BY: ARUSHI AGARWAL
Prostitution is often considered to be an evil, one which each family protects its women and children from. But the role of family in extending the women to prostitution is highly under-discussed. This becomes relevant in the case of the Bedia community residing in the northern parts of the subcontinent, primarily concentrated in the districts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan in northern India.
In the northern parts, unlike the south, where the system largely is legitimated through the devadasi system, women go into prostitution in two ways, one, wherein they (women and children) are lured in sex work, against their will, the other wherein the whole community controls the authority and make young people enter this world of trade.
The people who are seen as liable for the sake of sex work in the community, include the unmarried women within the community. These include the daughters and sisters of the Bedian men. Though, these are barred from having relations with married men in the community and thus, impuring the permanent relations. Thus, despite forging and encouraging prostitution, there exists the ideals of purity of the marriage alliance among the members of the community.
The working of the Bedia community primarily works on economic interest derived from prostitution. Thus, there are institutionalized mechanisms to protect the same. Them being the rightful accumulation of money that the sex-workers collect to the natal family. Also, there is a discouragement of long- term connections formed with people, as it hampers the business. Women, who are engaged in the formation of such connections are looked down upon, as they are looking for a yaar(lover). Also, the size of the family is often seen large for the undisturbed supply of women’s sexual labour. Owing to such measures and rigidity in the community, those families which have no women, often traffic such women from outside and display them as one of their kin groups.
The retirement age of women from sexual labour is also dependent upon what kind of familial background they come from. Women of households having a strong number of females, often retire as early as 30 years, as the family can substitute them for more younger women. But in families that have less women, retirement comes between 30 years to 45 years. Families, that traffic sexual labor from outside, entertain clients even after the age of 40 years, due the shortage of supply of labor.
A community whose economic interest lies in the sex work, saw an enormous pressure on married women (who were not to engage in sex work) to produce female offspring, which in return sustain the economy. Also, the case of Bedia women is such that they often end up in the gulf countries in the guise of dancers, though such economic gains are reaped by the women herself and not the community.
The conditions of the brothel workers are often looked down upon, and it is generalized that such women live in constant poverty, but in such an institutionalized community, women are liable to share their earnings with only the immediate family members, giving them much more control over the resources they earn. And research show that an average Bedia woman earns more than what a working person of that caliber earns. This spurs the Bedia men to control the women in a way that they do not deviate from the tradition. This practice is sustained because of its high economic viability.
Also, despite its high economic returns, this does not earn the community a respectable position in the conservative society, which to this day, considers sex as a taboo, and looks down upon those who are associated with it. Thus, to maintain the honor of its society, Bedia men often deny the existence of women in sex trade, and often label members who are engaged in the trade as dead, married or run away. It is quite a dichotomy as within the community there is pressure on families to portray women, they provide for sex work, belonging to the same kin group, while outside the community, families deny any kind of association with such women.
The question that is often raised in respect of the Bedia community is one of moral ethics, that whether the submission of women in the family to sex work is good or not. This can be looked at from different perspectives. For a Bedia householder, prostitution of women brings economic resources in the family, so they find ways to prove its incorruptibility. The women are mostly pushed to sex work after the onset of puberty that is the early teens. At that age, children have no consciousness of what they are being asked to do, this delimits their exposure to the world, and often constrains their self-worth to their bodily attractiveness and acceptability. Such an environment is quite deficient to their self-esteem.
Thus, concluding, it is important to note that many efforts are made by the government to get such people out of their line of work. But it also puts the administration into a dilemma, when the sex-workers are working with the will of the family and are not trafficked into brothels. In such cases, Nari Niketans are set up for such women, who find no home after being removed from their line of work. But, at the end the situations faced in the brothels are very much subjective to people who give their labor there.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Agarwal, Anuja. (1998) “KINSHIP AND TRAFFICKING: The Case of the Bedia Community.” Canadian Woman Studies, Vol.-22, pp-131-135
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