South Asian Business news and information

What is more tragic is that Indian government does not give any facilities to these women. Now, the sex workers have taken matters in their own hands. They have set up banks and started to save money. BBC reports:

Sita has been staying for over 30 years in Mumbai's red-light district of Kamathipura, resigned not only to her own fate but that of her daughter's too.

"But," she says, "if I can do something for my grandchild, maybe it's still worth it."

That something is an account with Sangini Women's Co-operative Bank.

"My income has fallen," Sita says. Now in her forties, she says she does not earn as much as she could when she was younger.

"But earlier there was no way to save money. Even if you gave it for safekeeping to a shopkeeper or brothel manager, they would never return it."

Sita says she earns about 100 rupees ($2.5) a day and diligently puts just under a third of that in the bank.

When sex workers go to banks they are driven away but there are millions of sex workers in India. In 1994, the sex workers of Calcutta first started their own cooperative bank, Usha Multipurpose Co-operative Society. Sangini Women's Co-operative Bank is the second bank. The bank received some assistance from Washington based NGO, Population Services International (PSI). State director of PSI, Dr. Shilpa Merchant ,said that Sangini took its present form over the course of several years. When she was working to raise awareness against HIV, she realized that the sex workers were very helpless. All of them had huge debts with high interest rates. Now, the situation is changing.

Prostitution is not just a problem in India but also other South Asian countries as well. I think, the NGOs and governments that are working for the betterment of the sex workers in South Asian countries should adopt this approach to solve this problem. At the same time, government should take necessary steps against human trafficking and forced prostitution.

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BBC  

Express India