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By Lalitha Sridhar SANGRAM sees women in prostitution not as potential carriers of HIV/AIDS but as agents of change. The organisation and its peer educators work in six districts of Maharashtra and Karnataka's border areas
Working with women in prostitution and sexwork for the past eight years in the HIV/AIDS prevention programme has helped address our own double standards and biases while dealing with the issues of sexuality and prostitution. As our involvement in the programme deepened, our beliefs, ideas and notions about prostitution underwent a seachange. Even our language changed. We slowly started revising our vocabulary to a non-judgemental frame of reference. Hence the importance of the term ‘women in prostitution’, instead of the commonly-used term ‘prostitute’. Women who practice prostitution use the term ‘women in business’ while referring to themselves. Now, after much discussion, we have adopted the term People in Prostitution and Sexwork (PPS) to include all persons who make money out of sex. -- SANGRAM (Sampada Grameen Mahila Sanstha), Sangli Nearly ten years ago, when Meena Saraswati Seshu began to come to terms with her own perceptions of women in prostitution, she was little understood. This was Sangli, the sugarcane-rich heartland of western Maharashtra, and the year was 1992. Meena Seshu saw the woman in prostitution as a human being, and treated her not as a vector and target of HIV, as is still largely the case, but as an agent of change. The women she wished to work with, and for, ran away from her. She was stoned on occasion. But SANGRAM, as her organisation came to be called, went on. Today, 120 peer educators in six districts of Maharashtra and the border areas of northern Karnataka, distribute 350,000 condoms to 5,000 women in these communities every month. In the areas in which SANGRAM works, the programme cannot be location-specific. Women in prostitution operate out of hutments in slums or pucca houses in industrial centres. They are also itinerant workers on highways and at weekly markets. Typically, women in prostitution are held responsible for the spread of the HIV virus. Seshu looked at it differently: the women had to protect themselves from infection. She got her first break when Aparvamaushi, a brothel owner, saw clear financial sense in keeping healthy. SANGRAM began work in Gokulnagar, Sangli’s red-light district. With one peer educator in every seventh house and a total of 16 such pioneers to begin with, all these learners-teachers starting telling their neighbours about HIV, and distributing condoms to them. A peer educator has two key areas of responsibility: educating women in prostitution about HIV/AIDS, distributing condoms among them and training and counselling women who are unable to enforce condom usage; and helping women with sexually-transmitted diseases and other health problems access medical care and related services. Though these were lofty ideals, SANGRAM encountered resistance from brothel-keepers and criminals. One of its peer educators was even killed. In early-2002, SANGRAM had to shut down because of incessant violence, threats and abuse. Seshu says: “Verbal abuse is difficult to prove and is also used with caste, class and gender arrogance. It is very effective. Also, it is almost always a prelude to a stronger physical act.” Renuka, a woman in prostitution and peer educator in Gokulnagar says: “Just as I had been wary in the beginning, the other women were also scared. But because I was one of them, they slowly accepted my peer services.” Peers are free to choose their own methods of working. Some distribute condoms door-to-door, others have women pick them up, some plan a week ahead. The crux of their conviction, however, hinges on hard business sense -- never lose a client. Often the cause of rivalry, condom distribution and usage is entirely dependent on a sense of common identity. Condom usage can be enforced only if each and every woman in the community agrees. So, if a customer refuses to use a condom and goes to another woman she too will insist on using one. The enforcement of condom usage is, however, not total. Women who work as itinerant workers often remain out of reach. The poor quality of government-supplied condoms causes lapses in usage. About 20% of all sexual encounters are with ‘malaks’ or lovers who differ from clients. The absence of a condom is the instrument of differentiation. Pimps, male brothel owners and the police still wield the power to refuse to use a condom. Still, the programme’s impact has been undeniable. Not only has it helped create awareness about HIV/AIDS and methods of prevention, it has altered behavioural patterns and enforced preventive action. Says Seshu: “When we started looking at them as women and not as prostitutes, they began to respond…The women do not always think of themselves as victims. If you challenge them and win their trust, the sorry stories stop and real life comes up…It is important to understand the tremendous challenge women in prostitution pose to the family structure and its values. Not only do women in prostitution reject the moral double standards forced on them by mainstream society, they actually challenge the very system of patriarchy.” In 1996, the peer education programme broadened into VAMP -- the Veshya AIDS Muqabla Parishad -- a collective of women in prostitution. Although VAMP and SANGRAM are closely interconnected, VAMP is separately registered and has its own board of members drawn from women in prostitution. The goal is to get VAMP to function independently. The collective has a clear hierarchical structure with different levels of responsibilities and payscales. At the top of the pyramid of field workers and community workers is the ‘tai’ -- designated board members who distribute and ensure a continuous supply of condoms, provide the names of the ill to community workers and offer care and support to ill women. SANGRAM has also initiated a district campaign that runs in 713 villages in Sangli district and focuses on women who contract HIV from their husbands without knowing it. This campaign also targets adolescents who form a significant proportion of the clientele of women in prostitution. Exhibitions, street plays, poster displays at fairs and festivals bring awareness about HIV/AIDS to rural audiences. Sex education programmes in schools are regularly conducted. These do not stop with anatomy and reproductive biology; they include a component on societal and personal values, with basic facts about sexuality, separate group discussions for boys and girls, a session on myths and misconceptions and ethical issues related to sexuality. As women in any community usually have the least access to information on taboo subjects like HIV and sexuality, and are rarely seen in public fora like schools, colleges and village gatherings, SANGRAM runs a ‘mantrin’ programme -- girlfriends who are easy to relate to and with whom open discussions on intimate matters are possible. A volunteer programme and overall advocacy for policy changes are other important initiatives. Six years after SANGRAM started working with women in prostitution, the state government finally started ‘seeing’ them, announcing plans to work with them in Maharashtra, where SANGRAM is based. SANGRAM’s statement about women in prostitution The 17-point statement includes: “Prostitution is a way of life like any other. It is a survival strategy that is parallel to any other occupation. It is not created for the benefit of men, as is the common perception; rather it is primarily for the women who live off it. Women in prostitution make money out of sex and we are the breadwinners of our families.” “We disagree with the statement that prostitution is a profession. We make a distinction between profession (vyavasay) and occupation/business (dhandha). For instance, if we are presently occupied in making money out of sex, then that is our occupation for a short span of time. The nature of the business itself is time-bound. Therefore, by using the term profession, we are necessarily being pushed into a category for a lifetime. We are women who are practising this time-bound business of prostitution for a short and specific period in our lives. Please remember that when we are not making money out of sex, we are engaged in other income-generating activities.” “We believe making money from sex is but selling a part of our body which is in no way different from selling our brains or physical labour. We protest against a society that deems our work contribution as less prestigious than other traditional forms of work. We believe that we challenge and undermine structures of power by using a part of our womanhood -- our sexuality -- as our source of power and income.” “We believe that it is imperative that we must unite with each other to erase the stigmatisation of women in prostitution and restore our dignity as workers and citizens of civil society. We must build alliances with other segments of society and, together, we must struggle against the forces who have a vested interest in eroding the rights of all women.” |
Voices of women in prostitution InfoChange News & Features, May 2004 |
