It is morning. The modest sleeping quarters have become classrooms, where boys
and girls in blue uniform sit on the clean floor, learning the alphabet,
practicing handwriting, drawing pictures on slate boards, or reciting poems.
While Jowel is regularly visited by his mother, others like tiny Neela have no
visitors.
''I like the lessons best,'' says Leon. Seven-year-old Selim agrees,
''Previously I used to drift about with my mother. I had no chance to learn
reading or writing''.
Getting three square meals a day was also rare, says Selim. ''Here I can eat
meat and fish. I am hungry no more''. Fruits and cakes are served at
mid-morning and afternoon - a luxury for these children.
Shahinoor is 12 years old. ''I can now bathe regularly and learn my lessons''.
A recent survey by Durjoy finds that less than one-fourth of the children of
Dhaka's street-based sex-workers attend schools.
Eleven-year-old Sheila dreads the insecurity of her past. ''For us to sleep on
the pavement, my mother had to pay the policeman daily''.
''At night when mother went to work, I was left all alone.'' Sheila remembers
occasions when a policeman would beat her or drag her from sleep because he
hadn't been paid. Verbal and physical abuses are common; risks of sexual abuse
are high.
Shahnaz, the president of Durjoy, is contesting another election. ''The women
have always demanded we do something for their children. We could finally get
this centre going in April 2004, with financial assistance from the HIV
programme of the NGO, CARE-Bangladesh''.
Durjoy itself was formed in 1998, facilitated by CARE, which felt that
promotion of safe sex, i.e., condom use cannot be achieved unless the
sex-workers are organised and gain the strength of unity.
''We also realised that without addressing their pressing concerns, we cannot
address the issue of HIV prevention,'' says A. S. M. Enamul Hoque, an expert
with the CARE programme. Children's well-being came across as one prime
concern.
Many sex-workers however think that NGO projects are centred on HIV prevention
rather than dealing with the serious problems they face in society. The
child-care centre took six years to materialise.
The Constitution of Bangladesh declares that the state shall adopt effective
measures to prevent prostitution as a fundamental state policy, and there are
various restrictive laws. But an adult woman can join sex-work through signing
an affidavit at a magistrate's court or with a Notary Public stating that she
is above 18, the legal age of maturity, and doing it willingly and consciously.
While existing laws relating to prostitution are ambivalent, soliciting in
public places is a punishable offence. ''They are constantly on the run,
suffering violence by the police, the thugs, and by general public,'' says
Hazera, a Durjoy volunteer.
The police and the thugs often demand free sexual services and snatch away the
women's uncertain, meagre incomes. All these raise the vulnerabilities of
sex-worker mothers and their children.
Sulekha sells sex living on the premises of a Dhaka railway station. Abandoned
by her husband, she joined prostitution some eight years ago. Sulekha has
recently sent her five-year-old boy to the centre, while her younger daughter
is still with her.
''During the day my son used to roam around, picking up bad words and getting
into fights with other kids,'' says Sulekha. ''At night I had to pay a woman
for minding my kids while I went with a client. It cost me a lot''.
Many mothers are forced to serve clients while keeping the children close by.
''If left with us, our daughters would follow our path, while our boys would
get into crime,'' says Shamima, a sex-worker operating in Dhaka streets for the
last 11 years.
Using laws against vagrancy, the police regularly intern these women in
government shelter homes. Chumki says, ''We then lose touch with our children,
often forever''.
Mothers need to pay the centre taka 330 (about five US dollars) a month per
child. Many, however, cannot meet this. Following closure of a few brothels in
recent years, business in the streets has become competitive. Some even report
getting 20 taka, less than fifty cents, per act of sexual service.
Funded by the United Nations Development Fund, UNDP, the government's
department of social services runs a project for the sex-workers and their
children. Four of its seven shelters are for the children of the street-based
sex-workers, all in Dhaka. These accommodate children 0 to 18 years of age but
cannot accommodate more than 157 children.
While no recent survey is available, and the country-wide figure anybody's
guess, CARE estimates the number of sex-workers in Dhaka streets to be around
5000.
The government project, on the other hand, has higher estimates that range
between 12,000 and 15,000. The actual number of children that the street
sex-workers have is difficult to estimate though it would easily exceed 5,000
by all accounts.
''Our ultimate goal is to mainstream these children,'' says S. M. Ali Has Nain
Fatme, coordinator of the Durjoy child-care project. ''There are some
programmes in different brothels, but the children of street- based sex-workers
get very little attention''.
Birth registration is compulsory in Bangladesh but Fatme is unable to register
the kids in the centre: ''The prescribed form requires names and addresses of
the father and the paternal grandfather''.
CARE's HIV programme funded the centre for about a year, and a UNICEF- managed
HIV/AIDS prevention project of the government followed it up for a few months.
Durjoy now awaits funding from the Danish International Development Agency
(DANIDA) for a long-term comprehensive project. But to avail foreign funding
directly, Durjoy needs to get registered with the government's NGO Affairs
Bureau.
''It will be a great disaster if Durjoy does not get the required
registration,'' says Fatme. ''We can't just shut the centre down''. Fifteen of
the children are abandoned and five are disabled.
''I have seen many women give up their children in adoption, even sell them,
simply because they could not afford to keep the kids,'' says Hazera.
Ani's mother dropped him at the centre when he was barely a few months old,
never to come back. Khodeja, one of the four ayahs (foster mothers) at the
Durjoy centre nursed him into a healthy, happy toddler. ''I cannot stay away
from the centre for long. I miss Ani,'' says Khodeja.
Sheila does not want to leave the centre, ''It's my home. There are many bad
men in the street. I am old enough to know the dangers. I could even be
trafficked abroad''.
The Durjoy centre is meant for children up to seven years of age and its
attempts to send older children like Sheila to government homes have failed.
The department of social services runs 74 orphanages but they are barred to
children without a father's name.
Inter Press Service
