The Reality of Sex Workers in India
Introduction:
In India, there is an abundance of sex workers, but most of them did not choose that path. In a case study at Mysore, India by Author Jhumka Gupta (An AIDS researcher from Yale) and her fellow colleagues, fifty-seven point four percent of forty-eight women fell for the trap of being promised jobs as a nanny or maid (Gupta). Then, these employers drugged or raped them to keep them as sex workers. Ironically in that case study, eighteen percent of the people that led these women into the trap of becoming sex workers were friends, neighbors, and husbands (Gupta). They sacrificed the people they know in order to gain financial stability. These women were forced to grow up quickly in this inhumane fashion. This forced trafficking has led to an increase in numbers of the HIV virus. According to The Times Of India in 2012, two out of every five sex workers in New Delhi have HIV. The mean age of all these women in three total studies is seventeen with almost a fifty percent HIV positive (Gupta). If it were not for advocacy groups ,Odanadi and the Integrated Anti Human Trafficking Units organization, rescuing and restoring these women’s lives to the best of their ability, these sex worker statistics would increase. The problem is, however, that these advocacy groups need more assistance, and the government should become more involved.
Background/Context:
These are the statistics now without government intervention on advocacy groups. These women obtain HIV through a variety of methods from sex “masters” themselves. The number one method is promising women jobs. The case study in Mysore had fifty-seven point four percent succumb to that method. Rape is another method where there is continuous sex until there is consent to join the other sex workers. Substance use in alcohol and drugs force them into prostitution as well. Finally, sex workers in India do not have access to health care (Gupta). They must continue to have sex with males even though there is an obvious sign of symptoms and sexually transmitted infections. This could lead to more diseases in themselves and other people. To bring these women “back on their feet,” organizations have been created to fight for women’s lives.
There is one organization that is against sex trafficking in India and devotes all their resources to revive the survivors. Odanadi, located in Mysore, Karnataka of India, provides shelter, job training, counseling, and health care for these survivors. They also care for the children who have been deserted, suffer from mental illness or physical abuse (Gupta). This truly assists the people that have been affected implicitly by women’s cruelty. Over the last two decades, Odanadi has declared that they saved over two thousand men, women, and children, stopped fifty-seven brothel raids and brought one-hundred and thirty-seven traffickers down (Odanadi). This organization gradually brings women back to what they once were and give them a sense of hope. The only problem with this organization is that its location is more to the south of the country while the main trafficking area is in Mumbai and Delhi which are the West and North respectively.
Another organization that is trying to diminish sex trafficking is the Integrated Anti Human Trafficking Units organization (AHTU). This organization began on March 24, 2007 and is in five states of India: Goa, Maharashtra, Andhra, West Bengal, and Pradesh. Their ultimate goal is to “beef up the law enforcement response and target traffickers” (Unodc). This objective is crucial because the law enforcement does not give enough support to attack the sex trafficking. Some police officials are even corrupted to the point where they force these women for sex in order to get released from prison (Amin). AHTU is provided with “one vehicle, one computer system, one cell phone, and grants” (Unodc) so that they can take care of free sex workers after being rescued. The only issue is considering if those are enough resources to revive the lives of these sex workers. From betrayal to acquiring HIV, demographic statistics list how these lives are without the help of the Indian government..
In order to identify the demographics about these sex workers, they would have to admit that they were sex workers and accept the stigma. There are many women who are not documented for statistics on age, pre-trafficking status, the relationship with the “master,” and their HIV status. There are three studies from Mysore, Mumbai, and Nepalese women that give this information. In Mysore, women fell into sex trafficking the most from ages fifteen to seventeen at thirty-one point one percent. Twenty six point two percent were greater than eighteen; and eleven point five percent was below fourteen. The rest was missing data from a sixty-one person study, but this still leads to a mean of seventeen years. Since the mean was at seventeen years, one can assume that most were unmarried and the statistic of sixty-two point three percent solidifies that statement. The relationship with the “master” is what one would expect: thirty-nine point three percent saying that they were complete strangers. A staggering fact is that eighteen percent were friends or neighbors. This means that women were betrayed so that friend or neighbor could achieve more financial stability. Finally, out of a sixty-one person study, forty-five point eight percent was HIV positive (Gupta). This is just in Mysore for the people who have admitted to have gone through prostitution. The people who have kept quiet are not accounted for. Another study involving two-hundred and eighty-seven women from Nepal provided a near-similar result: thirty-eight percent tested positive for HIV. The median of this age was group was listed at seventeen years as well (Silverman). One more study in Mumbai showed that out of one-hundred and seventy-five women, twenty-two point nine percent tested HIV positive. The mean age for this group was at fifteen point nine years (Silverman). All three studies from different regions in India provided close results.
