Why Prostitution?

Why do youths get into prostitution?

 

While many child prostitutes are girls who come from troubled family situations, anyone can become a victim. They can be rich or poor, female or male, any age, and have families who care about them. Here are some common factors that can lead to young people getting involved in "the life:"
difficult situations and circumstances at home or school, victim of sexual, physical or emotional abuse, low self-esteem, low self-worth or a need to belong, poor academic or employment skills, addicted to drugs or alcohol, poverty, unconventional peers or peer pressure, being tricked into thinking it is glamorous, excitement from the danger, desire to make money quickly.

Fights at school, staying out all night and sneaking out after bedtime are signs that a youth is heading for trouble

Factbook on Global Sexual Exploitation

         

 

Trafficking

There have been 1 million Bangladeshi and more than 200,000 Burmese women trafficked to Karachi, Pakistan. (Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India, "Paper on Globalization & Human Rights")

200,000 Bangladeshi women have been trafficked to Pakistan for the slave trade and prostitution. (Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, p.8, UBINIG, 1995)

200,000 Bangladeshi women were trafficked to Pakistan in the last ten years, continuing at the rate of 200-400 women monthly. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

In Pakistan, where most of trafficked Bengali women are sold there are about 1,500 Bengali women in jail and about 200,000 women and children sold into in the slave trade. (estimates by Human Rights organizations in Pakistan, Trafficking in Women and Children: The Cases of Bangladesh, p.14, UBINIG, 1995)

India and Pakistan are the main destinations for children under 16 who are trafficked in south Asia. (Masako Iijima, "S. Asia urged to unite against child prostitution," Reuters, 19 June 1998)

More than 150 women were trafficked to Pakistan every day between 1991 and 1993. (Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India, "Paper on Globalization & Human Rights")

100 - 150 women are estimated to enter Pakistan illegally every day. Few ever return to their homes. ("Rights-South Asia: Slavery Still A Thriving Trade," IPS, 29 December 1997)

There are over 200,000 undocumented Bangladeshi women in Pakistan, including some 2,000 in jails and shelters. Bangladeshis comprise 80 percent, and Burmese 14 percent, of Karachi’s undocumented immigrants. (Zia Ahmed Awan, affiliate with Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid, Sindh police report in 1993, "Rights-South Asia: Slavery Still A Thriving Trade," IPS, 29 December 1997)

A Bengali or Burmese woman could be sold in Pakistan for US$1,500 - 2,500 - depending on age, looks, docility and virginity. For each child or woman sold, the police claim a 15 to 20 percent "commission." ("Rights-South Asia: Slavery Still A Thriving Trade," IPS, 29 December 1997)

Women kidnapped at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border are being sold in the marketplace for R600 per kilogram as of 1991. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

Auctions of girls are arranged for three kinds of buyers: rich visiting Arabs (sheiks, businessmen, visitors, state-financed medical and university students), the rich local gentry, and rural farmers. (CATW - Asia Pacific "Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific" (19)

19,000 Pakistani children have been trafficked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 160,000 Nepalese women are in Indian brothels. (LHRLA, Indrani Sinha, SANLAAP India, "Paper on Globalization & Human Rights")

Orphaned girls are sold as ‘wives’ to men who may resell them (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

Methods and Techniques of Traffickers

Bangladeshi and Burmese women are being kidnapped, married off to agents by unsuspecting parents, trafficked under false pretenses, or enticed by prospects of a better life, into brothels in Pakistan. Border police and other law enforcement agencies are well aware of the trafficking through entry points into Pakistan like Lahore, Kasur, Bahawalpur, Chhor and Badin. (Sindh police report in 1993, "Rights-South Asia: Slavery Still A Thriving Trade," IPS, 29 December 1997)

Nepalese and Bangladeshi woman and girls are trafficked under false pretenses, such as jobs, then are forced into prostitution in brothels in Pakistan. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

