Tangail's Brothel and Sex Work: The "At Least" Sydrome

Black and red smeared eyes peered out between the curtains of their rooms. Some women’s faces were painted white as a Geisha, dressed in vibrant, sparkly skirts. We didn’t know if their make-up was to appear more enticing to customers, or to disguise who they are under a mask.

Despite all the color and glamour, this was a dark place.

Diya and I took a trip through Bangladesh’s oldest brothel in Tangail. Walking through the small alleys, it was similar to a dirty, slum. The ground is the wastebasket and everything reeks of various human fluids. Houses (single room shacks) are practically on top of one another, sharing walls as apartment buildings. There’s no privacy with curtains for doors and outdoor bathrooms. The narrow alleys are filled with sex workers waiting for clients—and clients just dawdling, chatting with shopkeepers selling soda and chips, watching with televisions. It’s own self-sustaining community with food, shelter and water pumps. People could stay inside for weeks without needing to go outside the brothel. Diya turned to me at one point: “This is the strangest place I’ve ever been.”

It was only so uncomfortable knowing what goes on behind these billowing curtains. Shirtless men peered out from the beds, staring at us foreigners unashamed. Honestly, I couldn’t even look at the men. To the women, I tried to smile but I felt intrusive walking in on their work and home space. I didn't take photos for that reasons. And it was mid-day.

It was additionally heartbreaking after hearing the personal stories of the women. I don’t want to sensationalize their lives in this blog, but I do want to create awareness. Some women cried to us during their interviews, sharing how their parents abandoned them or they were sold into the brothel. One woman was so small, ten years old, that she wasn’t even menstruating when she was forced to have sex. Her body was so young and fragile her hip broke when one man was penetrating her. Some girls look (and are) so young that some madams (women pimps) inject hormones used to fatten cows. (Thanks for the link, Neelofer!)

Often, young girls and women are chukri, bonded prostitutes. A relative or the trafficker have a large debt that is endowed to the young woman. They work under a madam until it is paid. With extremely high and unfair interest, women have no other livelihood or skill by the time the debt is settled. Some continue with sex work or become madam, continuing the cycle. Often times, they make more money selling sex than any other job, but the cost of living in this brothel is much higher than living outside of it. Their earnings rarely stay in their hands.

We learned that most of the violence doesn’t come from customers, but from police and shopkeepers. Sex workers are constantly chastised and beaten when they step outside the brothel. Clearly these men don’t think that it’s their brother or neighbor who is buying sex services, perpetuating the demand for female sex workers.

The organization we went with gives trainings to the women on how to not appear like a prostitute outside the brothel. Their explanation was: “Sex workers are treated as their work all the time. A businessman can leave his business and be a father or brother. Sex workers are beaten when they aren’t working because people can tell what their work is by the way they walk and dress. We give them training on how look more respectable in the public eye.”

At first, I was disappointed by this training’s approach. The problem lies in the idea that men think that women’s bodies are dangerous and must be hidden. Telling sex workers to change their appearance is reiterating that sex work is immoral and should be kept out of the public view. But violence is occurring—what can be done to stop it now? By helping these women change their dress, they can at least be safe on the street.

“At least”—that term was ringing in our heads throughout the entire trip. So much violence is happening: physical, emotional, structural. There’s no way to change every thing at once. With small steps, though not perfect, women “at least” are moving forward on the long road to equality and empowerment. “At least” it’s better, not perfect, but better.

We witnessed the NGO workers holding hands and gossiping with some sex workers as if they are normal women (because, shocker, they are normal women). The staff was really sweet and non-judgmental. Diya asked the women about the organization’s work and it’s impact on the brothel community. Women responded that it was truly helpful. They are helping release bonded prostitutes from their debts and instructing condom use. The organization has this really innovative approach to providing services to women who are traumatized: a workbook that uses symbols for women to draw their experiences and express their needs (see left).

One woman responded that if the organization wasn’t there supporting the sex workers, some company would have torn down the brothel and built a factory. Without this community and space, sex work would be much more difficult, and dangerous.

