Asha, Ragi and the other ‘lost’ girls who appear in The Lost Daughter of India might be fictitious, but they are nevertheless real. I first came into contact with the horrendous plight of such girls in the year 2000, during the research for one of my early novels; like Janiki and Caroline, I walked the streets of Kamathipura, and was able to visit a few brothels and talk to young girls who had been stolen from their homes for the trade.
In my research I was aided by Dr Gilada, the founder of the People’s Health Organisation in Mumbai. Dr Ganotra of The Lost Girl of India is based on Dr Gilada, and the story he tells of the Nepalese girl Tulasa is taken directly from an interview I did with him back in 2000. Tulasa’s story is true. There are still many Tulasas in Mumbai and other Indian and Asian cities today. Her story is shocking; but sometimes we need to be shocked. However, there is at last some good news. Here is that interview, with an update:
Saving Tulasa, child sex worker from Nepal
An Interview with Dr Gilada
Dr Ishwarprasad Gilada, founder, General-Secretary and driving force behind the People’s Health Organisation in India, has been fighting against the horrors of the Bombay sex trade for the last two decades.
Sharon: Your crusade against child prostitution in India began with the rescue of Tulasa in 1982; back then, the story made front page headlines in India and Nepal, and opened a viper’s nest of horrors. Who was Tulasa?
Dr I.G.: Tulasa Thalpa was a twelve-year-old Nepali girl who in 1982 was kidnapped from her village and sold into prostitution in Bombay. She was systematically raped to make her fit for the trade and then forced to entertain an average of eight clients a day. I met her ten months later in the Bombay hospital where I was working at the time. Her tiny body – the body of a child – was completely broken. She was suffering from three types of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), genital warts and brain tuberculosis, which left her disabled and wheelchair-bound, and finally killed her. The story she told was horrific. The People’s Health Organisation embarked on a full-fledged ‘Save Tulasa’ campaign, and with the support of the media managed to rescue her. We located her father – her mother had died shortly after her disappearance – and sent her home.
Sharon: You say with the support of the media. Didn’t the police help in the rescue campaign?
Dr. I.G.: Police collusion with the flesh trade was a crucial point in Tulasa’s revelations. Even today the police and the politicians are in collaboration with the pimps – the profit is huge. Back then, the uproar generated by her story forced the police into action, and in no time thirty-two persons involved were arrested, including the three brothel owners Tulasa had worked for. The police knew exactly what was going on, but only stepped in when forced to do so. It took them eighteen months to ascertain her age and three years to file a charge. And only last January, eighteen years later, did the case finally to come to trial. The police were given a month to produce her in court. Only then did we receive a message that Tulasa had died two years previously. Meanwhile, her abusers have been running free.
Sharon: After her rescue didn’t she find peace in Nepal?
Dr I.G.: No. At first there had been an outpouring of sympathy for her – offers of adoption and marriage, an invitation to Switzerland, gifts of money and medicine. None of it came to much. Tulasa was rejected by her father’s second wife, and moved into a home. Her father avoided her to keep the family peace. She was in constant pain, but worst of all was the feeling that nobody loved her, that she had been used and abused and finally discarded like a piece of rubbish.
Sharon: Is Tulasa’s story typical of child prostitutes in India’s megacities?
Dr I.G.: Yes. Soon after Tulasa’s rescue the air was abuzz with innumerable stories of girls who were caged and treated like animals in Kamathipura, Bombay’s infamous red light district. They narrated harrowing tales of torture and abuse. The PHO has to date directly rescued more than 130 girls, and more than 3,000 indirectly. The youngest girl we rescued was only eight years old.
Sharon: Has trafficking of children in Bombay improved since Tulasa’s rescue?
Dr I.G.: Horrifying as it is, Tulasa’s case has had some positive fallout. The episode threw the spotlight on the appalling practice of child prostitution – the public outcry was tremendous. As a result, the governments of India and Nepal signed a treaty for the rescue and repatriation of Nepali girls from Indian brothels. In India the sentence for trafficking minors has been hiked from seven to thirteen years. Child prostitution has been reduced by about 40 per cent.
Sharon: How do children end up as prostitutes in India?
Dr I.G.: About 40 per cent of all child prostitutes have been abducted from villages all over India and Nepal. They are lured away on some pretext or other: going to movies, cities, temples, making them film stars, lucrative job opportunities, marriage. Another major source of child prostitutes is the Devadasi system. Every year thousands of girls are ceremoniously dedicated to the goddess Yellamma. They are sold to the highest bidder and after a brief period of concubinage turned over to the urban brothels. The system is officially banned but continues to operate clandestinely, contributing up to 20 per cent of urban child prostitutes.
A small proportion of child prostitutes come to the trade after being raped. Others run away from incestuous relationships with family members. Yet others are daughters of prostitutes, who have no other option than to follow their mothers’ profession.
Sharon: What are their living conditions in the brothels?
Dr I.G.: The girls live in unimaginable squalor, usually about ten–twelve girls in a small room. The brothels are foul, stinking holes, often overrun with rats and vermin. They eat from filthy cafeterias or vendors, and have to pay twice the price for their food and other necessary commodities. Most of them are forced to abuse drugs, alcohol and nicotine. 75 to 80 per cent of the girls suffer from STDs. More than half of the girls are HIV infected.
Sharon: What is the PHO doing to deal with the situation?
Dr I.G.: The prevention of child prostitution and the containment of AIDS are two of our main aims. We have a mobile clinic – donated by a German organisation – and go out into red light districts several times a week with a team consisting of health workers, social workers and ex-sex workers. We distribute free condoms, and provide medical check-ups and counselling on specific health or social problems. In many of the brothels there are prostitutes working for us, helping to educate others so as to prevent the spread of AIDS. We have had considerable success in this area.
Sharon: What success have you had with your other main aim, the prevention of child prostitution? Is it possible to rehabilitate the children you rescue from the brothels?
Dr I.G.: At the moment, the emphasis is on prevention rather than rescue. The problem is, where can they go after they have been rescued, or when they contract AIDS and are thrown out of the brothels? They are often rejected by their communities and families and cannot return home, and we simply do not have the facilities to look after these girls. We have a twenty-five-acre plot of land on the Bombay–Goa highway, where we had planned to build a home for rescued children, a training centre and a school – but we simply don’t have the funds to carry on. The PHO operates on a shoestring.
UPDATE 2016
Sharon: Dr Gilada, it’s good to talk to you again! It’s been sixteen years since our first interview took place. I’d like to know if anything has changed in that time, and especially, if things in Mumbai have improved.
Dr Gilada: Things have indeed changed. Street and brothel prostitution has decreased a great deal, by almost 80 per cent, thanks to the HIV awareness, and HIV affliction among sex workers. New recruitment is less, as their trade/business has taken a beating. Child prostitution, though not extinct, is much reduced.
Sharon: Did the home for rescued children ever materialise?
Dr Gilada: The planned home for rescued sex workers could not come to fruition due to legal tangles and opposition from the villagers surrounding the land.
Sharon: So that’s good and bad news at the same time. It’s good to know that there are now fewer recruits to the trade, but it’s sad that it still continues at all, and that the home could not be established. What does your work consist of now?
Dr Gilada: Most of my time is dedicated to working for HIV/AIDS patients at my clinic. I deal with several young children/ adolescents, who have been infected at birth, now at marriageable age. They have their own challenges.
Sharon: Dr Gilada, I thank you for this interview, and wish you all the best for your important work.