Integrate our kids into mainstream of society

Mohila Mukti Samity (MMS), an organisation of local sex workers, organised the conference on Tuesday with support from Save the Children, Australia (SCA) on the Daulatdia brothel premises, nearly 100 kilometres off capital Dhaka.

"We are socially hated and neglected, and still we cannot exercise our religious rituals in public," MMS convenor Perveen, also a sex worker of the country's oldest and largest brothel, told the conference.

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Parveen said once they were not allowed to bury or cremate the bodies of sex workers and their bodies used to be thrown into river. But now things have changed as they have been able to realise their rights to funeral and some of children are going to school thanks to some non-government organisations for their tremendous role in this regard, she added.

The sex workers have long been wishing for two major changes: An improvement in their own lifestyle and a better life for their children.

They renewed their demands at the annual conference. Government officials, development workers and journalists also attended.

The demands include legalising their profession, integrating their children in the mainstream of the society and ensuring education and other government facilities for their kids.

The sex workers shared their pains and agonies with the participants.

The conference also highlighted the need for creating safe homes for their children, alternative employment opportunities for the elderly women, stopping harassment by police and protection of their graveyards.

In her address of welcome, Perveen urged the conscious section of the society to come up for the rehabilitation of some 1350 sex workers and their children.

"If our children get education and better jobs, the number of sex workers will gradually decline. Now there is a need for setting up a safe home for our adolescent children so that they can grow up in a safe and violence-free environment," she said.

In a research paper, "Our Lives in Brothel", placed at the conference two minors -- Pinky and Sajan -- narrated their experiences. The research was conducted to focus on how sex workers' children grow up in whorehouses.

The children grow up as anti-social elements in brothels. While the girls follow in the footsteps of their mothers, the boys become hooligans and start taking drug at an early age.

According to MMS leaders, there are now 408 children of 18 years old in Daulatdia brothel. Of them, 193 are boys and 215 girls.

To provide health support to the children and ensure their wellbeing, SCA and Karmajibi Kalyan Sangstha (KKS) are working for the last four years in addition to other NGOs and Department of Social Service of the government.

"We are providing technical support to the sex workers and education to their children so that they could become self-reliant and return to a normal life," SCA Project Coordinator Farooque Ahmed said.

Farooque said some 35 girls, who do not want to follow in the footsteps of their mothers, are now living in their safe home.

"I won't take up this socially hated profession. I want to read and work for the brothel children," Anisa, a resident of the safe home, said.

Anisa, who was brought there by her sister, is now preparing to sit for the SSC examination from Daulatdia Model High School.

Like Anisa, Pinky and Sumi also hate the profession and dream of bringing change in their own lives as well other neglected children.

Expressing their solidarity with the sex workers, the government officials and NGO workers who attended the conference gave them assurance to do everything possible to meet their demands.

UNO Gautam Aich Sarkar attended the conference as chief guest. Chaired by MMS president Morzina Begum, the conference was attended, among others, by executive director of KKS Fakir Abdul Zabbar and SCA Country Director Sultan Mahmud.