Shahbaz Bokhari
Shahbaz@sdpi.org
Rukhsana became a sex worker in 1982 when she was 15 years old. Today working as a recruiting agent, she is part of a network trafficking girls.
After leaving her village, Rukhsana never went back to see her parents. Claiming to be the most beautiful girl in the village, Rukhsana remembers an affair with the son of a landlord of her village. She belonged to a low caste family in which early age marriages were common. Singing at fairs and weddings was the family profession but it was limited to men. A number of families from her own caste sent marriage proposals for Rukhsana. Her parents agreed to an engagement but she refused. She contacted the son of the landlord and asked him to send a proposal to her parents, but he refused. Instead he said they should elope. Rukhsana agreed.
They left the village and went to Karachi where they stayed for six months, living in a single rented room. They lived on the money and jewelry the son of the landlord had stolen from his home. The landlord’s son rejected Rukhsana’s demands for a nikkah (marriage). Disputes over tiny issues gradually became routine. He beat her badly a number of times.
One day after a severe quarrel and beating, he left and never returned. Rukhsana later learnt he had gone home and married someone else. That was period of deep distress and depression for her. She had no money to pay the rent and feed herself.
She tried to find domestic work in a posh area of Karachi but nobody was willing to give her a job because she was young and beautiful. She kept trying and finally managed to get a job. But the lady of the house threw her out after three months because her son was taking interest in Rukhsana. She again started to find work.
Meanwhile, a woman from her mohalla became friends with her. She was kind and sympathetic. Money was running short. When Rukhsana asked for a loan from the woman, she offered her a good job in Lahore. She took Rukhsana to Lahore and introduced her to a wealthy family where she was employed as domestic worker. But Rukhsana soon realized that the young women of the house were dancers in the red light area of Lahore. She wanted to leave but had nowhere else to go.
All the girls were friendly and they never behaved as employers. Rukhsana accepted a proposal from a young man of the family, soon becoming a member of the family. She used to sit with them while they sang and danced.
As Rukhsana had a good voice, the family encouraged her to learn singing and dancing. The skills helped her to become a popular figure in the red light area.
In 1990, she visited Dubai as a member of a cultural delegation. The women members of the delegation danced in a hotel. The delegation stayed in Dubai for six weeks. Rukhsana earned a lot of money in the next ten years but all of it went to her in-laws. She gave birth to three girls and two sons. She was not independent, which was her prime desire. She and her husband bought the rented house in the red light area in which they were living.
Rukhsana had to pay a lot of money to her in-laws to be independent. She visited Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat and Bahrain quite often. She soon learnt the tactics of this sector, establishing contacts with promoters and the owners of hotels in the Gulf. They always asked her to perform at their hotels. She also had connections with a number of wealthy people inside and outside the country
Rukhsana could not be center-stage in the dancing sector for long because younger women continuously entered the dancing industry. She had two options: to quit, which was not acceptable to her, or to join the sex industry. She opted for the latter.
Sex industry was more profitable than dancing, and she earned a lot of money during her five years in the sex trade. As she grew older and had numerous children, demand for her as sex worker decreased. Her eldest child is 19 and the youngest is only two. Two of her daughters are working as dancers in different hotels in the Gulf and her younger daughter is learning dance.
As she had a long history of connections with promoters and hotel owners in the Gulf, she wanted to cash in on them. Now she provides girls to promoters and gets her “share.” Demand for younger girls in dancing and sex industries is high in the Gulf. The preferred age for dancing is 13-20 years. Rukhsana is always on the look out for young girls in Lahore, Multan and Sargodha.
She says girls in families from this sector grow up sooner than other girls. Parents provide good food to make them healthy, smart and pretty.
Rukhsana is candid and open with the parents of the girls. Her offer is simple: “Why don’t you send your girls to Gulf for the same work and earn three times more money.” It is quite clear that she has got the ability to convince others. She pays 20,000 to 40,000 rupees to girls as an advance. The amount depends on their beauty, height and fairness of complexion.
Minor girls working as sex workers in Pakistan are taken to Gulf on different working and payment arrangements. Rukhsana provides girls to promoters and they take them to Gulf as members of “cultural delegation.” There are a number of groups operating in Pakistan. Most of the groups are from Lahore, Karachi, Hyderabad and Multan.
A “group” consists of six to eight girls on average. The girls with five to six years’ experience as dancers usually become sex workers. The groups prefer to stay in rented houses because it helps to maximize their profit by avoiding payments to hotels.
If the group stays in rented houses, the profit is divided equally between promoters and girls. The promoter pays the rent of the house and provides food to girls.
Exploitation levels in the sex industry are comparatively higher than the dancing industry. Girls face sexual abuse frequently by the promoter and his representatives. A girl may earn 50,000-70,000 rupees a month in sex industry.
However, in the last decade a number of sex workers have reached Gulf, especially from the Central Asian states and the Philippines, affecting the demand for Indian and Pakistani girls. This situation led to the introduction of minor girls. In the last five years, the number of minor girls from Pakistan and India in the sex industry in the Gulf has increased tremendously.
Minor girls usually have inadequate or no knowledge about safe sex practices, making them attractive prey for traffickers. Unsafe sex practices may make them vulnerable to HIV/AIDS. Different networks are supplying girls between 14-20 years and earning huge profits.
Rukhsana asserts that girls’ trafficking is next to impossible to stop, adding that agents and promoters are good at finding new channels of trafficking.
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