S<\/span>itting in her older daughter\u2019s room, where one corner is covered with maps and math formula sheets, Savitri, a 40-year-old former sex worker, recalls when she began hating her profession. \u201cIt was when my girls turned five and seven,\u201d she says. \u201cI had decided that my daughters would never live the life I had. They would live with dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n Although she continued in the profession for a few more years due to family responsibilities \u2014 her husband, who was one of her clients, abandoned the family years ago \u2014 Savitri eventually quit. Now, about 10 years later, her elder daughter works with an NGO and is preparing to write the police exam, while her younger daughter is preparing for medical entrance tests in Indore.<\/p>\n The family belongs to the Banchhada community, a de-notified tribe with an estimated population of 25,000 spread across 78 villages in the districts of Mandsaur, Neemuch, and Ratlam in western Madhya Pradesh.<\/p>\n Unlike Savitri\u2019s daughters, most girls in the community are born into a system in which their families expect them to enter sex work \u2014 a practice passed down over generations. According to several members of the community and NGOs in the region, while many Indians celebrate the birth of a boy over a girl, the Banchhadas welcome a girl with sweets and firecrackers. As girls grow up, they receive better nutrition than boys. They are given expensive clothes and, unlike in much of India, are not told that they will have to marry one day and leave the nest.<\/p>\n The reason, however, is disturbing: for generations, the Banchhada girls have been pushed into sex work upon hitting puberty and given the responsibility of earning. Their family members function as pimps and live off their money.<\/p>\n Akash Chouhan, founder of the Jan Shaurya Social Welfare and Development Society, an NGO based in Neemuch, estimates that at least 10,000 women of the community, including about 3,000 girls, remain trapped in this form of exploitation. \u201cGirls are forced to drop out of school after Class 8 or 9 and are pushed into sex work by their families,\u201d says Akash, who is from the community. \u201cCommunity elders protect the practice in the name of tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n Radhika, a sex worker, says girls are conditioned from childhood to believe in the tradition. They are told it is their responsibility to ease the family\u2019s financial woes. \u201cI quit school on my own after Class 9 and began working,\u201d she says. \u201cBut if a girl refuses to quit, her family forces her into sex work through physical or emotional abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n A drive along State Highway 156, which connects the three districts, passes through several villages of the community. Girls wearing bright lipstick stand along the way, while older women sit on cots outside their houses and shanties, watching children playing nearby. As evening approaches, they gesture to men to come in.<\/p>\n In Neemuch\u2019s Jaitpura village, an elderly woman approaches a car parked on the roadside and asks if anyone would like to come in. She points to three girls sitting outside her house; two of them are her granddaughters. \u201cYou can pick either of them and go into the house,\u201d she tells them. \u201cIt will cost you \u20b9300 for 10 minutes, but I will take \u20b9100 as my tip. The room has a fan; you will be comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n Most girls along the highway, including those who look underage, say that they are around 20; some say they recently turned 18. Conversations with them reveal that they have been involved in sex work for about four years.<\/p>\n Multiple dhabas along the highway are also involved in brokering deals between prospective clients and sex workers. The owner of a highway dhaba in Ratlam\u2019s Dhodar village claims he can \u201carrange girls\u201d and lists different price brackets based on location, duration, and the girl\u2019s age. Standing near a toll booth, he lists the facilities available, including an air-conditioned room, car parking, and assurances of safety from the police. The rates range from \u20b9300 for 10 minutes to \u20b91,000 for an hour, and \u20b96,000 for a night. They go up to \u20b910,000 for a younger girl.<\/p>\n \u201cIf girls are taken to a hotel, clients face the risk of police raids. But here, clients have no problem,\u201d the dhaba owner explains. \u201cThe girls avoid going to hotels as they face incidents of violence by drunken men. That is why many of them have built rooms in their houses with AC.\u201d<\/p>\n Several sex workers from the region also travel to cities such as Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Chittorgarh and Udaipur in neighbouring Rajasthan, on client requests.<\/p>\n Shivangi, a former sex worker in Neemuch\u2019s Nilkanthpura, who now works with the government\u2019s Women and Child Development (WCD) Department, recalls some of the horrific incidents she faced. \u201cIn 2003, my friend and I had gone to a hotel in Chittorgarh for two clients. After a few minutes, two or three others entered the room. For hours, we suffered sexual and physical violence that still haunts me. All I could think of was jumping out a window,\u201d says Shivangi, who is now married with two daughters.