0:02 [Applause]
0:04 rajkumari is waiting for customers at the
0:10 roadside she has a young baby to feed at
0:19 luck rajkumari is one of the hundreds of
0:22 thousands of Indian women in
0:25 institutionalized sex work in a practice
0:41 [Music]
0:43 just 3 hours away from India's capital
0:47 New Delhi is a starkly different world
0:49 I'm traveling to a cluster of villages
0:53 known for sex work this is G GOI a
0:55 village in the district of alare in the
1:01 Rajasthan here I'm meet Anita who is a
1:04 sex worker at her request we have
1:07 changed her
1:10 name she says she's of legal age but
1:13 doesn't look it Anka is getting ready
1:16 for a client her clients include men
1:19 from nearby Villages truck drivers or
1:21 migrant workers that pass through on the
1:25 highways and young men with disposable
1:27 incomes she joined the profession 3
1:31 years ago and says it was by choice as
1:34 it enables her to support her
1:36 family I know from my father that my
1:39 aunt also worked like this I got into
1:45 Poverty how much are you earning at the
1:49 moment about 60 to 70,000 rupees per
1:51 month around
1:54 €750 apart from me no one in my family
1:57 can find work we were starving we need a
1:59 roof over our heads we need to build a
2:02 house and my sister needs to get
2:06 married do you have any debt I paid it
2:09 all off how much was it about
2:12 €1,000 oh that's a lot did you pay that
2:24 years having to borrow money traps many
2:27 families here in a vicious cycle Banks
2:29 do not lend money since they do not
2:31 consider sex work as
2:34 work so these families turn to local
2:36 lenders who charge exorbitant interest
2:39 rates making them even
2:43 poorer RNA we also changed her real name
2:46 is the eldest of a total of seven
2:49 siblings due to high debt she also has
2:52 to work as a prostitute like her mother
2:53 and her
2:56 aunt I was 15 when I understood what it
2:59 was all about and at the same time it
3:01 became more and more clear to me how
3:02 poor we
3:06 are so I got
3:08 in what was the
3:11 situation my little siblings always had
3:12 to beg for
3:16 food we have no real house no land
3:19 nothing at some point the money that my
3:21 mother earned here as a sex worker
3:25 didn't suffice so she had to go to
3:28 Mumbai in hotels you can earn
3:37 so it became clear to me that it was the
3:39 only way to make money and essentially
3:43 for us to survive one day I finally said
3:46 to her I don't want you to do this I
3:47 will take care of this I am now the
3:54 family rashna went to Mumbai through an
3:56 agent who recruited her by contacting
3:59 local pimps in an elaborate sex trade Network
4:00 Network
4:03 there are an estimated 3 million sex
4:07 workers in India between ages 15 and 35
4:10 sex work is legal in India pimping and
4:12 human trafficking are
4:15 not this is a matter of survival for
4:17 many like RNA they are abused in the
4:20 system but stay for lack of any other
4:26 work when I was very young I had a
4:40 me instead he beat me black and blue and
4:46 clothes I ran after him but couldn't
4:48 take them
5:02 there is a stigma attached to these
5:05 Villages as the people here belong to
5:07 the bottom of the cast
5:12 hierarchy nuts Bia banara and kjer where
5:14 these women come from have traditionally
5:17 been nomadic tribes they move from place
5:20 to place they're scattered all over but
5:22 many are in the states of madhia Pradesh
5:34 before the women were driven into sex
5:37 work these ethnic groups worked mainly
5:41 as performers dancers jugglers acrobats and
5:42 and
5:44 magicians because of their work and way
5:46 of life the British colonial power
5:49 viewed these ethnic groups as a
5:53 threat in 1871 they were criminalized
5:56 under the criminal tribes act which was
5:58 only repealed at the time of India's independence
6:04 stereotypes about these tribes still
6:07 persist in society and makes it almost
6:09 impossible for them to start other
6:18 livelihood I went to meet male members
6:26 community there's a lot of
6:28 discrimination no one wants to give us
6:30 decent jobs
6:31 that would mean we could climb up and
6:32 out of our
6:35 misery people don't want that so there's no
6:43 change how do you determine that how is
6:54 life they won't even stand or walk next
6:56 to us because we belong to a low
7:00 cast They tell us to go away but it's
7:01 getting better as more and more of us
7:08 school otherwise they wouldn't let us
7:14 homes in school nobody would sit next to
7:17 me I wouldn't even show my ID card
7:19 fearing retaliation and humiliation
7:21 because of our
7:23 cast some children here don't know who
7:26 their father is of course the mother's
7:29 customers don't give names but this is a
7:31 problem because in many places you can
7:33 only be officially registered with your
7:36 father's name so these kids fall through the
7:38 the
7:40 cracks but women have been able to
7:42 challenge some gender roles by becoming
7:48 winner those who make money are strong
7:51 our women are strong they support the
8:00 shots the women are ahead of us here
8:03 they are immensely
8:06 respected these women are able to bring
8:08 income to the families build properties
8:11 and make homes they can pay off Family
8:14 debts which not many women in India can
8:16 do some eventually leave the village and
8:18 move to the country's major Urban
8:21 centers to Delhi Mumbai or Kolkata some
8:24 even as far as
8:27 Dubai husbands fathers and brothers of
8:29 the sex workers are involved in enabling
8:32 this trade and contributing to the
8:35 family economy they act as pimps but
8:45 children but there are women who are
8:48 completely on their own this can be
8:50 difficult especially when they get older
8:53 snata only had one daughter who also
8:56 worked as a sex worker then she died
8:58 probably from a sexually transmitted disease
9:01 disease
9:04 I don't have any other kids she died she
9:11 ill most of the women we spoke to would
9:14 like to move on from this life Anka
9:16 dreams of marriage when she's done
9:23 family rashna does everything to give
9:26 her child a decent education which she
9:38 however something is slowly changing in The
9:39 The
9:43 Villages I meet goodu nagar a teacher
9:46 who is supported by an NGO working to
9:52 work today's lesson is about
9:54 grammar he believes a good education
9:58 will help the women find safer ways of
10:01 employment group of words which gives a
10:22 called this has already worked for a few
10:25 families one girl even managed to get
10:28 into the police force in je the nearest
10:30 major city
10:33 another family has several children in
10:35 medical professions one boy is a left
10:38 technician two girls are study one is
10:40 going to become a
10:44 doctor in these families no woman works
10:53 worker nagar belongs to the same tribes
10:55 his relatives were in the sex trade
10:59 too he wanted to break the cycle he
11:01 started by teaching himself to read and
11:13 relatives our nomadic way of life was
11:15 one of the reasons it was too difficult
11:17 for us to escape our misery I have four
11:20 brothers none of whom went to school and
11:22 some of my sisters are still illiterate
11:25 I was lucky after I had taught myself a
11:27 few things a social worker from an NGO
11:29 helped me today I have an official
11:40 teacher there are stories like this but
11:43 few and far between members of the
11:45 community are trying to change the
11:49 destiny of the Next Generation It's
11:51 It's
11:55 s n I'm Nancy and I want to be an air
11:58 hostess one day why an air hostess it's
12:10 yes our desperate hope is simmering that
12:13 through education and knowing their
12:15 rights these women can leave the
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