Mumbai's Kamathipura shuts doors to sex-buyers over Covid-19

Even as Mumbai unlocks, the residents and business owners of Kamathipura are working tirelessly to ensure that their locality doesn’t become a Covid-19 hotspot due to the red-light area.

The residents recently started a poster drive and pasted over 250 posters across the streets, brothels, Ganesh pandals of Kamathipura, cautioning people about the spread of Covid-19 and discouraging sex buyers from entering the place.

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The poster initiative was supported by Rukesh Girolla, a social activist, representative of Sainath Mitra Mandal, and Suresh Pabba, a resident and social worker.

A month ago, over 1,000 residents and business owners of Kamathipura sent a letter to Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackrey, Mumbai South MP Arvind Sawant, and municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, requesting a strict vigilance to keep sex-buyers away from entering the locality.

Kamathipura residents said that during the lockdown, there was no business in the brothel which led to only a few cases of Covid-19 infection.

However, post lockdown and starting of unlocking, there has been a drastic increase in the number of sex-buyers frequenting the area and sex workers are also seen soliciting on the streets.

“Customers come to Kamathipura-Faukland area from all over Mumbai, and they could become potential carriers of Covid-19 virus. Locals fear that it is just a matter of time before the sex workers get infected and the virus starts spreading uncontrollably in the area making the region a super spreader,” said Girolla.

Sameer Sable, a member of Raj Mudra Pratishthan and members of Kamathipura Vyapari and Rehavasi Ekta committee, stated, “Mask, gloves, hand sanitizers and condoms cannot protect customers or commercial sex workers from getting infected as maintaining social distance in sex trade is a laughable fact. It is a dark reality, men visiting these brothels can be the potential virus carriers. Thus, the infection once spread in the redlight area can easily spread around the community,”.

Kamathipura, infamous for the sprawling red light area has been one of the few places in Mumbai that has managed to keep Covid-19 cases under control.

When Mumbai went under lockdown, Kamathipura residents and business owners came together to ensure that the rules of lockdown are strictly adhered.

Despite the city’s upward trajectory of Covid-19 cases, Kamathipura has managed to keep the cases within the range of a few hundred, and the community efforts have played a significant role in keeping the area under the green zone.

Girolla, stated, “Schools, colleges, shops have remained shut to contain the spread of the virus. In such a situation, I am shocked that sex buyers are being allowed to freely roam outside. Has buying sex become an essential activity?”

The residents are hopeful that the authorities will set-up mechanisms of strict vigilance to keep the customers out of red light areas until the end of the pandemic.