“It’s ‘business’ time in this nondescript village perched on Gujarat’s border with Rajasthan, located about 75 km from Palanpur. In Budhanpura, it’s not wrong, certainly not a crime. For ages, girls in the family in this village of Saraniyas (a nomadic tribe) have engaged in flesh trade as the men just nodded. Residents of Budhanpura say its the wrath of their goddess that led them to push their daughters — though daughters-in-law are insulated — into the ‘trade’. Now, the wrath is wreaking havoc among its populace. The system, having a social sanction, has carried on unchecked for ages and has left the womenfolk, almost 80 per cent of who are in the trade, vulnerable to diseases and social ostracisation… ‘When I got into it, it was a family tradition that I was following,’ says Sumitra (name changed), a middleaged woman. The men who came to her do not turn up anymore at her doorstep. Sumitra today rues that even her son and daughter-in-law and her in-laws, who stay in nearby Kansa, have discarded her… ‘We have not put our daughters in this willingly. We wanted to lead a normal life but the curse of the goddess would never leave us. Whenever we tried to discontinue with the practice, we have had deaths in our families. But, we do marry off our daughters,’ says a village elder, Roopabhai. But, both NGOs and the district administration say the men in the village have been ‘deliberately falling back on tradition’ to live on the earning of the women. ‘However, awareness has been growing. Many girls are now insisting on condoms and are more aware of diseases. We have been organising awareness camps, putting up boards and distributing condoms,’ says Banaskantha district collector RR Chauhan.” —Times of India (India)

If you ever thought prostitution was a dead end here in America, just imagine what it must be like in Budhanpura. This is an Indian backwater so obscure it barely even registers on Google. No doubt it’s a tough place to make a buck, and so the men in this nomad’s land have been falling back on a time-honored trick: invent some compelling supernatural reason to prostitute the women, and then kick back and enjoy the spoils. Must be nice work if you can get it.

What makes the story galling is the hypocrisy of the whole thing. On one hand, prostitution is socially sanctioned. Parents push their daughters into it. On the other hand, while the practice is santioned, the practitioners are ostracized and condemned. A father or mother would pimp their own daughter but then disown her because she’s a town slut. It makes no sense. But then again, what do you expect from anyone willing to swallow that story about “the wrath of the goddess” pushing them into this behavior?

At least it’s heartening to hear that the girls are educating themselves about condoms and diseases. Maybe one day they’ll even figure out that there’s no goddess forcing them into prostitution. Given where they’re at, it would be a significant step up the social ladder to give up the flesh trade and go work at a McDonalds in New Delhi.

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