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Sex workers in Bangalore seek safe havens for children

\In Ramanagaram district, a daughter of a sex worker was raped by a client. She became pregnant and after delivery, she gave the child up for adoption. She is now a sex worker.

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Anitha, a teenager, set herself afire after a client of her mother, a sex worker, preyed upon her. The incident took place last month in Vigneshwara Nagar on Magadi Road. This is not the first case of sex workers’ children being targeted, says Tejeswini, an NGO activist who works for sex workers’ welfare.

“Every month, I handle 15 to 20 cases of girls harassed or tortured by their mothers’ clients. I sit with the victims and try to explain the hardship their mothers are going through to feed the family. I also tell them to be brave while facing such a hard life,” she said.

Six months ago, a similar incident occurred in Satgudi on Kanakapura Road. A sex worker’s brother wanted to have sex with her daughter, a seventh grader. He then attempted to rape the girl. With the help of neighbours, the sex worker beat up her brother and threw him out of the house.

In Ramanagaram district, a daughter of a sex worker was raped by a client. She became pregnant and after delivery, she gave the child up for adoption. She is now a sex worker.

Activists say such women are forced into the flesh trade due to poverty after their husbands die or abandon them.
Some of them try to escape this predicament by remarrying, without realising that they are jumping from the frying pan to the fire. 

“During counselling, I’ve met widows who remarried only to find themselves harassed by their husbands who ask weird questions about their sex life. Some of them have tried to commit suicide as they find the situation so painful and humiliating,” Tejeswini said.
To protect their children from clients, most sex workers admit their children to far-off schools and hostels.

 “The child is admitted to a hostel at an early age. Sex workers visit the hostel whenever they want to see their children,” she said.
In Eijipura, a sex worker admitted two of her children into a hostel a year back.

In Vidyaranyapura, a sex worker shifted her daughter to a hostel after a relative wanted to have sex with the girl.
Later, with the help of a social activist, the girl was married. Activists say most girls who come to know about the true nature of their mothers’ job will ultimately leave them.

But there are exemptions. “Months back, during my visit to Kerala, I met a few girls who were proud of their mothers for their efforts to feed the family even though they were in the flesh trade. Such counselling is needed for girls,” she said.

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