Saturday, March 10, 2012

Mass wedding brings hope to India’s ‘village of prostitutes’

In a dusty, arid hamlet reviled as a ‘village of prostitutes’ in India’s western state of Gujarat, 42-year-old Roshni Ben sits alone in her windowless mud hut. Earning as little as 50 rupees (1 dollar) most days, her future is fraught with uncertainty and poverty.

Padma Sarania, who like Roshni Ben did not want her real name used, is in her mid-20s and faces social ostracism after she was recently diagnosed as HIV-positive. Since then, locals have not allowed her to drink from the village well.

Both women, who are among the 100 sex workers in the village, are victims of a traditionally imposed form of prostitution in Vadia, where about 750 members of the Sarania tribe live.

The village in the northern district of Banaskantha has a notorious reputation where girls as young as 12 are forced into the flesh trade by their own families.

Pimps – many of them fathers, brothers or uncles – hang around the outskirts of the village, soliciting truckers and customers from neighbouring villages. Full story...

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  2. Trapped by tradition: town in India where all girls are sold as sex slaves...
  3. Devadasi, the temple slave prostitutes of India...
  4. Tribal girls in India bartered and sold as commodities...
  5. Why do women in India become prostitutes? 
  6. India census considers housewives no better than prostitutes...
  7. One thousand sect members in India pledge to marry prostitutes...

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