The Hindu Business Line : A new, safe life

Not long ago, Mallika was a commercial sex worker, forced into the profession to fend for herself and four children after her husband abandoned them. Today, she is her own boss, runs a successful garlic business and even employs two former commercial sex workers (CSWs) to assist her. In between, she networks among CSWs to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS, advising them to give up the trade, pointing out the pitfalls involved, and persuading them to start small businesses to carve out a new and safe life for themselves.

Her message makes an impact on them, because she has been the change she asks them to bring about in their lives. Above all, she empathises with them and can only too well understand the trauma they go through. Mallika has managed to steer a sizeable number of CSWs towards safety, succeeding where the government and NGOs struggle. Mallika is helped in her efforts by the NGO World Vision. Today, she symbolises hope to many CSWs. For instance, Sheila, a young CSW, was caught by the police, remanded to custody and sexually exploited by four policemen. When she was finally released at daybreak, Sheila managed to ring up Mallika, who rushed to the spot. “I had to hospitalise her,” says Mallika. “The girl was battered and bleeding, and I suggested that she should take up a lesser paying but safe profession such as pickle-making.”

Less than 10 per cent of CSWs manage to escape the clutches of prostitution, Mallika says. “Most women step into the trade through necessity. Very few gather the willpower to get out because, over the years, they get used to the trade and money,” says Clara Raphael, a counsellor at World Vision.

It was a friend who brought Mallika to World Vision. “At World Vision, Clara madam asked me how I would feel if my clients ask for my daughter. And it really happened one day. That is when I decided that enough was enough,” Mallika says. World Vision lent her Rs 3,000. Mallika discovered that the neighbourhood bazaar lacked a garlic shop. “I decided to trade in garlic,” she says.

From retail sales of garlic, her business grew to making garlic pickles. Today, Mallika’s enterprise does roaring business, allowing her to employ two former CSWs for Rs 70 a day.

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