I still toss around my opinion on legalizing sex work. One of the world’s oldest professions, it’s not disappearing. It’s impossible, and unsafe, to try to erase it. People will find a way so we should 'at least' protect them. But legalization does not suddenly transform how most sex workers don’t necessarily have much of a choice in picking that profession; nor does it erase the bullshit patriarchal notions behind sex work: that a man has such ‘unruly’ hormones that he can’t control his sex drive and need to use a woman’s body to fulfill this uncontrollable desire. Therefore, she is turned into a slut, something worthless. I will accept it’s legalization with maybe the following conditions: sex work is consented by the worker and client together, there are scholarships and services for workers who want to leave the profession, psycho-social therapy services as well as amazing health care (like athletes), anti-discrimination laws... and there are just as many male sex workers as female with just as many females clients as male. And let’s forget heteronormative sex. It’s confining and boring.

UPDATE: Thought-provoking article on laws against sex work in the UK.

Jessore: Liberal Rural Life

We were both excited and dreading to make the trip out to Jessore. The Lonely Planet wrote that there's nothing interesting about the town except hotels and restaurants. From other people, an image was painted about this border town of being, quite frankly, a shithole. But, being a border town, Jessore has an array of anti-trafficking NGOs so Diya and I made a trip.

But did we eat our words! Jessore was a wonderful little town: quiet, clean, driving with battery operated scooters. People were endlessly polite and not intrusive towards us two foreigners. Friends of friends took us to their village where we spent a day with a beautiful, warm family: a father who coaches the girl's cricket team, a mother who loves her straight-talkin' daughter-in-law, and a son who worships his girl child. And the town was filled with interesting, progressive and thorough NGOs.

We were both surprised at the progressiveness of a place that is dyed at rural, ignorant, traditional--and unswayed. However, after interviewing a few NGOs, looking at their groups and services, and attending a probing round-table discussion, we felt that this little town was doing substantial work, even more progressive than many of the programs we've seen in Dhaka.

For example, we met with an organization that is supporting over one-hundred women's empowerment groups in the state of Khulna. The org gives training, information and confidence building to men and women to go into their communities and establish groups that fight for community rights including women's rights. Through these trainings, they learn how to seek justice for domestic abuse. We met one beautiful, humble woman, Iti, who quoted a member of her community saying, "If you hit me again, I'm going to set Iti on you!" She has almost singlehandedly supported the women in her community from the training she received.

I've been thinking a lot about the important of rights trainings, confidence/empowerment groups and space. What I view as a huge problem of Bangladesh is it's limited space, not in the sense of it's crowded population, but it's expression. For surviving through a hectic day, whether a poor rickshaw-wallah, a troubled student, or a homesick ex-pat, there isn't much space to release all the pent up energy and anger. Part of has to do with the inability to pay to use space, but there aren't many free or cheap public or private spaces to let go: no bars, arcades, parks.. safe spaces to express yourself. That negative energy stays inside, builds up and is released in destructive ways, like domestic or child abuse. Man have more options with street-side tea stands to shoot the wind and relax, but women don't have those options.

Women's groups seem a vital way to permeate human rights into culture and society. It's not that women don't seek empowerment, it's that they don't have a space to even discuss it let alone take action on it. Groups as these give a space that is 1) safe, and supportive to share their frustrations and experiences of living as the second gender, 2) creative resource to fight for their rights and develop ways to create change and 3) encourage confidence that they are not wrong or alone and to stand with conviction.

One interesting note from the trip was the presence of technology. Mobile phones are as common as ever. Hotlines for human rights and legal justice are ever present and many groups mentioned how they can communicate to find information (ie. safe migration for example instead of trafficking). But with mobile phones, traffickers can also communicate to each other in forcibly sending people across the border. Now, as in the West, information is easily accessible--what skill in now needed is how to critically judge what is good information and what is bad.

Also, it was mentioned that there are a lot of extreme religious schools established in the area than ever before. Wahhabi Islamic money is flowing into the country from Saudi Arabia funding extremist schools. Slowly, this subversive ideology is penetrating Bangladesh's religious morals and I'm afraid of how it will rear it's ugly head in days to come.

View pictures of Jessore here.

