Actor and humanitarian Ashley Judd, board member of Population Services International (PSI) and Global Ambassador for YouthAIDS, addressed women’s empowerment and the spread of AIDS, and wrote daily posts for the ONE Blog, during her March 2007 travels through India. This week, she posts her final entries from the trip.

Tuesday, April 10

I did my usual morning routine making a 5 minute attempt at looking sort of maybe kind of cute if you close one eye and squint the other, and surrendering the day and the outcome. I knew I’d need to do that more than once, as I was being joined by a stranger to me, but a beloved star to millions of Indians: Sushmita Sen, maverick yet firmly ensconced Bollywood star. I would be sharing my process with a woman I don’t know, for the greater good of sex workers and their clients. For a person of Sushmita’s stature to even deign to talk about this issue, much less hang out in a brothel, is absolutely shocking in Indian society. We picked her for her willingness to break with convention in her personal and professional life. She, as a single woman, adopted a daughter 7 years ago, and has played roles of “immoral” women in films. Typically, the big stars do not touch roles which are not unassailably virtuous. I’d been given a few internet links about Sushmita, which I declined to read. I do not read about myself, and I refrain from reading about others, too. I didn’t know what to expect at all.

I sat in an austere room with nothing but a chair. A tall, dark-haired woman in a lovely pale blue sari came in and immediately captivated me with her womanly brilliance. She has that remarkable self-belief, answers to the enigmatic questions I don’t dare touch on, stuff about being a woman in this world and other things that leave me tongue tied. Maybe it’s the same stuff I talk about, but with a different vocabulary. She asked me a few questions about my work. She was focused, clear eyed, intent, attentive, dazzling. She smoked, waving cameras away. She’d worked until 3 a.m., and told me a bit about her life. She seemed to have a lot of staff around. I saw them flitting in the hallway, yet her hair wasn’t brushed; she wore no make up. Her only dressed up detail were long, lilac fingernails. Yet she oozed star: that It factor of confidence, poise, carriage…and jaw dropping eyebrows!

We were there to see the great, good women of Sanghamitra, a community-based organization run by commercial sex workers (CSWs.) Sanghamitra is the realization of the 16-year-old dream of Dr. Shilpa, a phenomenal woman who runs PSI Mumbai with a heart of gold and a switched on brain that connects to it flawlessly. Sanghamitra’s purpose is to begin to end the oppressive isolation and powerlessness with which CSWs live, even when they and their children are stacked ten to a brothel room. It engenders self-esteem and self-efficacy. It provides them with a platform where they can collectively and independently raise their own voices and concerns. Through brand new, increasing levels of self-confidence and strengthened decision-making abilities, the women will be able to advocate for their own human and social rights, as well as adopt healthier sexual behavior. They will develop functional friendships. They will be able to identify abuses, which they are otherwise so conditioned to accept, and begin to address them effectively. They will have a space they can retreat to, for a brief moment of mental, physical, and spiritual calm. The word “Sanghamitra” is from the Buddhist tradition. The women chose it to signify extraordinary change they will work in their lives towards a better, brighter future of hope and well being. If there is anything more lacking in a CSW than hope, I don’t know what it is.

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Sanghamitra, and I worry I miss conveying its transformative properties. These women have been divided and conquered.

We entered the room to behold 30 radiantly excited women of all ages and sizes turned out in their best saris. We were greeted with incense, drishti dots, elaborate garlands. Sweets were fed to us. I loved watching Sush; she’s used to this adoration, and I studied how she reciprocated. She kissed heads, took the sweet out of her own mouth, put it in the giver’s. She gave her garland back.

We sat on the floor, squeezed in alongside these bodies, abused and used for so many lifetimes. A welcome was spoken, and a boy child began the festivities with the most extraordinary dance. He was absolutely gifted and the room roared with encouragement and approval. It was so long! He sweated profusely, yet he never dimmed in his exertions. I was prodded to join him, so garland swinging, I twirled around behind him. And so the whole morning went. There was dancing, celebrating, singing, kissing, rejoicing. A few speeches were made by the officers of Sanghamitra (the 4 trafficked women I met in our PSI offices in an earlier diary), including my favorite, which simply illustrated the benefits of women uniting, such as confronting the police effectively about the harassment they constantly dole out, the way they ignore Commercial Sex Workers (CSWs) who try to file charges regarding crime against them; confronting the bureaucracy that illegally denies CSWs their important ration cards for kerosene, food, etc; developing a 100% condom compliance policy at all brothels; confronting schools which illegally discriminate against CSWs children and deny them their educational rights, increasing their access to medical services, etc. In classic PSI form, there were 8 colorful, easy to understand illustrations that clearly elucidated the objectives of the program and how they would be pursued.

When I made my speech, I spoke about how it’s important we come together and say aloud what we wonder about in our hearts: Is it okay to buy and sell girls and women? Are we made simply to be used for sex? Are we nothing more than the sum of our reproductive organs? Is this all that men, society, life has in mind for us? What have we been taught to believe about ourselves? Are we willing to begin to believe something different, perhaps even begin to dream? Can we begin to expand our world? Can we find a measure of hope for ourselves, perhaps love, even? Can we heal? So many heads were nodding. There had been such excitement about B/Hollywood, with Sushmita talking much about what a big star (ha!) I am. She actually just set me up to stress to them there was no film set, no fancy location, more meaningful to me than that room, right there, with them. I talked about the importance of sisterhood in my own life, and made clear how valuable theirs is to me…and each other.