*She had gone there to do her bit to empower the prostitutes, but a spat with some pimps at a brothel in Delhi's GB Road made her realise how powerless she was amidst them. The 24-year-old university girl was in the area about two years ago for fieldwork with an NGO that works for prostitutes.*
Even as the girl decided to hurry back to the NGO's office in the area, one of the pimps followed her there. "He barged into the office, dragged me out and put me up for auction on the street," the girl recounts her horror.
Several men, most of them pimps, gathered around her and began quoting prices. "My saree almost came off. I slapped that pimp in anger, abused the customers and fled for my life," she says.
A few metres away, she found two policemen who only offered to drop her to the nearest Metro station. She chose not to file a police complaint.
Pimps, both male and female, operate without fear at about 100 brothels in GB Road that is home as well as workplace to 3,000-5,000 prostitutes. Police generally do not interfere in the day-to-day affairs of the brothels unless they receive "specific information" about minor girls or any woman being "forced" into prostitution. Most raids are conducted in association with non-governmental organisations.
"Sometimes I casually enter the brothels and speak to the girls who appear to be scared or silent. My work inside is limited to asking them if they are here of their own free will. But it generally is a futile exercise because information about police's arrival spreads like wildfire to all the brothels and eyes are kept on us as well as on those who could possibly speak out," says a young officer posted at a police post only a few months ago.
He says most of the complaints they receive from the area are not from the sex workers but from customers who are duped or even robbed by prostitutes or pimps. The complaints, however, are rare because of the stigma attached to visiting brothels, the officer says.
"The rule is to carry as little cash and no jewellery or valuables while entering the brothels. First-time customers are easy targets as they are unaware of activities inside. Pimps are trained to pick out such targets at the first sight. You cannot take them on," says Roshan, a pimp working at GB Road, adding that he does not indulge in such practices.
'Beware of pimps' painted at the entrances and inside most brothels has little meaning as they operate openly and in close association with policemen who often stop vehicles passing through the road for checking. "This is GB Road. Few people hauled up by police try to show their contacts to escape being fined," says Roshan.
According to him, information on several minors being employed at these brothels is not unfounded. Even a casual walk through GB Road reveals this as several pimps surround you, promising to provide girls aged as less as 14 years. "Minor girls and foreigners" are the USP of GB Road.
"I dress to appear lesser than my age as I am told customers prefer me to look like a small girl," says Divya, a prostitute at Kotha number 64 who claimed to be 22. She has agreed to speak with Deccan Herald at Roshan's request and in lieu of Rs 300, the going rate for a sex session at the brothel. She ends the conversation within two minutes as she notices a customer waiting for her.
Occasional raids are met by planned resistance of a different nature. Only in April this year, NGO Shakti Vahini conducted a raid at a brothel to find none of the girls inside they had received information about. Ten days later, they raided the brothel again to recover the girls, including a minor, from wooden boxes placed in tunnel-like structures.
Rishi Kant, who heads this NGO, says the technique of concealing unwilling sex workers in tunnels, constructed by breaking the walls of rooms, has been reported even in posh areas where organised prostitution is flourishing. Girls confined by these means are those who do not "break easily" despite all the means adopted by the traffickers.
The "breaking period" for the trafficked girls is generally 15 days. "They are kept on Delhi's outskirts for a fortnight, beaten by the traffickers, starved and repeatedly raped till they accept it as their fate," says Kant. They are then paraded in front of prospective buyers who pay as little as Rs 10,000 for a girl. There is no upper limit.
Those who continue to resist are either blackmailed or told to pay double the amount they were bought for. "Girls are made aware that either their families would not accept them on learning of their trade or that it is their own family members who have sold them," says Rakesh Singhal of another NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan.
He tells about a girl rescued by the NGO recently who was forced to satisfy two customers on the very first night of her marriage. "She was then sold to a pimp in Gurgaon by her husband. When she insisted that she be allowed to go free, the pimp told her to pay Rs 4 lakh, the amount they bought her from her husband," says Singhal.
