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Sex workers in search of rehab
By Vidyut Joshi
May 24, 2004
It is almost a year since sex market of Variavi bazaar has been closed down. It
is said that it was in existence for the past 400 years. As such, any port town
would have some floating population.
Surat port was throbbing with export-import activities in Mughal and Maratha
days. But then the port of Surat gave way to the port of Mumbai , yet the
commercial activity thrived in Surat. Floating population and single migrant
male workers also continued in Surat.
All these factors facilitated the survival of sex market in Surat. Somehow both
the menaces of booze and brothel have been going on unabashedly in Surat
despite a very strong presence of religious sects.
This contradiction of Surat needs a serious explanation. In 1978 this column
writer and Harish Doshi carried out a study on prohibition in Surat and
villages of South Gujarat. We both were all set to take up a survey of sex
workers. A joke doing the round in university circles those days was: Doshi and
Joshi were going to 'Pitha' (pub), now they will go to brothel. Somehow the
study did not materialise. Some sincere researchers should study the
rehabilitation of sex workers now.
Nobody used to bother about sex bazaar of Surat some five to seven years back.
If one goes beyond the SMC office, he
cannot avoid a look of and at the sex workers sitting/standing in doors and
windows of houses on the main road of Variavi bazaar. There are schools and
temples nearby. There are also people living nearly who are neither patrons nor
clients of this sex bazaar.
In the past, these local residents have not agitated against this open sex
bazaar. Most of the sex workers are outsiders, or disguised as outsiders. Some
local newspapers have also reported their stories. 'Minu' (may not be hear real
name) is from Nepal. Shakilabanu seems to be from Bangladesh.
Chandrakala speaks Marathi and hails from Maharashtra. Shaila looks like
Nepali. They all rent houses in Variavi bazaar. Most of them belong to lower or
lower-middle class and serve clients of the same class. House owners took
exception from the day they realised that real estate prices were shooting up
in nearby Mugalisara area and they may not get right price if their property is
occupied by sex workers.
This was a battle between two markets — sex and real estate. Moral issues were
raised by the real estate lobby. Education and religion lobbies also joined
hands. The sex workers had to vacate their houses. This planned evacuation was
almost celebrated as a victory of morality over immorality.
This involuntary evacuation caused a lot of miseries for sex workers. They
organised themselves as Sahyogi Mahila Mandal, sat on dharana at the
collectorate and filed a case in the Gujarat High Court. After eight months of
persistence, the Gujarat High Court ordered the government of Gujarat to
prepare and implement a rehabilitation package for these sex workers by May 31,
2004. May is an uncertain word. The rehabilitation package should have become
part of the May-Day celebration.
Thirty-first of May is not too far. It is necessary that the details of the
rehabilitation programme are spelt out and the task of rehabilitating the
sexworkers is given to some credible NGO that can give a human touch to the
entire episode.
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