the red light district

Since nothing much has been going over the past few days (due all of us still being sick) I've decided to highlight an important social topic in India: Red Light Districts in India.

Many of you may have heard of Sonagachi due to the movie "Born Into Brothels." Sonagachi is the name of the Red Light District in Calcutta. Due to the unionization of the sex workers in this region(aka the Sonagachi Project), condom use has increased from 7% to 90% resulting in only 10% of the workers being HIV+. That may sound like a lot to you but compared to the 60% HIV+ sex workers in Mumbai's Red Light district, 10% is a relatively low percentage. The Sonagachi Project has become a model for the rest of India to follow. Kamathipura, Mumbai's Red Light District, is India's poorest and biggest red light district. It has over 60,000 workers where many of the workers are young girls who have been kidnapped from their villages (or sold by their fathers/uncles for a lump sum). These girls are kept in houses where the madam makes sure that none of the money is kept by the young girl and the pimp arranges all business visits. So essentially, these girls are brought over from their villages (sometimes their families are told that they will be put into other jobs in the cities such as cleaning houses) and then are paid nothing because the madam and pimps keep all of the money. After the girls turn 15 or16 (and are not considered as desirable), they are thrown out of the houses onto the streets where they have to fend for themselves...