Thriving in the kotha culture

While every attempt is made to monitor sex workers for HIV/AIDS in Delhi's red light district, nobody tracks the ones who are already infected and have scattered

Parul Sharma Delhi

Ratna first came to Delhi almost 14 years ago. She had left her native village in Maharashtra after her husband abandoned her for another woman. Before she knew it, she ended up in the Capital's red light district that goes by many names — G B Road, Gun Baction Road, Gandhi Baba Road or Shraddhanand Marg. Twelve years into the profession, she discovered she was HIV+ and had also contracted tuberculosis. Although her colleagues took turns looking after her, in the absence of any Anti-Retroviral (ARV) therapy, Ratna's condition worsened. Her anxious colleagues gave her some money and advised her to return to her village. She left.

It has been two years now since Ratna left G B Road. No one knows of her fate — where she is, whether she is still alive or has succumbed to AIDS, whether she is continuing with her profession, or has left it for good.

What really becomes of the commercial sex workers (CSWs) once they are declared HIV+? Does it spell an end to their career once their colleagues and clients learn about their infection? Do they go back to their villages and families, or do they simply shift base from one city to another?

According to the coordinators of a non-governmental organisation, Shaktivahini, which operates in G B Road, once their health does not permit them to "perform" any longer, HIV+ CSWs are swiftly packed out of the area because they become liabilities. Neither can they earn any money for themselves and the pimps and the nayikas (retired CSWs who serve as a link between the brothel owners and the sex workers), nor is anybody is willing to spend on the treatment of an ailing CSW.

Counsellors at the nearby Shrimati Girdhar Lal Hospital, which runs a Voluntary Counselling and Testing Centre under the Delhi State AIDS Control Society  have a different tale to narrate. According to them, in most cases once a CSW learns that she is HIV+, she flees on her own. Fearing that doctors would disclose their HIV+ status and ruin their business, infected CSWs simply move to another city and continue with their profession.

But no one really knows where these women go — neither their colleagues nor the nayikas. Even if, on rare occasions, they do, they are unwilling to comment. What is clear is that they are not monitored or counselled on their behavioural patterns. They just "disappear", and this could have serious consequences.

Doctors working in the field of HIV/AIDS avow that post-test counselling is as vital as pre-test counselling: more so in the case of these CSWs, who fall in the high-risk group. It's through them that the virus spreads into the mainstream population, as clients get infected and risk passing it on to their unsuspecting wives and children.

There are some 104 kothas (brothels) on G B Road housing about 3,000 CSWs. Some of these kothas are completely rundown, and have only tiny, claustrophobic, dank cabinet-size rooms. In a few that are a little more upmarket — relatively speaking — the CSWs are cleaner and fashionable-looking. Of the eight cases of HIV/AIDS reported from 35 monitored brothels over the past two years, three are being treated with free ARV therapy.

One of these women, Geeta, is aware of her status and still "practises". However, she and her nayika Shanti maintain that she "insists" all her clients wear a condom. In fact, if claims by Shanti are anything to go by, all women in these brothels practise safe and protected sex. But what happens behind those small, dingy doors is anybody's guess. How many of CSWs are able to manipulate their clients into respecting prophylaxes is difficult to ascertain.