Breaking the myth that trafficking victims don't want to be rehabilitated

At 7.30 a.m., on a bright March morning in Goa, while the sussegad (Goan for laidback) city is still rubbing sleep from its eyes, Salma Rehman of the Katta Baina area is already up and about. “I am getting late,” she frets, as she gets ready to leave the tiny room where she lives with her husband and two children. The room costs her Rs. 750 per month, and running expenses are extra.

But the 21-year-old doesn’t mind. “I have earned all this with izzat (respect),” she says as she heads for the bus that will take her to Swift Wash, the laundry at the Sancoale industrial estate in Vasco, where she and 50 of her ‘colleagues’ will soon start the morning shift: collecting, washing, ironing and delivering clothes, uniforms and linen. “We now cater to 19 clients, mostly in North Goa — including the Taj hotels,” she adds with pride.

While Swift Wash looks like a regular laundry, its staff are rehabilitated female sex workers from Baina beach, Goa’s notorious red light area that was partially demolished in 2004. A report on "Trafficking of women and children in India 2002-2003", commissioned by the National Human Rights Commission with UNIFEM and the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS), showed that Goa had India’s highest level of trafficking of women and children and that little had been done to economically rehabilitate them. Most of Swift Wash’s workers were trafficked from neighbouring states like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh to Goa for sex work.

When Swift Wash was set up in August 2006 by ARZ, an NGO working with trafficked victims in Goa, the program was the first of its kind in Goa. It provides employment to 40 trafficked victims, mostly from Baina. "We want to ensure that women earn a dignified income, as it is the only tool that can pull them out and plug all entries into prostitution," said ARZ Director Arun Pandey.

A year later, Swift Wash president Renuka Madar told a seminar entitled "Rehabilitation of Trafficked Victims: Public Private Partnership" organized with Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry: "It was not easy for us to adjust to the change, but we were convinced and committed. No one supported us, no one believed us. But we believed in ourselves and Arz gave us the confidence and support to fulfill our dreams."

Renuka believes that on September 2006, her first day at the laundry unit, she became truly independent."We have grown up in Baina, were pushed into prostitution here, were exploited and abused everyday. But now we return to the area every evening after a hard day's work with our head held high," she said.

Pandey, who works hard to break the myth that trafficked victims hate to be rehabilitated, notes that because ten parasites feed on the earnings of each sex worker, it is difficult for her to break free. "The women once trafficked from other states to Goa for prostitution lose their identity and rights. They have just one identity of a "prostitute". This can only be changed if the trafficked victims are rescued and then economically rehabilitated."

Working at the laundry means earning much less, and working during the day rather than at night. But it has given them something  new – a sense of bonding, says project director Julianna Lohar. Last year, when one of the girls got married, the rest helped with the bridal make-up. They were also there when the cracks started to show. “The boy’s family refuses to accept her and the boy refuses to leave them. So she is staying away from him. It’s the support the girls have given her that has made her take a stand,” says Julianna.

One time, the girls were in tears after a batch of hospital uniforms was  accidentally bleached. Maria, who didn’t even know ‘how to talk’, offered to do the damage control. “They were really upset and gave me a good dressing down. But I took it calmly, apologised and convinced them that this wouldn’t happen again,” she recalls. Now the group banks on her marketing skills. “But I have spent hours crying to come to this stage,” she says.

While the laundry at Vasco has come full circle emotionally, it has yet to break even financially. “We keep telling each other not to waste electricity and motivate the slow ones to catch up,” says Reshma. “This is our business and as it grows, it will be good for all of us.”

For Salma, the laundry harbors all her dreams: money for a small business venture for her son, savings for her daughter’s marriage. “Apna life toh khatam hai (my life’s over), but the kids should’ve something to fall back on,” she says. This is not the same woman who ‘erased’ the tattoo of the name of a man she once loved — with a knife — after he left her for another mistress. The scar is still there on her wrist - but Salma has moved on.

This story, in which a number of the womens' names have been changed, was prepared from three sources: a story by Preetu Venugopalan entitled Opportunities for change, published in The Hindu Nov. 5, 2006; a Sept. 8 2007 story by Preetu Nair on Goa Indica blog entitled Former sex worker walks on the road to success; and a story by Namita Kohli entitled Washed clean and ironed out published April 18, 2008 in the Hindustan Times, and distributed by OneWorld South Asia under the title Washing away miseries.

Arz means "the presentation of an idea of one's creation" or more simply "to say". Arz was conceived in 1997 by a small and committed group of development professionals from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay, with the idea of social work interventions in the area of crime with persons who have committed crimes, have been victims of crime or those who are vulnerable to either.

 

 

 

 


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