Inside the Legal Brothels of Bangladesh

Prostitution law reform is a worldwide phenomenon. The law reforms have been encouraged by the global panic and stigma associated with and around sex work and trafficking. Policy making camps also find themselves divided on the best way to protect sex workers rights. While some favour the criminalisation of clients, which sex-worker led organisations disagree because according to them banning the practice will push the sex workers to even more danger. Instead they advocate the decriminalisation of sex workers.

Prostitution in Bangladesh is a much older phenomenon dating back to 200 years. It is also one of the few Muslim countries where prostitution was legalized and recognised by the State in 2000, after the yearlong detention of 100 sex workers which sparked protests calling for protection of women’s freedom and equal rights. The fight heralded a new legal framework but with poor administration and implementation it ended up in corruptive practices resulting in violation of women’s rights.

Though prostitution is legal, forced labour, sex trafficking, child prostitution is not, but in a country with poor law and order, traffickers act without any fear. Official estimates state that 100,000 women and girls are into this industry but one study reports that less than 10% of those have entered voluntarily. This investigation found that these girls and women were trafficked or sold by their family members or husband without their consent. Across the country one in five girls are married off when they get their first period i.e. at the age of 11 or 12. Dhaka Tribune reported that the conviction rate of those arrested due trafficking is less than half a percent, and since 2013, out of the 6000 arrested due to trafficking only 25 were convicted. Complete education and consent are luxuries only a few can afford.

Girls and women are sold to a brothel which is owned by an exploiter who was once exploited there, maintaining the hierarchy inside the brothel. Underage girls (under the legal age of 18) are sold for a high price in these brothels by the local gang and are beaten brutally if they refuse to sign the affidavit stating that they are over 18. The local policeman profit by accepting bribes and sexual favours in exchange for keeping his eyes closed. The girls are not allowed to leave or to refuse a client until and unless they pay off their debt. It sounds easy, but even after paying the debt they are not able to leave their profession because outside the brothels there is a world which looks down upon them with contempt and disrespect. Thus, they choose to continue with their profession. Bonded workers are not given a penny, all that they earn are taken by the owner leaving only a minimal amount for their maintenance. After paying off the debt they can keep the money they earn and live by paying a rent to the owner for a home. Many women give birth to children who take up the same profession as a sex worker like their mother. If a boy is born then he becomes an agent for the brothel and works to bring tourists and other Bangladeshi men specially truck drivers. Lack of sex education and unprotected sex leads to birth of children inside the brothels whose futures are ruined if there is no proper intervention that ensures their well-being.

Young girls are fed with Oradexon, a cow steroid easily available in the market without a prescription, to make the girls look curvy and attractive towards men. However, these medications have serious health issues that are never looked upon like kidney damage, heart attack and unnatural weight gain. In a way, these girls remain trapped into these brothels and eventually die there.

Inefficient aid from the International Aid groups has dragged the helpless Rohingya refugees from the neighbouring camps into one of the official brothels, serving both Bangladeshi men and Rohingya men. Prostitution among their community is not common and is seen as a taboo. The majority of Rohingya refugees are women and poor without a male bread earner making them more vulnerable to the sex traffickers who are in search of opportunities to make fast money by trafficking them into the Bangladeshi sex trade. The women are ashamed to pursue this activity but succumb to the pangs of hunger and poverty.

The steady stream of trafficked girls into Bangladesh’s sex industry verifies that these women and girls are disposable to those making money out of them. Apart from deaths due to ignorance of sexually transmitted diseases and other improper medications, suicides have reached such a point that two of the largest brothels Kandapara and Daulatdia had to make private graveyards to bury their bodies. Where there are no such private graveyards, dead bodies are buried outside the countryside at nightfall, in unmarked graves by torchlight. Public graveyards are not an option because of the social stigma surrounding the sex workers.

The Kandapara brothel in the district of Tangail is the second largest in the country. It was demolished in 2014 but local NGOs intervened and re-established it once again. Supporters of the brothel believe that criminalisation of sex work will make matters worse for those engaged in. Therefore, in 2014, the Bangladesh National Women’s Lawyer’s Association convinced the High Court that eviction of sex workers is an illegal act. The workers are scared of losing their house as the society outside is not ready to accept them as normal human beings. The BNWLA works to rescue and rehabilitate underage trafficking victims. Mental health problems are so deep-rooted among the bonded workers of the brothels that they are unable to come out of the trauma even if they have paid off their debts. Thus, the BNWLA steps in with an attempt to provide counselling and struggles for the betterment of their gruesome life.

Academic Siddharth Kara advices the UN and the US government on slavery and has shown through his research that sex trafficking is proportionately lucrative among other forms of modern slavery accounting for 50% of the illegal profits whereas the victims account for only 5% of the modern slaves making it an easy profession to earn good money for the traffickers. Corrupt government officials, policemen and politicians are responsible behind the rape, enslavement and abuse of hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken prepubescent girls who succumb to the shackles of sex slavery.

Debarati Ganguly

Intern, AGA