Today Carolyn and I travel back to Mumbai on our last leg of the journey.
We have one last stop before heading over to the airport and little did I know how confronting it was going to be.
Perhaps it was because I was slowly letting my guard down, knowing I'd be heading home soon. Perhaps the wave of emotions of the last two weeks were catching up with me but today, for the first time on the trip, I felt sick to the stomach from what I witnessed.
We head over to a red light district, a small community which seems so far removed from the rest of civilised society yet located right off a busy highway. Vasu welcomes us back to Mumbai and escorts us to meet the team at Sahaara. Sahaara is an organisation working to restore dreams to the underprivileged people in Mumbai, and is mostly recognised for their work in the red light districts.
I'd heard and read stories of these districts and watched documentaries so I thought I had a sense of the nature of these places where some women call home, but I won't lie, it was tough. Upon arrival by train to a town not far from the city, we cross a highway, and navigate through a marketplace which to the unassuming eye would end at the garbage dump not far from the last stall. We keep walking up a slight hill, I turn around to catch a glimpse of the passing cars on the now distant highway, and the people in the market going about their everyday life. Beyond the hill we find ourselves at a small one room concrete block, Sahaara's clinic. It's run by volunteer doctors and the staff at Sahaara and it is the place where sex workers from the red light district come to find refuge and medical help. Psychological and physical help is offered here, most women come in for treatment of aids and sexually transmitted diseases. The clinic is located right in the middle of the red light district, making it accessible and welcoming for women and their children.
The staff on duty today welcome us and are passionate in telling the stories of these women. One worker also comes to join us and tells us her story, which now seems familiar.
She works because she has no other skill, grew up with no education, her husband left her and her newborn baby, so now she works here, as a sex worker where one charges as little as two dollars per customer. She works to support her child and so that she doesn't have to grow up to know what she knows and experience the horrors she endures on a daily basis.
The women here fight each other for customers and can host up to 10-15 men a day and to keep up their endurance and stamina they rely heavily on drugs. They pay rent for a small space in a room with no bathroom and light, and can share with up to 3 other women, a thin sheet the only form of partition between them. There were many more stories we heard today, some just too shocking to repeat but the thing that broke my heart most and triggered a feeling of sickness and just complete sadness were the children. The children born out of prostitution, most with aids and not much hope of a life outside what they witness everyday. We take a walk through the red light district - made up of a domino of mud huts, curtains as doors. Here, if a curtain is up, it means open for business, if a curtain is down, a woman is occupied. The rows of huts weave on a muddy platform with narrow gaps between them, the scores of women sitting outside perched on chairs just...waiting...for their next customer. They are friendly and offer smiles and it's a strange feeling, smiling back at someone who seems physically there but spiritually vacant. Some women were sprawled across their beds, high on the drugs which ironically are used to keep them going. The pimps surprisingly are mostly women, it makes sense after we are told that these women used to be prostitutes but now make more money recruiting women.
As we walk through the district, I'm cautious not to pay too much attention beyond the closed curtains, and for the first time in India I feel uneasy and scared, perhaps because as a woman, I understand the absolute abuse of physical liberty all around me. I notice one curtain rustling, at first I thought it was caught in the wind, but before I could look away, a small child lifts the thin sheet and peeps out. It was this moment, I felt physically sick. Knowing that child, nowhere else to go, is sitting in the small space while her mother is occupied with a man. She was barely walking, so must have been just about 18 months old. To think such visuals are etched into such a young mind is all I could handle and pushed me to my limits.
Some of these children attend a day care, in the form of a tiny room, with no natural light, rugs or carpeting, most naked as their mothers can't afford clothes but are nevertheless so happy to be in the presence of other children and have the opportunity to sing and dance, as taught by their 17 year old volunteer teacher who comes across from the next village to help in her spare time from her own studies. Their innocence have already been unfairly taken from them in witnessing their mothers and the environment they are born into but this is the reality for these children...who statistically grow up to be just what they witness.
We make our way out of the district and walk back through the markets and onto the busy highway again, we cross the road to get on a train and again I look back, this time, knowing what is beyond the markets and I shed more tears, tears of helplessness and tears of pain for the women whose lives don't go past the markets.
For your reference:
http://sahaarasociety.org/about_us.html
On the way back back, we also meet with the team at Tender Hands, an organisation dedicated to rescue and rehabilitation of street children and commercial sex workers. They work on shelters, sustainability projects, and most notably teaching women skills such as baking to facilitate restoration into society with a new sense of pride and confidence.
For your reference:
http://tenderhands.org/whoweare.htm
We collect our luggage and head to the airport full of mixed emotions, it's been an incredible two weeks. We were privileged to hear so many stories, meet incredible survivors, witness hope and restoration, learn about the realities of human trafficking, meet dedicated fighters of freedom and justice, was greeted by infectious smiles and the warmest hospitality, and experienced the presence of those who embody the meaning of strength and courage. An unforgettable trip to say the least, a life changing trip, I can't wait to share the stories back home to impart the responsibilities to others so we can as a collective and strength in numbers play our part in preventing this horrific cycle that is human trafficking in all its forms.
After all, I made a promise to so many here to share their stories, it's the least I could do.
