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Fig. 2:1 Sex workers waiting outside the quarter for a
client. One worker holds a child in her arms while her
other child stands beside her.
“My husband was a rickshawala 27 but he started taking intoxicants and
stopped working. I have to work thus for food
and his drugs.”
(Dutt in News Services, 2005)
Entrapment of sex workers may be seen as a socio-cultural, economic, and physical
phenomenon.
the ‘family’ and the prostitute
In conservative Indian society, there is rarely a place for poor, uneducated widows,
abandoned by husbands or families. Similarly, in some parts of India girls are forced
to enter prostitution because of family traditions, or in the name of religious
traditions. Once the women are homeless without any financial support they become
a very easy target for entrapment. In some villages young girls are forced to join the
trade as a family custom and their family members (i.e. brothers and father) bring
27 A man who pulls a small two or three wheeled cart designed to transport two or more passengers.
25 25