The Opposite of Free Love
April 1, 2002
The red light district of Mumbai, India, was crammed with cars, bicycles, mopeds, oxcarts, pedestrians, and children. Brightly colored fabrics hung from balconies, laundry lines, and open windows, not quite covering the drab walls. I was accompanied by two social workers and a loose following of men taking note of our presence. Beautiful and not-so-beautiful women, some who looked 14 years old, some who looked 30, draped themselves around the entrances to their brothels. The social workers and I climbed carefully up a narrow stairwell to a residence hall about as wide as a balcony on a cheap hotel. Dogs that seemed drugged lay in our path. The smell of urine choked the air. I was introduced to Cybi, who pays 35 rupees (71 cents) a day for a bed in a small room with several other men, women, and children. She is required to have sex with at least ten clients a day. On festivals and holidays, the number is more likely to be twenty. When Cybi was a virgin, she might have commanded 10,000 rupees (US$204). But after that first customer, her price fell to 2,000 rupees (US$40). Now she is worth about 50 rupees (US$1) per sex act. The day we arrived, she found out that she had AIDS. I spent three days with women like Cybi (all of whose names I have changed). By distributing condoms and providing some care for their children, the social workers of a local faith-based project try to develop enough trust to eventually help the women find a way out of prostitution. Though I was there to find ways to increase the aid the women will receive, much of the time I felt like an interloper amidst their misery. Some women were from rural parts of India, brought to Mumbai by deception and coercion; others had been trafficked from Nepal and Bangladesh ...
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