A grassroots movement
to end sex trafficking
The Masculinities Project
Why do men buy women? What can we do to stop the demand?
I began investigating sex-trafficking in 1995 after I stumbled upon rows of villages in Nepal which did not have any girls from age 15 to 45. When I asked the men in these villages about the missing girls and women -some of them giggled, others looked sheepish, a few walked away and others retreated into grim silence. Some turned around and asked me: “Don’t you know? They are in Bombay”. I remember thinking- So many? Why? The devastating answer was that there was an institutionalsed sex-trafficking ring transporting little girls from remote villages to the brothels of Mumbai. There was the local village procurer, the middleman in the town, the corrupt border guard, the agent across the border, the brothel madam in Bombay and finally the client who wanted a “fair, young, girl;” or a “pretty, docile woman;” or “someone very young, maybe a virgin with a very tight vagina.”
Who were these men who bought sex? Why with young children? And then who were the men in the villages- who let daughters, sisters, mothers, lovers and friends fall prey to traffickers? What motivated them to collude in the exploitation of a loved one? And who were the procurers, the corrupt border guards, agents, middlemen and pimps? How did they feel about living off this misery?
Another month of investigation in the villages of Nepal and I began to scratch the surface of the many reasons why. Poverty combined with the low status of women allowed fathers to turn their daughters into an economic resource. “What can I do? I have four more mouths to feed? No job and no future;” “she will leave home anyway, so what does it matter? She is a girl.” “I own her, she is mine. I can do what I like with her.”
Following the trail of the traffickers was harder. They refused to talk. I managed to obtain an interview with one in the Katmandu jail and later two more in a travel agency in Mumbai. All three were utterly cynical. The procurer in the Nepal jail said-“oh, at least she has work;” and the two “travel agents” said “We are doing her family a favor. They are too poor to get her married.”
Over the course of the year, a pimp, Krishna Tamang in Pila House, a brothel in Mumbai, agreed to talk and said: “I need the money for my sister’s dowry.” He gave me the contact of an “amenable” border guard in Biratnagar, Nepal, who said: “it is harder to make money these days, so many payoffs, so I let more girls go.” One of the crew of The Selling of Innocents got a policeman in Mumbai’s red-light area to talk by posing as a client, “we don’t make much per girl- the younger the better.”
However, the hardest to comprehend was the client/customer/john-why did he want to buy sex? Why with a captive woman? I have been trying to answer the question ever since I stumbled upon the issue-first as a journalist- while making the documentary The Selling of Innocents- and then after I founded an NGO based in the red-light areas of Kolkata and Mumbai, called Apne Aap Women Worldwide.
The question continued to haunt me as I worked on policy issues related to trafficking in persons at the UN in Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Philippines, Kosovo, South Africa and USA. I have posed these questions to customers in the brothels of Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangkok, Manila, Johannesburg, Thessalonica and Amsterdam.
My first questions were to the team of four men who went into the brothels with me. None of them felt remotely attracted to the women and girls reduced to the cardboard creatures before us. So what was the difference between them and the clients? Only one client answered this question in the course of making the documentary-a nineteen year old truck driver’s assistant. “I am getting married next month. I don’t want to fail on my wedding night. So I have come here for practice.” I asked him if he could not learn about sex from friends, relatives or books and he said, “no, not properly. The books are too complicated and no one talks about such things. It is bad.” When I asked him why it was bad to talk about sex but alright to buy sex from a child, he shook his head and said, “But these are bad women. It does not matter.”
The more educated Mumbai police chief displayed the same attitude in an interview to Cynthia McFadden for an ABC documentary, Mumbai’s Sex-Slaves in 2002, “oh, you can do nothing about this. It is the oldest profession in the world. If we did not have prostitutes there would be more rapes- good women would get raped.”
This jocund view of sexual offences as little more than excess male ardor by the police chief and the division between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ women by both the truck driver and the police chief persisted in answers from clients across the world.
In 1998 I founded the NGO, Apne Aap ( self-help in Hindi), and I began periodic workshops over a year with the men in the lives of the women in prostitution-clients, husbands, boyfriends, lovers, sons and pimps- whoever I could access. The objective of the workshop was to understand what drove the demand? The goal was that if we cut off the demand- we could end sex-trafficking.
