BehanVox: Sex Workers Fight For Their Rights In Mumbai’s Historic Red Light District
This week in BehanVox: Haryana's intrusive new IVF mandate, the sexist world of video gaming in China, and more
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Hello and welcome to BehanVox! This week we bring you a story from Kamathipura, Mumbai’s historic red light district, plans for its redevelopment, and what that means for its large population of sex workers. Also news nuggets on Haryana’s sex ratio campaign, a young woman’s tragic struggle for justice in Odisha and the sexist world of video gaming in China.
Story So Far
It was towards the end of the 18th century that Kamathipura grew out of marshy lands in the north of Bombay’s Fort area. Its name came from the marginalised caste of migrant construction labourers from Andhra. In the 1880s, it was designated by colonial military as a zone for sex work to cater to the troops and young. But it was also a vibrant quarter, home to migrant workers from across the country and from multiple communities.
By the start of the 20th century, Kamathipura sat at the heart of the city which was growing outwards rapidly. The liberalisation of the 1990s saw developers eye the mill lands around it, premium locations for the land-starved city. The construction boom is now in full swing and is set to swallow the old Kamathipura as well. Last month, the state government announced its redevelopment plan for the district.
Featured widely in feature and documentary films, Kamathipura historic red-light areas are cramped lanes lined with brothels fronted by “cages” – apparently installed in the 1890s to protect the women from unruly customers. Over the last two years, sex workers allege, the number of police raids on their settlements here have spiked. These raids are positioned as “rescue” missions meant to save unwilling sex workers from traffickers and exploitation.
However, the women and their networks of solidarity claim that most workers here are engaged in the trade willingly. From impoverished homes, many of the women have made Kamathipura both their home and workplace. They are not looking to be rescued or rehabilitated through the outdated government schemes such as the Sudhar Griha project.
The raids, they allege, are being engineered to frighten the women into leaving Kamathipura so that it would clear the path for the redevelopment work. Police have sealed more than a dozen brothels in ‘Dinesh’ and ‘Rele’ buildings here. Activists report that all the brothels in the area have been shut for more than a month. Police patrols the area every afternoon and evening to ensure that women do not stand around outside to solicit clients. If seen on the road for purposes other than shopping or going for a walk, they are questioned and asked to return.
Around 500 agitated women sex workers protested against crackdown on brothels at Azad Maidan on July 16.
Rani*, a sex worker who migrated here from Kolkata, recalled the raid on her room. “When the police came, they vandalised our room, took away our belongings such as cash, golden-silver ornaments. They abused us.”
The sex workers told us that the police are making it impossible to live from one day to the next. “For more than a month we have been cooking in the dark, with the help of a mobile torch light,” said Parvati* who migrated from Andhra Pradesh nearly 20 years ago. “If we switch on the lights in the evening, the constables come, scold and force us to switch off the lights. According to the police, switching on the lights means we are serving our clients.”
Nearly 3,000 sex workers of Kamathipura have been affected by the police crackdown, according to activists.
Tejaswi Sevekari, who runs a collective of sex workers in Pune, maintains that the 17 lanes serving as workspaces for sex workers have now been reduced to four. “No one knows where these women go and how they live. The government has no record and the police action sex workers everywhere, not just Kamathipura because builders are lobbying to redevelop the area,” said “Not only Kamathipura, most red light areas in Maharashtra sit on prime land with immense real estate value.”
Read our story here.
Talking Point
Permission For IVF: Even for a state dealing with an abysmal sex ratio it seems like an unworkable and intrusive solution: Haryana has asked couples who have a girl child to seek government permission before they undergo IVF (in vitro fertilisation) to have a second child, The Times of India reports. The directive also applies to those with two daughters or those with a son and a daughter. Basically, anyone who seems to be seeking conception through artificial means to birth a male child. Couples going for an IVF need to file an application with the district authorities along with birth certificates of their children and relevant papers on childbirth, miscarriage, and so on to establish their reasons for seeking IVF. The decision was taken at a recent weekly review meeting of a task force to deal with the decline of Haryana’s annual sex ratio at birth from 916 in 2023 to 910 in 2024.
Campus Crisis: Yet another tragedy has struck an educational institution that chose to ignore a reported case of sexual harassment. A 20-year-old student of Fakir Mohan College in Balasore, Odisha succumbed last Monday to injuries suffered after a self-immolation attempt. She had complained to the principal and internal complaints committee about repeated harassment by a professor and had reportedly been asked to withdraw her complaint and apologise. An ICC member claims that its recommendations had been ignored by the principal.
Vamp Stereotype: In this virtual gaming world, women are scheming, heartless gold diggers who ensnare gullible good-hearted men into romantic relationships. It is a trope as old as the hills but it still finds echo – in a Chinese video game titled, rather imaginatively, Revenge On Gold Diggers, where male players get to show manipulative women their place. It drew a heated debate in China and elsewhere about playing to the manosphere and was promptly renamed Emotional Anti-Fraud Simulator.
BehanVox Recommends
Caste and Tax: In this long read, Manideep Gudela investigates how decades after equal pay laws, Dalit women in the Thoothukudi salt pans of Tamil Nadu still earn Rs 10 less daily or Rs 300 less monthly than men. Despite court rulings and hard labour, gender and caste discrimination persists, with patriarchal tax being compounded across generations.
Topography of Ruin: In this personal essay, Shivangi Mariam Raj travels past Muslim areas in Delhi uprooted, bulldozed and left in rubble and deemed ““illegal encroachments.” From Nuh, Haldwani, Lakhimpur to Bhilwara and others, she maps the thousand demolished homes, mosques, small shops, and shrines.
Beacon of Resistance: On the fourth anniversary of Father Stan Swamy death due to alleged medical negligence in prison, his co-defendants who are in jail in connection with the Elgar Parishad case, record their memories and vow to lead a hunger strike.
Meditations on Speculative Fiction: In this long read, RT Samuel pens an ode to speculative fiction, and reflects on the process of putting together The Blaft Book of Anti-Caste SF.
Conference: In Delhi, a two-part event ‘Labouring Bodies, Unjust Laws: Reimagining the Laws of Social Reproduction’ aims to bring together film, conversation, and reflect on labour, feminist legal strategies, and how to reimagine justice for reproductive labourers. The conference will be on 23 and 24 July, 2025. at India International Centre, New Delhi.
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