Out of all three studies from sex trafficking, thirty-five percent tested HIV positive as a mean. The mean for the age is at seventeen. A good fraction of the overall population for Indian Women is obtaining HIV at such an early age. Also, everyone involved can truly be affected as well by obtaining the virus or just witnessing the pain. This should be cared about if around a third of the women’s population is in danger. These facts are noted for people who have admitted these facts about HIV. The statistic is probably higher all because of sex trafficking. The statistic would be even higher if advocacy groups did not exist, but can be lowered if they got help from the government such as funding.
Research Questions:
Even with advocacy groups- such as Odanadi and AHTU- working on a solution to the problem of sex trafficking in women, there are still questions left to ask. These organizations allocate to a specific state, what about the other states? Are the other states not getting enough assistance just because they are not the most populated in sex traffickers in India? Are there any laws that are assisting these companies in their cause to stop sex-trafficking and save these women? Since there are only two major advocacy groups identified so far, are there any laws impeding the progression of these companies? If the law is against helping, then why does the government refuse to help a cause that could potentially kill a third of the women population? If the law is helping, then why is it not enforced enough to help this situation resolve? These questions about laws are the backbone to understanding how this problem can be solved. This is how the research will continue by searching the history of these laws in the last thirty years.
Review of Research:
As of right now, my research has come from search engines such as Google and Bing. Through them, I found information for Odanadi and AHTU. The bulk and core of my research, however, has come from the University of California, Irvine library. Through there access, I obtained scholarly articles about statistics and current information on HIV and sex trafficking from creditable authors: Jhumka Gupta, Anita Raj, Michele R. Decker, Elizabeth Reed, and Jay G. Silverman. These authors have conducted the study which provided the facts on demographics, causes, and HIV statistics. They are credible by studying and researching at Yale, Boston, Harvard, and Duke for topics such as human development, research on AIDS, and global health. As for the Historical and Advocacy essay, I will utilize more resources from the library instead of the search engines at home. This gives me more accurate and current information which is crucial for identifying the history of government involvement with advocacy groups. The history of how that began, the laws involved, and what type of people were involved are crucial to moving forward.
Works Cited
Amin, Avni. “Violence against sex workers and HIV prevention.” 2005. Print. 21 Oct. 2012.http://www.who.int/gender/documents/sexworkers.pdf
“Goa acts against Human Traffickers.” 2007. Print. 21 Oct. 2012. http://www.unodc.org/india/ht_unit_goa240307.html
Gupta, Jhumka, Anita Raj and Michele R… Decker. “HIV vulnerabilities of sex-trafficked Indian women and girls…” Oct. 2009.Print. 12 Oct. 2012. http://ucelinks.cdlib.org:8888/sfx_local?genre=article&issn=00207292&title=International+Journal+of+Gynecology+%26+Obstetrics&volume=107&issue=1&date=20091001&atitle=HIV+vulnerabilities+of+sex-trafficked+Indian+women+and+girls.&spage=30&sid=EBSCO:a9h&pid=
“Our Work.” 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. http://www.odanadi.org/about-us/human-trafficking
Silverman, Jay, Michele Decker and Jhumka Gupta. “HIV Prevalence and Predictors among Rescued Sex-Trafficked Women and Girls in Mumbai, India.” 2006. Print. 21 Oct. 2012.http://nivc.perpich.com/groups/inwomen/lists/inwomen/archive/2009/08/1235125950000/1250620105782.pdf
Silverman, Jay, Michele Decker and Jhumka Gupta. “HIV Prevalence and Predictors of Infection in Sex-Trafficked Nepalese Girls and Women.” 1 Aug. 2007.Print. 21 Oct. 2012. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=208242
Sinha, Kounteya. “In India, two out five female sex workers are HIV-positive.” 15 Mar. 2012.Print. 21 Oct. 2012.
