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[Harsh Kapoor]

The Village Voice (New York)
September 18 - 24, 2002

Kolkata Sex Workers Earn Respect and Protection From Fighting Disease
Giving AIDS the Red Light
by Paroma Basu

KOLKATA, INDIA‹In recent years, public health officials, social 
workers, and politicians swarmed Kolkata's red-light areas, 
advocating safe sex, offering medical services, and distributing 
condoms. These campaigns resulted in tremendously successful 
initiatives like the Sonagachi AIDS Project, which went from being a 
quasi-governmental program to one of the largest community-run 
intervention projects in the world. Sex workers themselves now run 
the show, and in Sonagachi (meaning "golden tree"), famous as the 
oldest, largest, and most storied red-light district in the city, 
only 9 percent of about 6000 sex workers are HIV positive. In 
comparison, rates of infection among Mumbai (formerly Bombay) 
prostitutes as of 1997 were as high as 70 percent. At the end of 
2001, the total number of people living with AIDS in India was 
3,970,000, according to UNAIDS.

But while high-risk communities are way savvier about sexually 
transmitted diseases (STDs), the rest of society has hardly been as 
enlightened. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 
new Indian AIDS cases are rapidly seeping out of high-risk groups and 
into the general population. As is the case in other societies, 
clients who get infected in the brothels put their unsuspecting wives 
at risk, and alternatively, wives or "floaters" earning secret cash 
through sex may also bring the HIV home. Behavior in homosexual 
communities here is only beginning to be discussed.

Noticing such trends and drawing inspiration from the Sonagachi AIDS 
Project, a group of doctors, psychologists, and other concerned 
citizens opened the City Counseling Center (CCC) in downtown Kolkata. 
The nonprofit provides medical and psychological consultation, as 
well as cheap antiretroviral drugs. It has also started one of the 
country's first support networks, the Kolkata Network of HIV Positive 
People, through which individuals can finally exchange their 
experiences with HIV without encountering raised eyebrows.

"Intervention programs running in high-risk areas are only the tip of 
the iceberg. Awareness has to spread to the rest of society," said 
Dr. Debjani Banerjee, one of the CCC's chief coordinators.

The new center might never have come to life, however, if the city's 
sex workers had not set such an incredible precedent. In 1995, the 
Sonagachi women organized themselves into the first union of sex 
workers in all of Asia, Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), and 
took control of the local government AIDS project. With a current 
membership of almost 60,000 male and female sex workers from all over 
the state of West Bengal, the union is fiercely picketing at many 
sites for the decriminalization of prostitution and equal workers' 
rights (including entitlement to negotiate issues such as work 
conditions). Union representatives who might never have dreamed of 
stepping outside the brothels, have flown as far as Geneva and 
Australia to publicize their cause.

Union coordinator Putul Singh is now a sex worker by night and 
activist by day. She calls AIDS her "friend," because, she says, 
"before the project no one cared if we were healthy or not. After 
stemming the flow of AIDS among our sisters, we want to spread the 
message to ordinary people too."

The sex workers' success did not come easy, however, especially in 
light of the harsh lives they had led for most of their lives. 
Located on the western fringe of Kolkata, Sonagachi is a maze of 
narrow lanes with ancient, rotting tenements rising up on either 
side. Thousands of sex workers rent box-like rooms the size of an 
office cubicle, usually paying exorbitant rent for a few feet of 
space. If working for brothel owners, sex workers usually turn over 
all their income to them. The owners use the money to pay off the 
police, pimps, and local gangsters, explained "Geeta," a Sonagachi 
sex worker who did not want her name used. At present, how much a sex 
worker charges roughly depends on how much time she spends with a 
customer, how old she is, and how good she looks.

"For most of their lives these people have been outside even the most 
marginal fringes of society," said Ishika Basu (no relation), one of 
the first social workers to approach the initially distrustful 
prostitutes. "They've been constantly cheated and taken advantage 
of," she added.

So going into Sonagachi to begin AIDS education, Dr. Smarajit Jana, 
the governmental epidemiologist who spearheaded the project, knew it 
would be an uphill road. After a preliminary survey to understand the 
habits and lifestyles of Sonagachi sex workers, he explored enhancing 
self-esteem as a start to changing deeply entrenched sexual 
practices. Jana convinced 12 sex workers to come forward and train as 
"peer educators." For about a $1 a day, and wearing green cotton 
coats, these women informed their "sisters" about STDs, urged them to 
get the clinic-provided blood tests every three months, and 
distributed condoms.

Soon, hundreds of women were refusing unprotected sex, even if their 
clients offered to pay more. While in 1992 a government survey showed 
a mere 2.7 percent of 450 sex workers were using condoms, two years 
later that figure had leaped to 69.3 percent, said Mrinal Kanti 
Dutta, present director of the sex workers' union and the son of a 
sex worker.

"When a customer comes, I take the money first and then let him in my 
room," said Priya Begum, a 23-year-old Sonagachi sex worker who had 
never heard of AIDS until a peer educator enlightened her last year. 
"Then I ask whether he'll use a condom. If he says no, I keep the 
money and show him out," she laughed. This is a tactic made more 
feasible by the cooperation of pimps, who have in most cases, agreed 
to back the women's demands for safe sex.

Today, 430 peer educators spread awareness throughout Bengal, and 36 
brothel-based medical clinics regularly treat sex workers. Among 
other things, DMSC has established a school for sex workers' 
children, a money-lending co-op, and a cultural group that spreads 
AIDS awareness through music, dance, and street theater.

Meanwhile, the City Counseling Center feels positive that more and 
more people will visit to get treatment or just to talk. Since 
January of this year, Banerjee and her colleagues have treated 205 
patients, of whom 35 tested positive for HIV. Not surprisingly, only 
a handful of infected patients are sex workers, says Counselor 
Nabanita Ghosh. Rather they are mostly ordinary people like 
housewives and college students from middle-class homes.

The center offers generic antiretroviral drugs like Stavudine, 
Lamivudine, and Nevirapine, at the dirt cheap price of $10 a month (a 
75 percent discount from the already discounted price of $40 a month 
offered by Aurobindo Pharmaceuticals). But most HIV-positive patients 
avoid pursuing treatment unless they absolutely have to, probably for 
fear of social rejection. Center staff hope the Kolkata Network of 
HIV Positive People will help to clear the stigma veiling AIDS, and 
will provide easy access to sympathy, support, and guidance. Since 
January, when the network had 40 members, the size of the network has 
more than doubled to 85 members.

"Now instead of checking horoscopes, people should check each other's 
blood before marriage," joked Nandita Banerjee, one of the center 
counselors.