The RED LIGHTS of SONAGACHI

DMSC emerged from the Sonagachi district. This is the largest red light area in Calcutta and more than a 100 years old, existing since British colonial days. Today its members

have become a serious force to reckon with. Most of the region’s sex workers - the majority are girls under 18 - are forced into their profession because of poverty. They live under deplorable conditions. About 1,500 make up the floating, transient group who come mainly from the hinterland’s poverty-stricken villages. Of the permanent sex workers living in the area, many originate from neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal, sold off to the ‘madams’ by touts.
The empowerment process of the female sex workers in Sonagachi developed from a peer worker programme on HIV/Aids awareness. With the World Health Organisation warning about India being at the endemic stage of the

A dance performance by members of the West Bengal female sex workers forum (DMSC)

disease, many of the intervention programmes targeted the sex worker community from the early 90s.
The first case of HIV infection in India was detected in Chennai (formerly Madras). Today, according to NACO (National AIDS Control Organisation), there are about 3.8 million Indians affected by HIV/Aids (2001). It is estimated that the figure could become four to five times higher by 2010. West Bengal itself has 4,000 cases reported.
Most of the infections occur through heterosexual contact. It is a common practice in India for single and married men to use sex workers, and unprotected sex in this group has fuelled the epidemic. The next most affected group is intravenous drug users.
Men account for 79 per cent of HIV infections. However, infection among housewives, predominantly in monogamous relations with partners who can be migrant workers or indulging in unsafe sex with

others, and mother-to-child infection is an emerging trend.
While launching its intervention programme in 1992, the All India Institute of Hygiene and