Working Bibliography
“AIDS in India: Money Won’t Solve Crisis.” 14 Nov. 2002.Web. 2 Oct. 2012. http://www.hrw.org/news/2002/11/12/aids-india-money-won-t-solve-crisis
Amin, Avni. “Violence against sex workers and HIV prevention.” 2005. Print. 21 Oct. 2012.http://www.who.int/gender/documents/sexworkers.pdf
This website shows relevance to my topic on how corrupt the police is to help the cause. It is the only source I have on this topic, but it shows how they will not help save sex workers. If they will not help, the government, who are above the police in hierarchy, will not help. The evidence comes from the quote I used into my paper on how they force woman to have sex with them so those women can be released from prison. The author of this article is Avni Amin, a member of the World Health Organization in the department of health and women. This article is clearly comprehensive in explaining their facts. I only used it for one claim on the corrupt police. As for timeliness, this article was published in 2005. The earliest source used, but still in the 2000’s.
Csete, Joanne. “HIV/AIDS in India: An epidemic of abuse.” The Asian Wall Street Journal, 11 Jul. 2002.Web. 2 Oct. 2012.http://www.hrw.org/news/2002/07/10/hivaids-india-epidemic-abuse
“Goa acts against Human Traffickers.” 2007. Print. 21 Oct. 2012. http://www.unodc.org/india/ht_unit_goa240307.html
This website shows relevance to my topic because it is an advocacy organization. My topic is basically the need to help these organizations in resources so they are stronger in saving sex-trafficked women with and without HIV. These are one of the two organizations identified so far and this organization does the most work in different areas by helping five different states. Evidence to helping these woman is included since it is their actual website. Since it is a “.org,” website, they must be informational. They prove just that by stating what they have for resources to use in each station: computer, cell phone, and grants. They also state that they are being funded by the United States government which is actually puzzling since there is no mention of the Indian government. As for comprehensiveness, there is no argument to list, AHTU is just listing facts about themselves and what they do which is the scope of their website. On timeliness, this article was established in 2007 which is a year after they launched AHTU (2006). I am assuming that as long as it is in the 2000’s it should be in the right time zone. Hopefully, there are more updated articles about their progress that can be located later. The author is not listed because this is not an article, but an organization website. Whoever wrote this article under UNODC, however, has made certain to display the facts and pictures in a specific format to allocate interest to the reader.
Gupta, Jhumka, Anita Raj and Michele R… Decker. “HIV vulnerabilities of sex-trafficked Indian women and girls..” Oct. 2009.Print. 12 Oct. 2012. http://ucelinks.cdlib.org:8888/sfx_local?genre=article&issn=00207292&title=International+Journal+of+Gynecology+%26+Obstetrics&volume=107&issue=1&date=20091001&atitle=HIV+vulnerabilities+of+sex-trafficked+Indian+women+and+girls.&spage=30&sid=EBSCO:a9h&pid=
Annotated bibliography:
Authors: Jhumka Gupta, Michele R. Decker, Elizabeth Reed, Jay G Silverman, and Anita Raj, noted from their prestigious University researches (Yale, Boston, Harvard, and Duke) in health and AIDS research, argue that HIV is present in nearly half of the women they study through different methods such as rape, drugs, and promising jobs. They construct this argument through a scholarly article out of the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics in an informative genre. The types of evidence presented are abundant with a graph of the country and where advocacy groups are as well as data tables of how many people have HIV and how did they get it. The intended audience for this article is people interested in Gynecology and Obstetrics or they would not open the journal. The purpose is to inform to the reader that women get HIV through a lack of autonomy.
