Ashley Judd, a well-known Hollywood actor and humanitarian, a Board Member of Population Services International (PSI) and a the Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, will be writing posts for the ONE Blog during her March 2007 travels through India. During the trip, Ashley will address women’s issues, and have the opportunity to discover how families can be empowered to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS and unintended pregnancies.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Today, I spent time in a very secretive brothel, where cotton cloth covered the entry to each room. These are girls and women who are literally sex slaves, unable to physically leave the building, even to go to the health clinic. They do not see the outdoors for years; their only walking is to the toilet at the end of the hall. They are in the “karza” phase, meaning they have been brought in, tricked by someone they know in their home village (who himself was probably in economically tense circumstances, often needing money for a dowry.) Madams keep contacts from what was once their own home region, and they put the word out when they need 2, 5, 10 new girls. The man, often a family friend, or even a relative, will suggest he has lined up a job in housework, perhaps, in glamorous Bollywood for a child. Instead, she have been purchased by a madam for as little as $100 US, and must now “earn” her back her money, in addition to whatever she spends housing and food. India has a huge number of languages and over 100 dialects. So these trafficked girls come in not speaking Mumbai’s Hindi or Marathi. They are young, rural, unable to communicate, and are terrified. If they do dare to flee, heavies are stationed at obvious places, such as rail and bus stations, to bring them straight back.

All of the above being true, the women I met in this human store house were actually from Nepal, which has seen tens of thousands of its young stolen for Mumbai’s sex trade. Their poverty so bad, their desperation so intense, they would be forced to work here with an impossible number of clients per day. The Nepalese trafficking problem was actually revealed by NGO’s such as ours, as 75% became HIV+, and it was brought to both the Indian and Nepalese governments’ attention by health workers who were testing. Typically, the governments argued about where these victims should be sent (no one wanted them); the only good that came from any of these obscenities is that trafficking has been successfully reduced significantly from that country. An exception being, of course, the women I met today. One of them was the madam, we spoke at length. She lied to me, explaining her status within the room by saying she was the maid and had never been in the trade, that she came from a good family. Her friend-slash-property left the room, unable to stay and listen to the lie. Business is very bad in that brothel. The police raid often, and had, in fact, earlier today, hearing there are minors. They have very, very few clients and go for 2-3 days at a time without eating.