A rise in trafficking of girls, aged 8-15, in Pakistan has occurred during this last decade. (CATW - Asia Pacific, Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific)

Policy and Law

Trafficked women are further victimized by the police and the legal system, which treat them as criminals. The women are booked under Pakistan's controversial 'Hudood Ordinances.' The Zina Ordinance, which comes under the Islamic Hudood Ordinance, makes adultery or sex outside marriage a crime against the state. Women and girls in prostitution are often charged with Zina. Sometimes, they are booked under the Passport Act. Either way, they have to spend long periods in prison. For illegal immigration, the sentence is four years, but many women end up serving three or four years extra, either waiting for trial or to clear immigration formalities. (Nausheen Ahmed, "Rights-South Asia: Slavery Still A Thriving Trade," IPS, 29 December 1997)

The governments of Pakistan in the last 26 years have established three commissions of inquiry into the sexual exploitation of women. However, the government under Bhutto in the seventies, the Zia regime of the eighties and the present government have all disregarded the commission's recommendations. (Binoo Sen, National Commission for Women India, "Paper on Political Commitment")

Prostitution

Official Response and Action

A Pakistani military court will try two Pakistani soldiers, who organized a prostitution ring while with a United Nations mission in Haiti. ("Weekly News Update on the Americas," Issue #419, Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, 8 February 1998)

Organized and Institutionalized Sexual Exploitation and Violence:

Arabs stationed for a short time in Pakistan take "temporary wives," abandoning the women and any children afterwards. (CATW - Asia Pacific "Trafficking in Women and Prostitution in the Asia Pacific" (22)

Case

A Pakistani woman was threatened with contempt of the Supreme Court if she did not allow her ex-husband to have sex with her. Conjugal rights were reinstated to her ex-husband, although she has since remarried. If she refuses to allow her ex-husband to have sex with her she will be punished according to the law. (Anwar Iqbal, "Wife faces contempt in sex case," United Press International, 9 May 1998)

PAKISTAN: Poverty, Lack of Options Keep Women in Sex Work

Inter Press Service - April 9, 2003
Muddassir Rizvi

 

ISLAMABAD, Apr 9 (IPS) - Najma says she does not like her work, but that circumstances compel her to continue being a sex worker.

The 30-year-old mother of a seven-year-old daughter, was forced into prostitution 15 years ago. "There's no way out," said Najma, who lives in Heera Mandi, the red light area in the eastern town of Lahore, Pakistan's second largest city.

When she was 13 her family married her off to an overaged man, who tormented her physically and sexually. "I ran away from his home and met a man who I fell in love with. We eloped but the man's family poisoned his mind against me, and he left me too," she said, as her daughter played in the background, in their one-room home with bare necessities.

When Najma returned to her family, they refused to take her back. "My only friend at that time was a sex worker who offered me shelter. She introduced me to prostitution, and I had no other way to survive. I travelled with her to Karachi where she said business was better."

Najma spent 10 years in Karachi, earning as much as 3,000 rupees (50 U.S. dollars) a day. "It was there I met the father of my daughter. But he also cheated me. After squandering all my savings, he refused to marry me and wanted me to continue in the sex trade," she said, sobbing.

She returned to Lahore and took up domestic work, cleaning homes and washing dishes. "But there too several times I was forced to render my services other than the domestic work to the debauched men-folk of those homes," she recalled.

"Why then should I not pursue the clients who pay compensation for my services?" she asked. "So I returned to Heera Mandi to earn whatever little I can so that I can raise my daughter."

Najma's story must not be different from 800,000 sex workers in the country, people that many in this religiously conservative society often pretends does not exist. But the sex trade is thriving although it is illegal, according to the International Human Rights Monitoring (IHRM) group.

Apart from adultery, punishable under Islamic laws, the country has a specific law that prohibits prostitution. Under the Suppression of Prostitution Ordinance 1961, running a brothel, enticing or leading a woman or a girl for prostitution and forcing a woman or a girl to have sexual intercourse are punishable crimes.

