"Women might just have something to contribute to civilization other than their vaginas." Christopher Buckley, Florence of Arabia
In my last post I stopped when Meena decided to flee the brothel to save her life. She abandoned her chlidren and traveled by train for several hours to Forbesgunge. Unfortunately, someone told Ainul's son, Manooj of her whereabouts and he came to beat her up. He however didn't want her causing trouble in his brothel so he told her she could live on her own but she had to prostitute herself and give him the money. Meena agreed, because she didn't know how she'd survive otherwise.
Meena never gave him as much money as he'd like when he came to collect from her and so he beat her. One day when he was beating her furiously with a belt a respectable business man intervened. "You're already pimping her, you're already taking her lifeblood. Why beat her to death as well?"
This was a big deal for Meena. She was a woman scorned by society and he was a pharmacist (named Kuduz). It was startling to have anyone speak up for her. For a minute think about this happening here in the U.S. You're walking down the street and you see a man push a woman down on the street and he starts beating her with his belt. How many people would just walk by like it was okay? Who wouldn't say anything or at least call the police? We don't let things like this happen in our society. It's not okay but in India for women of lower class no one blinks an eye. Here it wouldn't matter who the woman was, black, white, asian, rich, poor, we'd say something. AND our police wouldn't look the other way. We have equal rights here. (Well at least more than undeveloped countries).
Manooj backs off and Kuduz helps Meena up. They end up building a great relationship and he offers to marry her. She is thrilled. Manooj however is not thrilled. He offers Kuduz 100,000 rupees ($2500) to give Meena up--a sum that perhaps reflected his concern that she might use her new respectability as a married woman to cause trouble for the brothel. Kuduz wasn't interested.
Meena and Kuduz marry and have two daughters and then Meena goes back to her native village to find her parents. Neighbors tell her that her mom cried constantly after she disappeared, then had gone mad and died--but her dad was stunned and thrilled to see his daughter resurrected.
Life was much better for Meena but she of course misses her first two children. She starts traveling back to her old brothel to stand outside and plead for Naina and Vivek. It didn't work. Ainul and Manooj didn't let Meena in the brothel; they whipped her and drove her away. The police were no help. They wouldn't even listen to her. The brothel owners not only threatened to kill her, they also threatened to kidnap her two daughters with Kuduz and sell them to the brothel. Once a couple gangsters showed up at Meena's house in Forbesgunge to steal the two little girls, but Kuduz grabbed a knife and warned: "If you even try to steal them, I'll cut you into pieces."
Meena was terrified for her girls but she couldn't forget her daughter Naina. She was approaching puberty and would be on the market soon. What could she do?
To Be Continued........
Showing posts with label Prostituting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prostituting. Show all posts
10.18.2011
10.15.2011
Kidnapped and Trafficked
I've recently come to the conclusion that one reason why people may not care as deeply as I do about the less fortunate of this world is be/c they aren't aware of the daily struggles and trials these people face. So I am going to try my hardest to blog very often (I'd love to do everyday but if not every other day) and educate anyone reading.
A couple months ago I read the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. I couldn't put this book down. As saddening as it was, I found it very interesting.
Meena was eight or nine years old when she was kidnapped and trafficked. She is from a poor family on the Nepal border and was sold to a Nutt clan. The Nutt clan are a low-caste tribe that controls the local sex trade in impoverished northern India. The Nutt have traditionally engaged in prostitution and petty crime, and theirs is the world of intergenerational prostitution, in which mothers sell sex and raise their daughters to do the same.
After Meena was kidnapped she was taken to a rural house where the brothel owner kept prepubescent girls until they were mature enough to attract customers. She remembers she was twelve when she was taken to the brothel, five months before her first period. Meena's first client paid lots of money to have sex with her but she fought him and started crying out so he wouldn't succeed. She resisted so much the brothel had to return his money to him. Due to this, the brothel owners beat her mercilessly, with a belt, sticks, and iron rods. "The beating was tremendous" Meena says. However she still resisted. They showed her swords and said they would kill her if she didn't agree. The brothel owners tried four or five more times and Meena still resisted until they resorted to drugging her and then raping her. When she woke she was hungover and hurting and she realized what had happened. "Now I am wasted," she thought, and so she gave in and stopped fighting customers.
The brothel Meena was in, the tyrant was the family matriarch, Ainul Bibi. Sometimes Ainul would beat the girls herself, and sometimes she would delegate the task to her daughter-in-law or to her sons, who were brutal in inflicting punishment. Meena remembers she wasn't even allowed to cry. "If even one tear fell, they would beat me. I used to think that it was better to die than live like this. Once I jumped from the balcony, but nothing happened. I didn't even break a leg."