Poverty-stricken girls are sent to GB Road whereas well-mannered and those who can converse in English are supplied from residential colonies, says Kant. "Once the girls are totally involved in prostitution, they learn the tricks of the trade and many of them go on to become pimps when they are past their prime," he adds.
The girls are mostly trafficked to Delhi from states like West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and the northeastern states, apart from neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh.
The traffickers continue to employ the old trend of looking for soft targets like women from poverty-stricken families or those who have just separated from their husbands. Several girls are also pushed into the trade by first befriending them, then luring them to Delhi on the pretext of marriage and finally selling them to pimps here. The traffickers take advantage of the dreams of living in a city like Delhi that the rural girls nurture.
Kant says traffickers in states like West Bengal and Jharkhand have adopted another method of luring girls to Delhi. "They procure the mobile phone numbers of vulnerable teenage girls in the villages and give frequent missed calls. The girls call back and the traffickers appreciate their looks and engage them in romantic conversations. When they are emotionally attached, they are urged to elope to Delhi where they are sold," he says. The gangs operating this way are notoriously known as the "missed call gang".
NGOs working against trafficking of women say prostitution is slowly moving out of GB Road brothels. "GB Road brothels are on the decline. The sex trade is moving on to residential colonies and through escort services," says Kant.
Singhal explains that GB Road brothels are not safe anymore either for prostitutes or for customers. "These brothels are open for all to see. There is no privacy for customers unlikein mini-posh areas like Govindpuri and Kalkaji where girls are kept at houses in residential areas. There is no risk factor in these areas as customers avail the services and leave unnoticed. When raided, prostitutes living in groups of five and six in these houses tell police they are friends and work in call centres," he says.
At GB Road, however, it is an open business. Shopkeepers sell machinery and automobile parts on the ground floor of most of the buildings and prostitutes solicit customers on the upper floors. For the uninitiated, it is like any other crowded street of Delhi. It is a totally different story though for those inside the brothels. Reported by Deccan Herald 5 hours ago.
Even as the girl decided to hurry back to the NGO's office in the area, one of the pimps followed her there. "He barged into the office, dragged me out and put me up for auction on the street," the girl recounts her horror.
Several men, most of them pimps, gathered around her and began quoting prices. "My saree almost came off. I slapped that pimp in anger, abused the customers and fled for my life," she says.
A few metres away, she found two policemen who only offered to drop her to the nearest Metro station. She chose not to file a police complaint.
Pimps, both male and female, operate without fear at about 100 brothels in GB Road that is home as well as workplace to 3,000-5,000 prostitutes. Police generally do not interfere in the day-to-day affairs of the brothels unless they receive "specific information" about minor girls or any woman being "forced" into prostitution. Most raids are conducted in association with non-governmental organisations.
"Sometimes I casually enter the brothels and speak to the girls who appear to be scared or silent. My work inside is limited to asking them if they are here of their own free will. But it generally is a futile exercise because information about police's arrival spreads like wildfire to all the brothels and eyes are kept on us as well as on those who could possibly speak out," says a young officer posted at a police post only a few months ago.
He says most of the complaints they receive from the area are not from the sex workers but from customers who are duped or even robbed by prostitutes or pimps. The complaints, however, are rare because of the stigma attached to visiting brothels, the officer says.
"The rule is to carry as little cash and no jewellery or valuables while entering the brothels. First-time customers are easy targets as they are unaware of activities inside. Pimps are trained to pick out such targets at the first sight. You cannot take them on," says Roshan, a pimp working at GB Road, adding that he does not indulge in such practices.
'Beware of pimps' painted at the entrances and inside most brothels has little meaning as they operate openly and in close association with policemen who often stop vehicles passing through the road for checking. "This is GB Road. Few people hauled up by police try to show their contacts to escape being fined," says Roshan.
