The Hindu : A safe nest

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 14, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

A safe nest

A YOUNG woman wearing a black maxi walks in with a pale thin child, a girl. She takes her to a room full of lively, highly excitable children. The younger ones, some only 18 months old, are being fed fruit, some others are resisting the compulsory bath.

The little girl waves sadly to her mother. She keeps reaching out to touch her hand, one last time. Finally, this touching farewell comes to an end when the mother turns around and leaves. The child looks at her mother's retreating back, pauses momentarily before joining the other children. Most of them are running around madly, shouting or screaming; a few are crying.

This scene could be at any day-care centre in any part of India. In fact, it is a municipal school building in the heart of Mumbai's oldest and most established "red light" area — Kamatipura. And the "work" the mother is heading off to do is part of what is dubiously called "the oldest profession

in the world". The centre is not a "day care" centre. It is a "night care" centre. For that is when these children require shelter and a secure environment.

Prerana is just one of several non-governmental organisations that has intervened by helping the children of victims of commercial sexual exploitation, as some prefer to call prostitutes, or commercial sex workers, which has now become the internationally recognised term to describe the women so "employed". This point of intervention opens a window into the sleazy, violent, cynical world where women and girls, and now even boys, are traded and huge profits are pocketed by a virtually impregnable network spread across many countries.

Priti Patkar, who founded Prerana, says she responded to a need. The majority of the women did not want their children, particularly their daughters, to be drawn into the trade. A night-care centre provided the younger children a safe environment where they would be cared for and fed. Without it they would have been on the streets. In fact, the babies used to be kept by their mothers under the bed in their rooms. The women were compelled to drug them to ensure hey did not make a noise when they were entertaining clients.

The older children also spend the nights here as they get a place to study. The most vulnerable among these children are the girls. According to a social worker, brothel owners make a determined effort to get girls, as young as nine, to join the trade. To prevent this from happening, the sex workers beg NGOs to put their girls in boarding schools well away from the city. Although this does help, it does not solve the long-term problem of what these girls will do in the future. For even in the holidays, there is no home waiting for them. They are sent to another institution.

A new problem is that of the future of children left orphaned by the growing number of sex workers dying of AIDS. As soon as the woman dies, a "relative" turns up at the institution to claim the child. It is difficult to verify the genuineness of the claim and organisations are still trying to work out ways to deal with this problem. — K.S.

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