IHRM executive director Ulfat Kazmi said estimates are hard to come by, but the number of sex workers appears to be increasing. At least 45 million people out of the country's 140 million population live in abject poverty.

"As many as 44 percent women resort to the sex trade due to poverty, 32 percent by deception, 18 percent due to coercing, 4 percent due to surroundings (born to sex workers) and only 2 percent are involved in the sex trade at their own will," said a report by IHRM.

However, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) maintains that many women forced into prostitution are trafficked across the porous borders, particularly from Bangladesh transited through India.

Other groups suggest that women are also brought into Pakistan from Bangladesh to serve as sex workers or as bonded domestic labour.

Last year. the Pakistani government the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance.

Just a few months ago, media covered the story of around 30 Iranian girls who were sent back to Iran. Human smugglers had bought these young girls, rescued by police and social workers in Balochistan province on the border with Afghanistan, from poor Iranian families on the promise that they would be married off to well-off men in Pakistan.

Women and girls are also sold within the country. "In Swat (North West Frontier Province), a woman could be bought for no more than 10,000 rupees (165 U..S dollars). In Sindh and Balochistan, the selling of daughters as young as 10 years to men willing to pay their families 30,000 to 40,000 rupees (500 to 660 dollars) was reported," said the HRCP State of Human Rights Report 2002.

There is also forced prostitution of boys and girls under 18 years of age, despite a specific provision in the penal code designed to fight this.

A study by the National Commission for Child Welfare and Development, whose controversial findings were never made public, said; "Due to cultural and religious factors, commercial sexual activity is kept underground, but its existence is well known and acknowledged by many sectors of society including law enforcers".

"Girls of families involved in prostitution start selling their bodies at an early age of 11 or 12 years. The price of first night is enormous compared to usual local rate as in most Asian societies, there is a premium on virginity," said the report.

The IHRM report said that while there are only few known spots for sex trade like Heera Mandi in Lahore, where Najma works, "the sex business is also being run in the cover of family clinics, maternity centres, marriage bureaus, beauty parlours and guest houses".

But the fact that sex workers are in an illegal trade means they have no legal protection. "I can't approach police if a client refused to pay after availing my services, because I know I would be exploited, and if I resist, they will take me in for violating one law or the other," said Najma.

In this religiously conservative society, civil society groups have a hard time raising the issue of the rights and protection of sex workers.

But some are educating sex workers on HIV and hepatitis, and the use of contraceptives. ActionAid Pakistan is running one a counselling centre in Lahore's Heera Mandi.

Said Najma: "The ActionAid centre educated us about personal hygiene and safe sex practices and provided us free condoms. Even if I am doomed to live this life, I feel better off health-wise." (END/IPS/AP/HD/PR/MR/JS/03)

By LUBNA JERAR NAQVI
Special to The Japan Times Online

ISLAMABAD -- The countries making up the South Asia region support about one-quarter of the planet's population, with a large number of people unemployed and living below the poverty line. This socioeconomic situation has helped increase social crimes especially like human trafficking, especially of women and children. Prostitution, which is also included in human trafficking, is an intolerant social crime and a major issue in these countries.

The ratio of human trafficking is high in this region, with girls kidnapped from Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and trafficked to mostly Gulf States, where there is a bevy of rich clientele.

Some studies estimate that more than 6,000 girls are being sold to India each year, which adds to the huge number of 172,0000 girls, mostly from Nepal, working as prostitutes in India. India has around 2.3 million prostitutes working in the region. Most of the girls are driven to this "profession" due to poverty, marriage or adoption.

In some regions, prostitution isn't frowned upon. In fact, it is a prestigious religious duty and women involved in this are revered by society. These women are called devdasi, where "dev" means "god," and "dasi" means "maid," therefore "maid of god." Actually these devdasis were "temple prostitutes." This ancient tradition was based on chosen females dedicating their whole lives to a deity and living their lives in temples.