According to him, information on several minors being employed at these brothels is not unfounded. Even a casual walk through GB Road reveals this as several pimps surround you, promising to provide girls aged as less as 14 years. "Minor girls and foreigners" are the USP of GB Road.
"I dress to appear lesser than my age as I am told customers prefer me to look like a small girl," says Divya, a prostitute at Kotha number 64 who claimed to be 22. She has agreed to speak with Deccan Herald at Roshan's request and in lieu of Rs 300, the going rate for a sex session at the brothel. She ends the conversation within two minutes as she notices a customer waiting for her.
Occasional raids are met by planned resistance of a different nature. Only in April this year, NGO Shakti Vahini conducted a raid at a brothel to find none of the girls inside they had received information about. Ten days later, they raided the brothel again to recover the girls, including a minor, from wooden boxes placed in tunnel-like structures.
Rishi Kant, who heads this NGO, says the technique of concealing unwilling sex workers in tunnels, constructed by breaking the walls of rooms, has been reported even in posh areas where organised prostitution is flourishing. Girls confined by these means are those who do not "break easily" despite all the means adopted by the traffickers.
The "breaking period" for the trafficked girls is generally 15 days. "They are kept on Delhi's outskirts for a fortnight, beaten by the traffickers, starved and repeatedly raped till they accept it as their fate," says Kant. They are then paraded in front of prospective buyers who pay as little as Rs 10,000 for a girl. There is no upper limit.
Those who continue to resist are either blackmailed or told to pay double the amount they were bought for. "Girls are made aware that either their families would not accept them on learning of their trade or that it is their own family members who have sold them," says Rakesh Singhal of another NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan.
He tells about a girl rescued by the NGO recently who was forced to satisfy two customers on the very first night of her marriage. "She was then sold to a pimp in Gurgaon by her husband. When she insisted that she be allowed to go free, the pimp told her to pay Rs 4 lakh, the amount they bought her from her husband," says Singhal.
Poverty-stricken girls are sent to GB Road whereas well-mannered and those who can converse in English are supplied from residential colonies, says Kant. "Once the girls are totally involved in prostitution, they learn the tricks of the trade and many of them go on to become pimps when they are past their prime," he adds.
The girls are mostly trafficked to Delhi from states like West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and the northeastern states, apart from neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bangladesh.
The traffickers continue to employ the old trend of looking for soft targets like women from poverty-stricken families or those who have just separated from their husbands. Several girls are also pushed into the trade by first befriending them, then luring them to Delhi on the pretext of marriage and finally selling them to pimps here. The traffickers take advantage of the dreams of living in a city like Delhi that the rural girls nurture.
Kant says traffickers in states like West Bengal and Jharkhand have adopted another method of luring girls to Delhi. "They procure the mobile phone numbers of vulnerable teenage girls in the villages and give frequent missed calls. The girls call back and the traffickers appreciate their looks and engage them in romantic conversations. When they are emotionally attached, they are urged to elope to Delhi where they are sold," he says. The gangs operating this way are notoriously known as the "missed call gang".
NGOs working against trafficking of women say prostitution is slowly moving out of GB Road brothels. "GB Road brothels are on the decline. The sex trade is moving on to residential colonies and through escort services," says Kant.
Singhal explains that GB Road brothels are not safe anymore either for prostitutes or for customers. "These brothels are open for all to see. There is no privacy for customers unlikein mini-posh areas like Govindpuri and Kalkaji where girls are kept at houses in residential areas. There is no risk factor in these areas as customers avail the services and leave unnoticed. When raided, prostitutes living in groups of five and six in these houses tell police they are friends and work in call centres," he says.
At GB Road, however, it is an open business. Shopkeepers sell machinery and automobile parts on the ground floor of most of the buildings and prostitutes solicit customers on the upper floors. For the uninitiated, it is like any other crowded street of Delhi. It is a totally different story though for those inside the brothels. Reported by Deccan Herald 5 hours ago.