The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, an NGO in the heart of Kolkata's red light district, has decided to celebrate Durga Puja, reports Indrani Roy/Rediff.com.Speaking to Indrani Roy/Rediff.com, the sex workers say that they want to get rid of ostracisation and be allowed to celebrate Durga Puja just as others do.
Sex workers in Kolkata's largest red light area Sonagachi have been asked by an NGO, working for their welfare, not to entertain Africans who are regular visitors to the place in the wake of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The apex court, hearing a plea that has raised the problems faced by sex workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, has been passing orders for their welfare and on September 29 last year, it had asked the Centre and others to provide dry ration to them without insisting on their identity proof.
A bench headed by Justice L Nageswara Rao directed the state governments to get help from the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) and legal services authorities to identify sex workers and maintain confidentiality pertaining to the identity of sex workers.
'When workers in other industries enjoy protection, why should sex workers not receive similar protection?' 'Sex work should be treated as work and brought under the work schedule of the labour department.' 'We will only end up giving immunity to the pimps and brothels to buy or sell human beings. This will in turn increase trafficking of young women and children.' Rashme Sehgal reports on the debate over legalising prostitution, a bugle in whose favour has been sounded by the new chairperson of the National Commission for Women, Lalitha Kumaramangalam.
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