Choosing the devdasi was the duty of the temple priests and the social elite, and these women was chosen to look after the deities. The devdasi also catered to the sexual needs of the priests and rich patrons of the temple (the latter usually chosen by her mother and the temple) who took responsibility for her social welfare. These women were free to have or refuse sex at their will. However, they were not allowed to the common man. Being so important in the temple hierarchy, they were invited as revered guests to social functions in surrounding villages to dance and sing. These women were considered holy and were not allowed to mix with the common folk.

This tradition saw its downfall when a century ago, the devdasi were considered immoral and were no longer held in reverence by society. They were reduced to mere prostitutes, social outcasts. However, it is still practiced in Saundatti, a small village located in the south of India.

Then in the 1980s, the Indian government totally banned the tradition and tried to rehabilitate the devdasi and give them a better life. The ban did not deter those for whom this tradition is a revered custom, and those who held it dear, especially in South India, continued the practice. Today hundreds of girls are covertly dedicated to temples to don the role of devdasi in defiance of the ban.

"It is a revered tradition that has been part of the culture for centuries. If it is part of one's culture and religion, how can we forgo this tradition just because some people think it is not right and immoral? How can serving a temple and dedication to a deity and other duties be immoral when it is in the name of a revered cause?" asks sociologist Shurti Shunkar.

Says historian Guldeep Mehra: "We cannot uproot an ancient tradition just like that. There is a lot of history behind such customs. If we want them to change, we could be hurting someone's feelings. As a historian I would not support it."

Prostitution has become a taboo in the conservative mindset of South Asia, but it remains part of every society and culture. It also serves to constrict certain carnal crimes from growing, even though in most conservative societies crimes against women and children are on the rise.

And although conservatives may decry such degradation, the most hypocritical condone the killing of their own women under various other customs and laws, like horrendous honor killings of innocent females at the hands of their male kin, or the selling off (usually after a small ceremony disguised as a wedding to appease the conscience of parents or guardians) of young girls to older men for money.

Sameena, a resident of Hyderabad Deccan, India, hails from a high-caste, poor Muslim family -- a Syed family, direct descendents of the Prophet Mohammad who hold a revered position in Islamic society. Her father is a low-earning rickshaw driver. Her mother is a housewife, tending to her brood of six daughters and five sons all living in a hovel.

Sameena was "married off" at the age of 16 to a wealthy man from an Arab country. Only too happy to get Sameena off their hands, her parents didn't even consider that their new "son-in-law" was double their daughter's age. They were happy that they were getting a daughter married and that this marriage didn't cost them a penny. On the contrary, the groom, who already had several wives, paid them handsomely for their daughter.

The groom and the new addition to his household flew off to Dehli, where they spent a couple of days together before he left her in the hotel with divorce papers.

Sameena was handsomely rewarded by her husband with jewelry and cash, which her parents laid claim to. The teenager was devastated. She actually believed that she had at last found happiness, if not marital then at least financial. She thought she had been saved from the daily pangs of starvation her family faced and that she would be able to help her brothers and sisters.

Upon coming home, she realized her parents had known all along that her groom would run out on her. And now they were preparing for her younger sister's "wedding," also to a wealthy man from abroad. Sameena's parents silenced her protests and she found nobody else willing to help.

The poor selling off their daughters to rich men puts food on the table. Sameena was "married" twice more before her younger sisters took her place. Those around her seemed to accept these marriages as legal in every way.

This is a softer side of prostitution that is accepted and used as a means of living by the poor. It has become acceptable as a means to an end only due to economic impediments, and therefore is not considered a social taboo. Pakistan, as a predominately Islamic country, frowns on this trade, but cannot stop it.

The metropolis of Karachi is notorious for receiving a million Bangladeshi and more than 200,000 Burmese women, according to Indrani Sinha of SANLAAP India. Sanlaap is a nongovernmental organization engaged in improving the life of women, children and adolescents in the red-light areas.

