Sex workers in Delhi count losses as fire chars their homes, savings and dreams for future

The red of a wedding dress that shines through the ashen grey, a mangled fan and a misshapen box holding cash saved over the years… their belongings lie in heaps, charred beyond repair in a fire that destroyed the cramped spaces in Delhi’s red light area they called home and also their dreams for the future.

On Sunday, three days after flames tore through ‘kotha number 58’ in central Delhi’s G B Road that housed about 45 sex workers, the women gazed blankly at the detritus of their lives, wondering how they will manage.

Covid-19 had pushed them deeper into the fringes of mainstream society, snatching their livelihood and the fire has robbed them of their homes and the little savings they had.

"Everything is shattered,” said Maya*, stunned by what had happened.

On Thursday evening, as the block went up in flames, the women and their families managed to escape with just the clothes on their backs and have been given temporary shelter in a municipal school nearby. There were no casualties.

"I have been living here alone for the last 10 years. My children stay with their ‘nani’ in Jaunpur and I was to visit them to fix my daughter's wedding in January. I had bought her wedding dress, some jewellery and new clothes for all my children for Diwali. It’s all gone,” Maya* told PTI.

"I have also lost my Aadhar card. It was the only identity proof I had," she added.

The thought of tomorrow haunts the women, many who have been staying for decades at the brothels above street level shops in the one-kilometre stretch, once known as Garstin Bastion Road, or more famously G B Road, and now renamed Swami Shradhanand Marg. It is one of India’s largest red light areas and home to 1,500 women packed into about 100 brothels.

For now, police officials have arranged their stay in the school and they are surviving on whatever help they have been receiving from police, some NGOs and generous citizens.

Their brothel block is gutted, the beams twisted by the searing heat of the fire, the walls singed and their belongings, painstaking gathered over the year, lying in scattered heaps, some reduced to ashes and dust and others damaged beyond repair.

The woman, some with children and parents, can’t stay for long in the school either.

It is almost impossible to maintain social distancing in the dirty and congested area in which they have been accommodated. They don’t have water to bathe or even wash hands. Sanitation is a problem. Toddlers can be seen with empty milk bottles as their mothers wait for someone to come forward to help them.

"Some of my belongings were burnt in the fire and some stolen. I have just this one nighty which I am wearing. We have not taken a bath for the last three days. Nights are getting cold and we don't have any woollen clothes or blankets," said Shaila*.

She had saved money to send her teen daughters living with her parents in Andhra Pradesh but now has nothing.

Shaila*, like many of the other women, doesn’t have a bank account and would keep her money tucked away in boxes, piggy banks or in a trunk. It is all gone.

"We are not educated enough to operate bank accounts and not everyone has proof of identity. The fire literally burnt our money. Our life was already miserable and this fire has finished us,” she said.

Their stories are many, the distress the same.

Sunila*, who has been living in Delhi for three decades, was recently served a notice from the ‘kotha’ owner and asked to pay a hefty amount as rent for the last seven months . She borrowed money and even arranged for lawyers’ fees to fight a case but lost it all in the fire.

"How would I pay rent when I had no income for the last eight-nine months. I was supposed to give the lawyer money on Friday. But the fire claimed it a day before,” she said.

She also blamed the brothel owner for not repairing the building.

“Who will help us and where do we go? People talk about closure of the brothels but do they understand our problems?" she asked.

Echoing her, Sahiba* said they have been exploited and have nowhere else to go.

"Who will give us jobs? What about our kids and parents? Our past will follow us everywhere. People come here, make videos and take our photographs but do not come back. What if our kids see those pictures or videos? Nobody has time to think about this," she said.

"Many NGOs come with false promises of providing another job but leave us on the road. We have to raise our kids, educate them so that stay away from this. We have been living here for so long that we don't want to go anywhere else. All we want is that our house should immediately get renovated," she said.

Is anybody listening? (*Names have been changed to protect identities).