Note of thanks to my Fulbright colleague, Diya Bose, and her endless patience, understanding, energy and intelligence, of whom I view more as a fabulous mentor than research partner.

The 'Living' Problem of Achieving Empowerment

Research Update: I don't write much about my actually research because I'm still processing what I'm learning at different development organizations, shelters and centers. Women's empowerment is a deeply rooted quandary--a complicated and living topic. 'Living' not only because it deals with real lives but because there is no one, consistent answer or path to empowerment: it's constantly shifting and changing as the world does.

My Fulbright colleague, Diya, is working on an almost identical topic about rehabilitation centers and their roles in creating empowerment. Last week, we (along with my visiting friend, Jika) went to the town Rajshahi to visit a community development center that has a few interesting programs on women's empowerment. The picture to the side is the three of us crammed in a rickshaw. We are still looking into the projects and I cannot divulge an analysis now (you'll have to wait for the published paper!)

But something that keeps coming up in our endless, circled conversations is how grey the solutions are. Our ceaselessly critical minds are never fully satisfied with any program we encounter. We've come--or are beginning--to understand that while there is no perfect answer, the best solutions are individual based, not system-based.

Organizations that are devoting their programs previously practiced method of empowerment don't leave room for the individuality of women's lives, decisions and cases. For example, often organization's play off the "typical" story of a trafficking victim (which, there is endless debate over using the word victim or survivor--an entry on constructed identity will come). The typical story being she was sold to a man who brought her to a brothel and was raped for 3 years until she escaped. Though that story does happen, there are millions of other stories that you don't hear.

At the center we visited, we heard a story of girl who was caught at border and man with her, presumed to be trafficker, was detained. The community center discovered after one year of working with the girl, the man was her adopted father. They begged together on the street and he took care of her. She wanted to cross the border to find a better job. When she was crossing, this man followed her to make sure she made it through okay. The man is legally blind and has no other family, just wanting to protect the only daughter he felt he had. "It's tragic," Diya said.

This is one case; one fish in an ocean. But that's the reality of trafficking: there is so much grey and individuality of cases that there can't be one solution. In all truth, there is not one 'evil man' and one 'victim,' instead various levels of informed consent exist. The man may not know the girl was trafficked or she might have chosen to migrate. But, the law doesn't work like this: there is moral and immoral, right and wrong, legal and illegal. If the law acknowledges that she consented to at least part of her 'trafficking,'* then she should be en-prisoned for illegally crossing the border, even though she was informed that the trafficker would cheat her. If you don't acknowledge her active consent, you see her as only a victim of unfortunate circumstance, not a woman trying to find a better life.

There is a line: where us as social beings are cornered by our cultural positions and responsibilities--and where we are active agents. Empowerment, as well as the path leading to it including justice systems, should be acknowledging and coaching our individual agency. This means looking at problems not in right or wrong verdicts, but for best options.

This woman to the right is a member of a women's empowerment group in a indigenous village outside of Rajshahi. Hearing the women shares stories about how they have changed their village from creating private ladies toilets, to having their sons and daughters attend school, to banning bootleg alcohol vendors, they were beaming and speaking with confidence and pride. Together, they worked on what they felt needed to be fixed in the village--and did it! Their empowered action worked for them and their tribe.

What they did might not work for everyone. Their needs were different from a neighboring village. But the confidence and power they gained is universal and everlasting--and with these skills they can continue to adapt to new problems and create new solutions. That's empowerment: never perfect, only ideal, by having ability to produce new ideas.

*Some women and men ask/want/need to migrate for jobs and need someone to help them cross the border. Depending, again, on the case, this can constitute trafficking or not; but it's not always clear because the victim may not be informed fully of their awaiting job or contract. So is it trafficking if he/she agreed to migrate but didn't know to where? Those questions and ambiguous answers create the grey.

Journey by Emma Thompson

Way to go Emma Thompson!! If you are lucky enough to live in New York (i miss her), check out Thompson's anti-trafficking exhibit called "Journey".. and report back!

Update 11/16: My amazing friend Jika Gonzalez went to see Journey, here's her entry on it:

http://metrosection.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/journey/