For Meena her life consisted of ten or more customers a day, seven days a week and never getting paid. She was never allowed to leave the brothel and if she complained of a stomachache she would be beaten. If a girl showed any kind of resistance, all the girls would be summoned to watch as the recalcitrant one was tied up and savagely beaten. "They turned the stereo up loud to cover the screams," Meena said dryly.
No one uses condoms in Meena's brothel and so far she is healthly, however she has never been tested for HIV/AIDS. HIV prevalence is low in India but for prostitutes this is still dangerous, since they have so many customers. Meena did however get pregnant twice and had her children taken away from her so she wouldn't flee. Brothel owners don't mind their prostitutes having children be/c they can breed a new generation of victims. The boys will become servants, doing laundry and cooking.
Ainul was even a prostitute when she was young and has no sympathy for the younger girls. "If my own daughters can be prostituted, then you can be, too," Ainul would tell the girls. Yes, even her own daughters were prostituted by their own mom! "They had to be beaten up to agree to it," Meena explained. "No one wants to go into this."
Meena estimates that in the dozen years she was in the brothel, she was beaten on average five days a week. Most girls were quickly broken and cowed, but Meena never quite gave in.
For us the police are someone we can turn to for help but not in India. Meena was so desperate for help, she slipped out and went to the police station to demand help. Instead of helping her, they mocked her and sent her back to the brothel after they extracted a promise from the brothel owner not to beat her. They didn't immediately punish her but a neighbor told her the owners had decided to murder her. This doesn't happen often but if a prostitute has become nettlesome enough , the owners will kill her as a warning to the girls.
Meena feared for her life and abandoned her children and fled the brothel.
To Be Continued.......
A couple months ago I read the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. I couldn't put this book down. As saddening as it was, I found it very interesting.
Meena was eight or nine years old when she was kidnapped and trafficked. She is from a poor family on the Nepal border and was sold to a Nutt clan. The Nutt clan are a low-caste tribe that controls the local sex trade in impoverished northern India. The Nutt have traditionally engaged in prostitution and petty crime, and theirs is the world of intergenerational prostitution, in which mothers sell sex and raise their daughters to do the same.
After Meena was kidnapped she was taken to a rural house where the brothel owner kept prepubescent girls until they were mature enough to attract customers. She remembers she was twelve when she was taken to the brothel, five months before her first period. Meena's first client paid lots of money to have sex with her but she fought him and started crying out so he wouldn't succeed. She resisted so much the brothel had to return his money to him. Due to this, the brothel owners beat her mercilessly, with a belt, sticks, and iron rods. "The beating was tremendous" Meena says. However she still resisted. They showed her swords and said they would kill her if she didn't agree. The brothel owners tried four or five more times and Meena still resisted until they resorted to drugging her and then raping her. When she woke she was hungover and hurting and she realized what had happened. "Now I am wasted," she thought, and so she gave in and stopped fighting customers.
The brothel Meena was in, the tyrant was the family matriarch, Ainul Bibi. Sometimes Ainul would beat the girls herself, and sometimes she would delegate the task to her daughter-in-law or to her sons, who were brutal in inflicting punishment. Meena remembers she wasn't even allowed to cry. "If even one tear fell, they would beat me. I used to think that it was better to die than live like this. Once I jumped from the balcony, but nothing happened. I didn't even break a leg."
For Meena her life consisted of ten or more customers a day, seven days a week and never getting paid. She was never allowed to leave the brothel and if she complained of a stomachache she would be beaten. If a girl showed any kind of resistance, all the girls would be summoned to watch as the recalcitrant one was tied up and savagely beaten. "They turned the stereo up loud to cover the screams," Meena said dryly.
No one uses condoms in Meena's brothel and so far she is healthly, however she has never been tested for HIV/AIDS. HIV prevalence is low in India but for prostitutes this is still dangerous, since they have so many customers. Meena did however get pregnant twice and had her children taken away from her so she wouldn't flee. Brothel owners don't mind their prostitutes having children be/c they can breed a new generation of victims. The boys will become servants, doing laundry and cooking.
Ainul was even a prostitute when she was young and has no sympathy for the younger girls. "If my own daughters can be prostituted, then you can be, too," Ainul would tell the girls. Yes, even her own daughters were prostituted by their own mom! "They had to be beaten up to agree to it," Meena explained. "No one wants to go into this."
Meena estimates that in the dozen years she was in the brothel, she was beaten on average five days a week. Most girls were quickly broken and cowed, but Meena never quite gave in.
For us the police are someone we can turn to for help but not in India. Meena was so desperate for help, she slipped out and went to the police station to demand help. Instead of helping her, they mocked her and sent her back to the brothel after they extracted a promise from the brothel owner not to beat her. They didn't immediately punish her but a neighbor told her the owners had decided to murder her. This doesn't happen often but if a prostitute has become nettlesome enough , the owners will kill her as a warning to the girls.
Meena feared for her life and abandoned her children and fled the brothel.
To Be Continued.......
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