence that cannot be legislated away as they are ultimately alone with the buyer of prostituted sex. In both brothel-based and non-brothel based prostitution, women are commonly forced to speed up the process of earning more money by servicing an increasing number of buyers, sometimes up to 20 a day. They are also forced to provide all kinds of services and high-risk activities like sex without a condom as most often they have no negotiating power. They are kept locked up in brothels and have no access to medical care or education. Their children play on the floor while they service their buyers. They live in small rooms with barred windows end up suffering from insomnia, trauma, cigarette burns, jaundice, tuberculosis, cigarette burns, HIV/AIDS and trauma. They often undergo several abortions. While some of these conditions can be regulated in brothel-based prostitution, they cannot be regulated in street-based prostitution at all. c) All labour movements work to guarantee retirement benefits such as old age pension. Prostitution cannot guarantee old age benefits as there is no defined employer in street-based sex and in brothel-based sex, the women or child is often sold again and again from one brothel owner to another. Mortality rates in prostitution are high due to sexual violence, sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS, repeated abortions and suicide attempts related to psycho-social trauma. The average age of death of a woman in prostitution in India is now 35 years. Additionally, the older a women in prostitution gets, the less she is able to earn an income and very often ends up on the streets, with no income, a disease ridden body and a number of children. d) Finally and most importantly for labour movements is the question of the worker's dignity. Labour movements have ensured that miners do not have to crawl into mines anymore but should walk upright. However, in prostitution the woman or child is constantly humiliated physically, emotionally and psychologically. Her price is constantly negotiated as the night wears on or as she grows older. She is forced to sexualize her body for a time period and then desexualize it again at another time.
5. The term 'sex-worker' gives a false impression that agency and choice is exercised by women and children in prostitution. Apne Aap members' life-experiences reveal that the choice and agency in prostitution talked about in some policy circles is a choice allowed by the exploiter in an exploitative situation as happens in slavery. We can examine the exercise of choice in the life-cycle of a woman in prostitution over a period of 20 years from when she is 15 to when she is 35. This is a hopeful projection, though, as most Apne Aap members say that the normal time-span that the body of a woman can cope with prostitution is no more than ten years. a) The first five years (ages 15-20): In this period, girls are lured, kidnapped and sold. They are locked up in small rooms with barred windows and are only brought out by the brothel madam to serve up to 15-20 buyers of prostituted sex every night. They are served one meal a day and are given some clothes and toiletries, but they are not given any of the money that the buyer pays for them. They are in slavery-like conditions and have no choice. In every conversation with them, they talk about wanting to go home. b) The second five years (ages 20-25): This is a period of socialization within the brothels and the women are taught to become dependent on drugs and alcohol. Brothel madams also make sure that they have one or two children so that the women cannot think about returning home anymore. In this period, the women are allowed by the brothel madam to keep half of what they earn. Memories of home become hazy due to repeated violence and psycho-social trauma and they begin to suffer from the Stockholm syndrome, where the small mercies meted out by the kidnapper seem of great significance to the victim. With children, suffering from depression and disease, the women do not see a way out. At this time, when asked they say they want to stay in the brothels and not go back home. c) The third five years (ages 25-30): After ten years of physical abuse, malnutrition and drug and alcohol dependency, the earning capacity of the women diminishes. Buyers of prostituted sex look for younger girls. The women are allowed to keep all of their earnings but earnings go down and the needs of their children go up. At this time, they want to leave prostitution, but do not have the life-skills or the physical health to do so. They have no choice. d) The fourth five years (ages 30-35): In this period, the women have no buyers of prostituted sex, no income, have two or three children and disease ridden bodies. They are thrown out of the brothels and end up on the sidewalk. They cannot afford even one meal or even access to a toilet. They have no options and are forced to die on the streets.

Therefore, in a period of 20 years, women talk about wanting to exercise a choice to stay in prostitution for about five years. And even this exercise of choice or agency is in a situation where the women feel they have no other option but to try and make the best of what there is.

For all these reasons, Apne Aap members do not use the term 'sex-worker.' We also do not use the term 'prostitute' because of the stigma attached to it. We reject initiatives that argue for the 'right to be a prostitute,' as we believe it reinforces patriarchy and limits women's choices. We want women to have a level playing field with men, so that women can have the same career options as men. Apne Aap wants women to have the 'right not to be a prostitute.'

Rents have gone up in the inner cities where the red-light areas exist and women are being pushed out on the sidewalk by madams who sublet the brothels to migrant workers. On the sidewalk, they face beatings, kidnapping and rape. They do not have access to water or public toilets and so they scout the streets at night for a place to bathe or relieve themselves.