Gupta, Jhumka, Elizabeth Reed and Trace Kershaw. “History of sex trafficking, recent experiences of violence, and HIV vulnerability among female sex workers in coastal Andhra Pradesh, India.” Aug. 2011.Web. 21 Oct. 2012.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002072921100172X
“Our Work.” 2012. Web. 21 Oct. 2012. http://www.odanadi.org/about-us/human-trafficking
Annotated bibliography:
The Odanadi website, known as the non-profit organization against human trafficking, has no specific author because it is a “.org” website. As for the thesis, they fight to stop human trafficking and bring women back to their feet after being rescued. Their message is given in a “.org” website in a clear informative tone by stating the facts of what they have done to help the cause. Types of evidence include statistics on how many people they rescued and how many traffickers were brought to justice under their will. The audience is the people who can donate to help for the cause and their overall purpose is to inform the public on what is truly going on in human trafficking.
Seshu, Meena Seshu and Joanne Csete. “India’s Voiceless Women Are Easy Prey for AIDS.” The Los Angeles Times, 2nd Dec. 2002.Web. 2 Oct. 2012. http://www.hrw.org/news/2002/12/01/indias-voiceless-women-are-easy-prey-aids
Silverman, Jay, Michele Decker and Jhumka Gupta. “HIV Prevalence and Predictors among Rescued Sex-Trafficked Women and Girls in Mumbai, India.” 2006. Print. 21 Oct. 2012.http://nivc.perpich.com/groups/inwomen/lists/inwomen/archive/2009/08/1235125950000/1250620105782.pdf
This article is a study of HIV sex trafficked women in Mumbai, India. This article is relevant because it shows more statistics on how old these women are, how many of them got HIV, and how long were they in there. These statistics show that advocacy groups need more power and assistance in order to reduce these statistics. The evidence is purely statistics by showing that there were one-hundred and seventy-five women involved with a mean age at 15.9. Evidence such as this is concrete and applies logos to the reader. The authors are Jay G. Silverman, Michele R. Decker, Jhumka Gupta, Ayonija Maheshwari, Vipul Patel, and Anita Raj. They are all credible from going to Yale, Harvard, John Hopkins, etc. Silverman especially, went to Harvard School of Public Health to study human development. These authors have conducted the same study in different parts of India to conduct a nation study. The comprehensiveness of this article describes their objective, what they did to find an answer, and an answer followed by a conclusion. It had the same feeling of reading a laboratory report format. Finally, on timeliness, this article was published in 2006. If all these statistics were shown at that time, imagine how high they are now.
Silverman, Jay, Michele Decker and Jhumka Gupta. “HIV Prevalence and Predictors of Infection in Sex-Trafficked Nepalese Girls and Women.” 1 Aug. 2007.Print. 21 Oct. 2012. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=208242
The relevance of this article is based on statistics to show the reader that advocacy groups need more power and help to save more women. Just like the article of Mumbai, this applies to Nepalese women only. The evidence is the facts and statistics themselves. This case had two-hundred and eighty-seven women and had thirty eight percent HIV positive. This adds to the other two studies to show how consistent the data is around in HIV percentage and age. The authors are the same as the study above: Jay G. Silverman, Michele R. Decker, Jhumka Gupta, Ayonija Maheshwari, Anita Raj, and the addition of Brian M. Willis, an ECPAT international in Washington DC. These authors are trying to collect statistics from all these areas on HIV and age. The comprehensiveness is present by the way the information presents itself. It looks like a laboratory report and has the diction of one. Finally, this article was presented in 2007, a year after the study in Mumbai. This shows consistency in results after at least a two-year span.
Sinha, Kounteya. “In India, two out five female sex workers are HIV-positive.” 15 Mar. 2012.Print. 21 Oct. 2012.http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-15/india/31196527_1_hiv-infection-national-aids-control-organization-fsws
The relevance of this article to my Research Proposal is the statistic of how many females actually have HIV. This article shows that for female sex workers in New Delhi, but also shows the statistic of doing one-hundred and two different studies total in fifty countries. The evidence shows that there is an overall twelve percent out of every country combined that has HIV. The evidence for me is that forty percent of women in New Delhi have HIV. The author of this article is Kounteya Sinha, who is a reporter for the Times of India. He appears to write about health articles most of the time. Comprehensiveness is just the statistic; however, there is a flow to statistics on the combination of all studies. This is my most recent article coming out at March 15, 2012. Forty percent of sex workers have HIV at this year. This timing is perfect for my Research Proposal.
