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When a whole red-light area is burnt down, what does our conscience say?


On April 15 2008, sex workers' homes in Sitamarhi district in North Bihar were yet again targeted, attacked, and subsequently torched and looted. 12 sex workers and 4 children were brunt alive. Several other sex workers were taken away by the police, some of whom are still missing; several people were booked under the anti-trafficking act. The administration took no interest in protecting the basic citizenship rights of the displaced and victimized sex workers. The camp where the sex workers were housed in the interim did not have food and water, those burnt in the incident did not get access to proper medical care; several people died. Subsequently, after local groups advocated for their return to their dwelling under full administrative protection, the sex workers were allowed to go back to their burnt down homes – but without adequate food and medicine supplies and protection from further harassment. While the local administration is clearly not inclined to make any special efforts to address the situation, sex workers activist groups from across the country are ensuring the well being of the sex workers. 

This is not an isolated incident. In different parts of South and South-East Asia, either in the name of anti-trafficking interventions or to morally clean up a town or a neighborhood, sex workers are being systematically evicted from their homes and their places of work. Four years ago, the same location in Sitamarhi was similarly attacked.

In recent years, HIV interventions have created new spaces for sex workers, often as frontline workers in the battle against HIV/AIDS. This role of sex workers has been invaluable in making HIV interventions effective across the region. However, having no clear support systems to protect their lives and livelihoods, such programs have indirectly contributed towards increasing the vulnerability of sex workers by increasing their visibility. Attempts are now being made in several countries in the region to change existing laws pertaining to sex work, or to introduce new laws criminalizing them in the name of strengthening anti-trafficking endeavors. Sex workers and their organizations fully know, trafficking is a social menace that has to be stopped, and there are examples where sex workers and their organizations have taken very effective steps to stop trafficking into sex work. However, currently most of what is happening in the name of anti-trafficking is resulting in police harassment and torture, eviction and even death of sex workers. On the other hand, the Asian Commission on HIV/AIDS (duly commissioned by UNAIDS) clearly recommended decriminalization of sex workers and creation of supportive environment for them, for effective implementation of HIV programs.

We, professionals and activists involved in HIV responses in the region since the last two decades, strongly feel that it is our moral and professional responsibility to truly implement the rights based approaches to protect the rights and lives of sex workers and other key populations. Without the empowerment of key populations and without restoring their citizenship rights, we will lose the battle of containing the HIV epidemic from affecting greater number of people.


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