<\/p>\n Shivangi says girls rarely share grim experiences with their families as they have to \u201cget to work as soon as the next client approaches\u201d.<\/p>\n In 2005, Shivangi came in contact with an international NGO working in the region and began volunteering with it while continuing sex work. \u201cOver the next few years, my mindset began to change as I got exposed to a life outside my community,\u201d she says. \u201cIn 2008, I chose to leave that life behind for good. I married a man I met during my NGO work and moved in with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Historically a nomadic community in the Malwa and Mewar regions of present-day Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the Banchhada community was notified as a \u2018criminal tribe\u2019 by the British government under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871.<\/p>\n Narendra Chouhan, founder of Naya Jeevan Foundation, an NGO working for the youth of the community, says the origin of sex work in the community can be traced back to that period. \u201cOur elders have told us that it began during the British Raj, when the police would catch men from the community and demand women in exchange for their release. Some families who could not pay money started sending them unmarried girls from their homes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n The community was de-notified by the Government of India in 1952 and classified as a Scheduled Caste. The practice that ensured monetary benefits for families continued, says Narendra. \u201cSlowly, families who were engaged in sex work started moving out of Rajasthan and settled in this region.\u201d<\/p>\n Apart from offering services in their homes, they also began offering services in trucks. A girl would board a truck at one location, offer services, and get off at another. \u201cThis method went on till the 2010s when people started buying land along the highway and building houses,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Today, the Banchhadas remain cut off from mainstream society, with their members facing stigma in all walks of life: from education to employment to renting properties in cities. In many villages with a mixed population, the houses of the Banchhadas remain secluded. In Hadi Pipliya, for instance, the two sections are divided by a drain.<\/p>\n \n A girl with a family member in a district in Madhya Pradesh. <\/div>\n Kanupriya, a counsellor with Jan Shaurya, says members of the community, including women who are not involved in sex work, face job rejections in the private sector as soon as they reveal their social identity. \u201cI have been rejected from various jobs myself,\u201d she says. \u201cSchools often deny admissions to Banchhada children. They say taking them in could disturb the atmosphere of their institution.\u201d<\/p>\n Aditi Garg, who was Mandsaur Collector until recently, says the administration is trying its best to bridge the gap. Once, when the administration had recommended some women from the community, living in a government hostel, for teaching and teaching assistant jobs at private schools, there was pushback, she recalls. \u201cThe managements were concerned about their reputation, but we dealt with them firmly and ensured jobs for 24 women from the community. We have also hired some women on help desks in government offices where the public has to communicate with them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The youth of the community find it hard to obtain government documents, especially a caste certificate, since many of them are born out of wedlock and have no records of their fathers. The absence of a caste certificate means that they are deprived of various government benefits such as reservation and scholarships.<\/p>\n Neemuch Collector Himanshu Chandra says the district administration has written to the government seeking a provision to help the community. \u201cThis is a policy problem. Since a person\u2019s caste is decided based on the father\u2019s caste, we can\u2019t do much at our end,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Narendra says it is because of these reasons that many girls who want to leave sex work stay trapped. \u201cThey see no scope outside this profession. Some of those who did manage to escape or were rescued returned to sex work,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n A government official adds that some girls who were rescued and rehabilitated at government hostels and centres returned to sex work as they had to vacate these places on turning 18. \u201cWhile the government is running initiatives and programmes to provide them livelihood options such as sewing or skill-based jobs, it is difficult to match the income and lifestyle the girls earn through sex work. This leaves a gap in our efforts to rehabilitate the community,\u201d the official adds.<\/p>\n In Mandsaur, however, Ms. Garg says the district administration has been able to find a way to issue caste certificates through ancestral records or any fraternal records that can establish a person\u2019s connection to their family.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Abuse along the highway<\/h4>\n
From a criminal tribe to social outcasts<\/h4>\n
Barriers to a better life<\/h4>\n
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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA cycle of exploitation<\/h4>\n
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