I joined Prerana in January 2018, in the two years I’ve been here I’ve visited the red-light areas of Kamathipura and Falkland Road multiple times. With the help of the outreach team at Prerana, I’ve been able to further understand the lives of the women living there and seen it firsthand. While I have managed to get a glimpse into life at Kamathipura and Falkland Road, red-light areas in other parts of the country aren’t as easily accessible. In July 2019, I visited G.B.Road, Delhi’s red-light area to understand the changing dynamics of the sex trade there. In February 2020, I visited Budhwar Peth, Pune’s red-light area along with my colleagues from Prerana’s Institutional Placement Program (IPP). We visited a few organizations working with the women in the red-light area to better understand the functioning of the sex trade there. Here is a glimpse into my maiden visit to Budhwar Peth.

Budhwar Peth is one of the many commercial localities in the old city of Pune. Within it, boarding the bustling Laxmi Market is the red-light area. Over the years, the name Budhwar Peth has become synonyms with the sex trade and the red-light area it houses within it.

Laxmi Market is a famous Pune market, similar to Mumbai’s Crawford Market, it’s loud, crowded and colorful. The streets are lined with hawkers selling flowers, vegetables, kitchen utensils, and anything you’d need. I met my colleague right outside a fairly famous sweet shop, Kaka Halwai. This was my first official visit to the Pune red-light area.

My colleague and I walked about 30 seconds past Kaka Halwai, and for someone who walked through Kamathipura multiple times, I knew I was walking into the red-light area. The entrance to the area was quiet, probably because it was 1 pm. But about 20 seconds in and I saw a few women standing on the streets. There weren’t too many men though, just a few sitting on bikes and talking among themselves. A few men up ahead were bargaining with women. But there weren’t too many of them. My colleague, who has visited the area multiple times told me that the lane we were walking into had brothels on both sides, the structures seemed old and deteriorating. They were about 3 story structures to the left of the street and one level structures to the right. Women were lining the streets and the balconies, watching all those passing by. A few soliciting clients, a few noticing we weren’t from the area. As we reached an intersection, I noticed the structures changing. In front of me were well-made buildings, electrical shops, a few clothing shops, and a few restaurants. Women, slightly younger than the one we’d just walked past now lined the streets.

Our first visit was to Kayakalpa an organization that has been working with women in the area since 1997. In 2007, they began primarily working on HIV/AIDS and with the HIV+ women in the area. A day before our visit they inaugurated their night care service. We met with a representative of the organization who shared and gave us an insight into the functioning of the sex trade in the Budhwar Peth red-light area. Post our visit to Kayakalpa we visited Swadhar’s Mohor Project, which runs a daycare center in the area. Through this visit we had a chance to speak to a few women who solicit in the area as well as a brothel keeper, which was a first for me. Both these visits were insightful and helped us better understand the area. While there were similarities to the red-light areas in Mumbai, there were stark differences as well.

The red-light area was much smaller than I’d expected, a mere six lanes. These six lanes housed 2559^[1] women along with their children who were living in the brothels of Budhwar Peth and were active in the sex trade. The number of women in the area had decreased over the years. The major move and migration of women occurred after a massive raid conducted in 2011^[2]. The raid was conducted by the Andhra Pradesh Police along with the Pune Police where 100 women were detained of which 30 women were from Andhra Pradesh and were eventually sent back to the State^[3]. Due to this raid, and a fear of being ‘picked up’ a number of women migrated to other areas in Pune and even out of the city.  A fear we realized continues to be present among the women we spoke to.

As a majority of the women soliciting in the area live in the outskirts of Pune, due to which many brothels function on a rental basis wherein the women pay a rent of Rs. 50/- per customer for the bed i.e. if a woman were to typically make Rs. 300/- per customer, she would charge an extra Rs. 50/- from the customer and pay that as rent for use of a bed. According to the women the team spoke to, they shared that this is how most brothels in the area function. Women living in the brothel-based system pay 50% of their earnings to the brothel keeper. During the conversation with the brothel keeper, she told us that at her brothel she has eight rooms (4×6 beds divided by ply wood-like sheets) which she rents out, she also has two women living under her who pay Rs.7000/- as their monthly rent. She ensured we knew that she ‘doesn’t force’ these women to solicit and offer sex in exchange for money. She emphasized that they are there because they ‘chose’ the sex trade.

We were curious to learn more about the women and where they came from. We were told that women from Kolkata and Bangladesh make up for the largest group of women living in Budhwar Peth, while women from Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are the second largest group. As a contrast to the Mumbai red-light areas, the women in Budhwar Peth live in designated areas based on their preferences. For example, there is a single designated building wherein only women from Nepal live. The red-light area also has a building that functions as a brothel where the transgender community lives.

One of the most striking learnings from our visit was about the frequency of raids. While raids are regular in red-light areas, raids in Budhwar Peth are extremely frequent. Raids are conducted throughout the year, though a majority of raids are conducted between January to March. During this period, raids can be conducted once a week even. During these raids, women are taken into custody. The women shared that even if they show an identity card (generally an Aadhar card) to prove they are adults they are still “picked up” during these raids. The women we met also shared that if a woman being picked up looks young, she would be considered a minor and sent to a Shelter Home by the Police. The women blamed these raids on Bangladeshi women in the area as the most frequent raids were conducted by the West Bengal Police. Their tone conveyed that the Bangladeshi women were not welcomed in the area with one woman saying “These Bangladeshi’s should just leave and go; they are the reason we don’t earn. They lie to the police and innocent women are taken away because of them.”

Another notable distinction was that in the last 2 years, the Pune Police have been conducting Naka Bandhi’s in the area every night from 11 pm to 4 am, during which no one is allowed in or out. This has drastically affected the number of customers that come to the area, directly affecting the earnings of the women^[4]. Women shared that during day raids, authorities go into brothels, pull out the customers and line them up on the pavement, these operations are known as ‘combing operations’, the authorities would then take a video of these men and upload it online. If you searched ‘combing operations Budhwar Peth’ you’d find many videos of men seated on the streets. The concept of ‘combing operations’ was something I had heard for the first time; this wasn’t something that would happen in the red-light areas of Mumbai. According to the women, the men who were picked up are given a warning and let off the hook. Sometimes they would also have to pay a bribe amount but no legal action was taken.

We left the Mohor center at around 1 pm to walk through the area and were accompanied by two social workers and a woman from the area. The number of women had increased in just a few hours, more women were soliciting now. When we asked the social workers about this, they shared that women in the area solicit during the day as they live in other parts of Pune. A number of these women live with their families and inform them that they are coming to ‘work’ (mostly domestic work) in the city. We walked through the red-light area and spoke to a few women but were unable to visit and enter a brothel.

For the unassuming, Budhwar Peth looks like any other market place, stores lining the streets, and locals meeting their daily needs. But in the middle of this bustling market, lies a well-hidden red-light area.