Kolkata’s sex workers have been marginalised and discriminated against for hundreds of years. Often trafficked to the city from poorer regions of India, they are considered social outcasts with no rights, no power and little hope of escaping their plight.
But in the past 20 years, things have gradually improved. The creation of the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, a group to fight against their oppression, was a watershed, giving thousands of oppressed women a voice. There is even hope sex work will finally be recognised as a legitimate occupation.
Sex workers have settled in several parts of Kolkata ever since the inception of the city. They tended to choose areas close to where the nouveau riche settled such as Sonagacchi and Ram Bagan in the north, or around the famous Kali temple in Kolkata (Kalighat) and the Kolkata port (Khidderpore).
