Her Body, Still Not Her Right
A country where prostitution is legalized for almost eight years, the sex workers still have no protection and respect that they are entitled for.
Most of the women who work in the brothels have been trafficked, sold or forced to work there by their poverty stricken families or close ones’.
A report by UNICEF in 2004 gave an estimate that, around 10,000 young girls are used for commercial sex work in Bangladesh.
According to Ivan Ahmed Kotha, vice president at Sex Workers Network- “There are many cases of traffickers luring susceptible young girls to the city with the promise of marriage, better jobs and a better life – and selling them to brothels for Tk20,000 to Tk50,000 on average,”
The workers do not have rights over their own bodies as well, confirmed by Neela, a sex work who was interviewed by a reporter of Dhaka Tribune, she said, “I lived there for four years. Each day, I used to have intercourse with 10-12 customers as the demand for chukri (bonded prostitutes) are always high, but at the end of the day, I would get none of my earnings. It was all pocketed by the Sardarni as a means of paying off the price at which she bought me,”
A documentary by 101 East captured the reality of Bangladesh’s possibly largest brothel in Daulatdia, where approximately 1500 women work, who are visited by 3500 clients every day, according to the documentary.
Inside the brothel, drugs are exchanged at a very low rate and few of the women are even drugged by their owners to gain weight because the clients prefer plump women. They are seen to intake a drug named oradexon, which is not prescribed by any doctor.
The children of the prostitutes do not have a proper childhood inside the brothels as the environment of the place does not allow them to enjoy a healthy lifestyle. There is only one school for the children run by aid organizations and the healthcare system is not reliable either.
The workers do not have the basic human rights and have to face constant provocation from the society.
Read the article of Dhaka Tribune here
Watch the documentary by 101 East here
Article by The Diplomat for here