These women are sold in Pakistan for about $1,500 - $2,500 with a 15 percent to 20 percent commission for the police, depending on their "looks, age, docility and virginity."

The larger part of the clientele for these "goods" is rich visiting Arabs, the rich locals and rural farmers. The Arabs take "temporary wives," abandoning them and any children afterwards, with or without any benefits, a practice prevalent in India as well.

In Pakistan, the trafficked women are victimized by the authorities and are booked under the Zina Ordinance, part and parcel of the dangerous and controversial Hudood Ordinances, which state that adultery or sex outside marriage is a crime against the state and punishable by death by stoning.

Usually these women and girls are often charged under Zina (adultery), if they are caught as prostitutes and maybe imprisoned. Doubly punishing them for crimes they were forced to commit.

During the 1980s, President Zia-ul-Haq dispersed prostitutes from their specified localities in red light areas and forced them to seek refugee in residential areas.

This gave their profession finesse by providing them strategic places to hunt for respectable rich clients. And this allowed them to camouflage and mingle freely with the public. This shift only allowed their profession to prosper, avoid police raids and commissions and carry on their businesses in private within their premises.

Another major factor adding to prostitution in Pakistan is the slum dwellers. These people live in illegal premises in shanty huts and are continually harassed and abused by the police.

Every night, policemen come along and pick out girls for prostitution. Protests are met with dire consequences, which could range from dislocation from the illegal premises, to death, or even the rape of the victim's mother or younger sisters. The hapless concede to these demands, aware that despite the authorities' knowledge of this problem, nothing will be done to change their plight.

Sajida grew up in a slum area of Karachi. Her father is a laborer and her mother works as a maid. She herself is prostituted by policemen, who either take her for themselves or sell her off to clients. There is no monetary remuneration for her services -- the cops pimping her out take it all.

Instead, Sajida earns only a slim sense of security for the other girls in her family and having a place to live. She sees no future for herself, and says she can't even commit suicide -- her death would give way for these animals to victimize the ones she has been trying to protect. "No one can help us! Only death will deliver us!" she says.

Bangladesh is one of the major providers of females for trafficking due to extreme poverty and social tolerance. It is one of the countries where many females are sold due to lack of dowry. Parents prefer to sell their daughters and sisters for money, instead of harrowing under the economic grunge.

Two judges of the Bangladeshi High Court have ruled that prostitution as a livelihood is not illegal, in a case where two girls were evicted from their home when the landlord discovered they were running a brothel.

Although frowned upon in this Islamic country, prostitution is thus allowed if the trade workers have a license. However, such a license can only be issued if the authorities are convinced that the holders have no other means of income.

Legal experts hold that this is an unusual judgment, but it nevertheless validates prostitution as a legal form of livelihood.

Interestingly, the Bangladeshi Constitution states that "gambling and prostitution should not be encouraged," but the largest number of trafficked women is generated in Bangladesh, due mainly to the weak economy and lack of employment.

The primary reasons behind such widespread prostitution in most Asian countries seem to stem from widespread poverty. This argument does not hold true in countries with thriving economies, where all too often a blind eye is turned to lucrative immorality.

