An innovative project that empowered & improved lives : Newsletter - Jan.-Feb. 2010
Mankind’s quest to improve living conditions has driven progress since time immemorial. Often, the most productive and far reaching developments take place when people themselves, determined to improve their lives, come up with creative solutions. The force of this groundswell is then multiplied many times over when a development organization, with its eyes and ears to the ground, identifies and supports these new ideas and builds upon them through effective collaborations.
In the next few issues of the India Newsletter, we will draw on World Bank’s rich collage of experiences to bring you a sampling of the innovative ways of thinking that are being brought to bear on India’s development challenges. These projects range across sectors and are spread across the vast sweep of the country.
This issue covers the innovative work being done by the sex workers community in Mysore.
Sex-worker run restaurant  Nestled among the winding back streets behind the Maharajah’s grand palace in Mysore, ‘Hotel Ashodaya’ looks like any other eatery in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. But this is no ordinary restaurant. Instead, it is a bold and unusual effort to dispel the scorn and discrimination heaped upon one of the most ostracized sections of society: the male, female, and transgender sex workers of this historic city, many of whom are living with HIV.
Started under the World Bank Development Marketplace grant, this restaurant is run by the sex-workers community
For many among the sex worker community, it is also a beacon of hope. Opened barely a year ago with help from a World Bank Development Marketplace grant, the restaurant has boosted the self-esteem of those at the very margins of acceptability.
People from all walks of life flock to the eatery, where sex workers serve lunchtime ‘thalis’ and strong south Indian coffee. Slick bankers, tourists, and policemen too – once the dreaded adversaries of the sex worker community – form part of the restaurant’s upmarket clientele. Says Prashant Kumar, an official of HSBC Bank, who comes here to eat regularly, “For me it’s the quality and taste of the food that matters. I also come here to show my support for the good work the restaurant is doing.”
His statement indicates the gradual acceptance the restaurant has managed to earn in this conservative society as it chips away at one of its most deeply-held prejudices. And for Bhagya, a sex worker, it is particularly thrilling that people now address her politely, especially as all she has known is a life of scorn, hatred, and abuse.
Lives of violence and shame
Trust had to be built over time. The sex-workers, skeptical at first, gradually got convinced to form a group of their own. Thus was born Ashodaya Samithi, or Dawn of Hope
But, it was not always so. When, in 2004, the University of Manitoba under a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, started an HIV prevention program in Mysore, sex workers faced a life of brutal violence and discrimination. The police humiliated them, hurled foul language at them, beat and jailed them and demanded free sex. Doctors and nurses refused to treat them, while shopkeepers hounded them off the streets. Local rowdies attacked them, leaving many with broken bones. Shunned and alone, their self-esteem at rock-bottom, many were driven to drink.
Said Dr. Sushena Reza Paul, from the Community Health Sciences Center of the University of Manitoba, who has overseen the program since its inception, “Sex work was vibrant in Mysore, an important tourist hub in Karnataka. Female, male and transgender sex workers operated from the same hot spots. Condom availability was negligible and violence and harassment were rampant. Yet, there was no HIV prevention program on the ground. An explosive epidemic was waiting to happen.”
A new beginning When the sex workers heard that “outsiders” had come to work for them, they were skeptical. “We couldn’t believe that others were willing to help us when our own families had shunned and disowned us,” said Raghu, a male sex worker.
Trust had to be built over time. It was only after a sex worker from Kolkata’s well-known Sonargachi red light district came to talk to them, and 130 Mysore sex workers went to see that highly successful group, that they were convinced to form a group of their own. Several community meetings were held over the next six months and finally, in December 2005, a democratically elected board was constituted – and the Ashodaya Samithi, or Dawn of Hope, was born.
Coming together for the first time with others like them was an experience many will never forget. Tears of release flowed unrestrainedly as long-suppressed emotions resurfaced and old hurts were recalled. “I could understand their pain and feet their hurt,” said Bhagya, now Ashodaya’s elected secretary, of that cathartic experience. “And, for the first time I realized I was not alone.”
The strength of the group Banding together was key. The group set up a community kitchen where members could eat cheaply, and hired a room where women, who came to the city every morning from nearby villages to ply their trade, could rest in the afternoons.
Dr. Reza Paul and her team introduced them to condoms (the sex workers hadn’t heard about condoms till then) and helped provide counseling and health services to treat Sexually Transmitted Infections. Having gained a new confidence and awareness, the sex workers pressed the Karnataka State AIDS Society to provide them access to an ICTC testing center and Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART).
They then put together a rapid response team that could come to the assistance of any sex worker in trouble – at a hospital, a police station or on the street – within 30 minutes. When six female sex workers were arrested, the team convinced the police to release them, as this would only force sex work ‘underground’, making HIV control more difficult. “We saw the difference that Ashodaya could make,” said an enthusiastic Nagendra Prasad, a male sex worker. “It completely changed the way we looked at our lives.”
Changing others’ perceptions of them has taken longer, though. Nevertheless, having worked the streets for years picking up clients with scarcely a glance, the sex workers have become the ultimate survivors. They regularly visited police stations to sensitize them about their lives. With unerring savvy, they even managed to ensure that their restaurant was inaugurated by none other than the Police Commissioner himself, the seniormost police official in the city. “The attitude of the police towards us is “slowing changing,” said Rathnamma, a sex worker. “Now, instead of being sarcastic to us, they greet us and ask us to sit down. It is not that our work is over. Although we still have a long way to go, violence and harassment have come down drastically.”
Profits from the Ashodaya restaurant now fund a hospice for those terminally ill with AIDS. Coming together as a group has also made it easier to spread awareness about HIV
Shanta Raj, a writer in the investigations department at the city’s Lakshmipuram Police Station who visits the restaurant often, testifies to the force’s gradually changing attitude. “Now that the sex workers are organized, they understand their responsibilities. They also feel less ashamed of themselves, don’t drink as much, and so we don’t need to arrest them as often.”
Working for the welfare of others Coming together as a group has also made it easier to spread awareness about HIV. Condom use has risen from 13 percent in 2004 to 80 percent now. And 300 registered HIV positive sex workers are now receiving ART. Moreover, Ashodaya has become a rallying point for all HIV positive people, even those who aren’t vendors of commercial sex.
Having suffered inordinate pain themselves, the sex workers display an acute sensitivity to the suffering of others. Profits from the Ashodaya restaurant fund a hospice for those terminally ill with AIDS. And, when unclaimed bodies are found in the city, it is this group that pays for the last rites – work that few others would be willing to do. Recently, they also donated fifty thousand rupees towards the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund after the devastating floods in the state.
The group also stands resolutely against forcing women into the trade against their will as well as the trafficking of children. Contrary to popular perception, and perhaps to dispel it, they routinely rescue lost children and deposit them at police stations, especially during the annual Dussehra celebrations when large numbers of tourists throng the city.
Tackling stigma and discrimination head-on Said Mariam Claeson, the World Bank’s Regional Coordinator for HIV/AIDS in South Asia, “Where the sex worker community is engaged and empowered, behavioral and social changes happen, stigma, discrimination and violence are tackled up front, and barriers to consistent condom use and HIV prevention are reduced. The Ashodaya Samithi is collaborating with development partners to serve as a learning site on HIV and Sex Work.
Clearly, the daring little Hotel Ashodaya is a major step forward in tackling the stigma and discrimination that HIV positive people face, and in according the sex workers of Mysore the dignity, respect, and acceptance they have so long craved.
RSS