The shocking sex worker’s life in mumbai

In south Mumbai’s red light districts there are an estimated 100,000 brothel-based sex workers. Most of them are not there voluntarily. A high proportion of the women and girls have been sold into sex work, often by a relative or a trusted family friend; others are born into it.

Life within the red light districts is incredibly difficult. Poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, gambling and violence are an everyday reality. These women live on the edge of society, frowned upon and ignored. It is estimated that between 30 and 50 percent of India’s sex workers are HIV positive. Due to a lack of education and severe poverty, many of them continue to have unprotected sex.

I am Nijila, a 32-yr-old sex worker based at Kamathipura in Mumbai.
I am originally from Nepal. They say, love gets you heaven but in my case, I got Kamathipura, where sex costs little. I ran away from my home in Nepal trusting the man I loved so much. However, he ditched me and sold me and ran away. Of course, I was tricked into prostitution.
Poverty was not the reason for me to enter prostitution. Rather it was blind love. At 23, I landed at Kamathipura and was repeatedly gangraped before becoming a branded prostitute.
Human trafficking is the third largest organized crime after drugs and the arms trade across the globe. According to the definition of the United Nations – “trafficking is any activity leading to recruitment, transportation, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or a position of vulnerability.”

I wear my best clothes and make-up and stand on the streets of Kamathipura. We pose, smile and wave to lure our customers. Several NGOs work for us. Through them only I got to know about the dangers of HIV/AIDS. And now I don’t entertain a customer if he refuses to wear condoms. Frankly speaking, I have no idea what legalisation means. But if it helps in stopping minors from coming to flesh trade, then it should be done without any delay.

“I wish someone would marry me and I have a family of my own. These men just use me for fun…no one really loves me.”