The first official admission of the existence of child prostitution in Pakistan, the NCCWD survey came up with shocking findings. Out of a sample of 233 children interviewed in the country's four provinces, 159 admitted being engaged in commercial sex. PAKISTAN: Taking the Lid Off Child Prostitution Title: RPT/RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Taking the Lid Off Child Prostitution By Muddassir Rizvi ISLAMABAD, Sep 22 (IPS) - Every evening after sunset, 17-year-old Gul waits for clients at the bustling Pir Wadhai bus station in Rawalpindi, the twin city of the Pakistani capital Islamabad. There is hardly any day without a customer. His usual clients are travellers changing buses at Rawalpindi or policemen and bus drivers. He may even have three clients in one evening. ''I never approach anybody, they always come to me. Then we go to one of the many hotels around the bus station,'' he says. His work is usually over by midnight, when he goes home with at least 100 rupee s (less than two U.S. dollars) in his pocket. Selling his body is not the only way he earns for his family. He has three sisters, a mother and a father, who is addicted to narcotics and liquor and stays at home. The family lives in a crowded, low- income locality of tent houses. Gul does not go to school and spends his mornings carrying crates of fruits and vegetables at the fruit market in Islamabad. But this fetches him just 30 to 40 rupees a day. ''I don't want to sell my body, but have no choice,'' says Gul, who is the family's main bread-earner. His mother and a sister work as low-paid house cleaners in an upper income neighbourhood. Gul is one of the thousands of Pakistani children who have been driven into prostitution by poverty, say child rights groups. Although not very visible, the commercial sexual exploitation of children is growing in Pakistan, they say. ''Due to cultural and religious factors, commercial sexual activity is kept underground, but its existence i s well known and acknowledged by many sectors of society including law enforcers,'' says a report by the National Commission for Child Welfare and Development (NCCWD). The first official admission of the existence of child prostitution in Pakistan, the NCCWD survey came up with shocking findings. Out of sample of 233 children interviewed in the country's four provinces, 159 admitted being engaged in commercial sex. Of these, 98 were boys, who found business near hotels, restaurants, video shops, cinema halls and public parks. Child rights activists link the high rate of male child prostitution in Pakistan to social attitudes. ''...homosexuality and homo- affectionalism are socially tolerated unlike male-female physical affection,'' says a report published by the Islamabad-based Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child. Male prostitution is most prevalent in the highly conservative North West Frontier Province (NWFP), which borders Afghanistan. ''Male prostitutio n seems to be a particular customary behavior of the NWFP where elder, wealthy people keep young attractive boys with them for sexual pleasures,'' notes the NCCWD report. A study by the National Coalition of Child Rights and the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), found that a third of the men in the NWFP were proud of being paedophiles. Another 11 percent did not think this was wrong. ''Against the backdrop of such attitudes, child prostitution continues to rise with little or no resistance from society, though a thick veil of secrecy shrouds it only because it is a sin under the Islamic laws,'' says child rights expert Zarghon Shah. Child rights groups accuse the government of ignoring the evidence of large-scale commercial sexual exploitation of children in Pakistan. According to the NCCWD study, girls from the poorest areas of the country are being taken by ''organized rings'' to big city brothels. ''In Punjab, most of the girl prostitutes belong to either the NWFP province o r Afghan refugee camps there,'' says the NCCWD report. Girls are usually forced into prostitution when they are about 11 years old because their young age fetches a good price to the traffickers, notes the report. The NWFP newspaper 'Frontier Post' reported some time ago that more than 200,000 women, most of them under 18 years old were trafficked into Pakistan in the past decade. ''Many (Pakistani) women and children are also trafficked to the Middle East and pushed into the sex trade,'' the newspaper added. Rights activists point to the lax implementation of strict penalties for those who promote child prostitution. Under the law, transporting or importing a girl under 18 years of age for the purpose of prostitution, is punishable with a 10-year jail term. ''Similarly, sodomy is punishable under Section 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code with imprisonment that may extend up to life,'' says A. N. Bhutta, an Islamabad-based lawyer. The Islamabad-based child rights group SAHIL, a ccuses law enforcers of patronising the commercial sex business. A SAHIL survey on child prostitution in northern Punjab province, found that most clients of child prostitutes are either policemen or army soldiers. ''As a result, the hotels running child prostitution business enjoy police protection and continue to thrive,'' the group notes in its survey report. An official with the NCCWD told IPS that the centre has recommended to the federal government that ending the ''deafening silence around the rampant commercial exploitation of children, should be the first step.'' ''While there is need for raising public awareness about child prostitution and also for rehabilitation programmes for child prostitutes, equally important are effective poverty eradication plans especially targeted at people living in poor, semi-urban slums,'' the official said.