Women’s Week 2020: Reproductive Rights

Mahadevi* has just started ‘menarche’ when her parents sent her with an acquaintance from their village in Karnataka to Mumbai. She was promised a job as a domestic worker, it was only after she came to Mumbai that she realized she was working as a domestic help in a brothel in Kamathipura. A year later she was forced and sold into the sex trade. She recalls her father regularly visiting the brothel to take the money she made, but never interacted with her or took her back to her village.

During one of our initial outreach visits into the Kamathipura red-light area in 1987, we met Mahadevi and her two children. We were just starting our first Night Care Center (NCC) in Kamathipura and were talking to the women to encourage them to send their children to the NCC. After constant and persistent follow-ups, she finally enrolled her children into the NCC, who we eventually enrolled in school as well.

It was around 1992 when she approached requesting for information regarding getting an abortion. For us this was a first, we had never had women approach us regarding an abortion. We told Mahadevi that we could accompany her to the local Municipal Hospital, she seemed extremely skeptical. On asking her why she shared “Didi, they ask too many questions, they ask for our husband’s name if we don’t give it, they assume we’re prostitutes. If we say we are married they ask for us to get our husbands and come. Where will I find a husband? If we tell them what we do, they start passing comments and treat us like untouchables. They look at us as if we aren’t human.” She further added that this is why most women from the red-light area go to ‘local doctors’ (these doctors are medical practitioners who possess limited knowledge about abortions but lack any recognized medical qualifications to perform these abortions).  to get their abortions done.

Mahadevi further shared that in the past she had visited a local doctor to ‘clean her bag’ (thaili saaf karne ke liye) but she was scared to go to the doctor this time as a lady had recently passed away due to a complication with the abortion.

The situation hasn’t changed much since 1987…

In 2019, Rani* a minor victim of commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking was 10 weeks pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. She shared that she was skeptical about approaching the local Municipal hospital, though we encouraged her to get an abortion done safely which could be ensured in a Government hospital. She finally agreed and together we went to the hospital. When her case history was being recorded, she mentioned she was married and she was immediately told to bring her husband along, they said, “Your husband’s consent is important, we can’t go ahead with the procedure without his consent. We don’t want your husband to come later and file a case against us.”  This was against the provision in the law Sec.3(b) which unambiguously stated; (b) Save as otherwise provided in clause (a), no pregnancy shall be terminated except with the consent of the pregnant woman.

Since that visit, Rani didn’t come back to us. During our outreach in the red-light area, we tried to follow up with her but she wasn’t seen in the brothel nor was she seen in the area.

A few weeks later she visited us and informed us that she had a miscarriage.

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In India The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 is responsible for the legalization of abortion, however, this can only be performed up to 20 weeks of conception.

Abortion can be performed under only four conditions:

1. If the continuation of the pregnancy poses a risk to the life of the mother.
2. If the child to be born would suffer from physical mental abnormalities to be seriously handicapped.
3. If pregnancy has occurred as a result of failure of contraception. (this is only applicable to married women)
4. If the pregnancy is a result of sexual assault or rape.