Here, I will take a moment to describe the red-light area where the Apne Aap workshops were held:
Kamatipura is a criss-cross of 12 lanes between Bombay Central and Grant Road stations in the heart of downtown Mumbai. It is the densest red-light area I have seen in the world. At the time of my research there were about 25,000-30,000 women and girls trapped in prostitution here. Some were as young as seven. The younger ones are locked up behind false walls and attics. I was witness to some “rescue operations” by NGOs (all these rescue operations were conducted by men) in which some of the girls were plucked out of false bottoms of beds or coffin-like attics. They blinked like newly born kittens- they had not seen daylight in months. Though Mumbai is a port city, they did not know the Arabian Sea was a few miles away.
Today the number of women trapped in prostitution has dropped to about 7,000-9000.This, of course, does not mean that the numbers of women and girls being trafficked for sex has come down. It only means that new red-light areas have sprung up and the nature of prostitution has changed-shifting from brothel based sex to street based sex or to beer bars, railway shanties and slums on the edges of Mumbai. The women and girls are made to service their clients in the same rooms that they live. Each room has one tiny barred window and three-or four beds crammed in. About seven to nine women are stuffed into the room and their children play on the floor while they service the clients.
The clients who visit the brothels are students, daily wage earners, migrant workers, office clerks, even policemen-anybody and everybody. The more affluent clients ask for the girls to be sent to a hotel or an apartment. When making The Selling of Innocents- we were shown albums of women to choose from in many hotels in Mumbai. At a massage parlor we were taken to a back room and girls were paraded for us- the youngest was five years old. Incidentally the red-light area of Mumbai is a legacy of the British who created this enclave of prostitutes for British soldiers; all the brothels were licensed and the girls periodically checked for diseases.
Back to the clients: At the first workshop, I asked all the men to introduce themselves and what they did to earn a living. It was a group of 30, all daily-wage earners. Some were street vendors, one of them made clay toys, another was an electrician, two were gold smiths and two sold balloons, and one of them said- I work in the D-company. That is the name of the most powerful organized criminal syndicate in India run by Dawood Ibrahim now based in Dubai. I told them I was a feminist- a journalist and an activist. They did not know what a feminist was, so I explained. And then began the year-long process of sharing information. I would tell them all about HIV/AIDS, alcoholism, drug dependency, job opportunities and anger management. They would try and articulate why they bought sex.
Why did they feel the need to assert themselves by exercising control over a trafficked woman? Why did they beat her as well? Why did they connect the exercise of power with violence? How do they feel about it? How do they feel about the women?
The consequence of their demand is visible on the victims of trafficking: loss of childhood, isolation, stigma, discrimination, bondage and slavery, repeated rape, repeated abortions, STDs including HIV/AIDS, psycho-social trauma, out of body experiences, alcohol and drug dependency, inability to acquire other job skills, and the legacy of leaving orphans behind. Research and media attention have also repeatedly focused on the misery of the victims. Yet, these men continued to buy sex.
Some of the answers were puzzling, others just made me angry and some of the answers were simply pathetic. The reasons they gave were rooted in Curiosity, Isolation from the opposite sex, Need for female companionship, Lack of social skills, Desire for power and control, Peer pressure, HIV/AIDS, Fear of losing virility, Desire for violent sex or to be violent, Easy availability of girls/women, Insensitivity to harm caused, Sexual desire for instant gratification, Thrill of having multiple partners, Low probability of detection/punishment , Preference for unequal relationship with women, orientalism, racism, Preference for sex with children, Social conditioning, Urban legends and myths, Seduction of commercials, Aggression during war and conflict, Understanding of masculinity in self, family, community and state, Shame, fear, guilt around sex, Understanding of sexuality in self, family, community and state.
These very loosely structured discussions then threw up the challenge that to address the demand to sex trafficking, the nature of masculinity itself needs to be addressed. Some of the characteristics associated with masculinity, such as aggressiveness, dominance and strength, translated into attitudes and behaviors that were lethal to the trafficked girls. I have often encountered this urban legend among some HIV positive men, in Africa, Europe and Asia-that sex with a virgin will cure them of AIDS. So the demand for young virgins has gone up and many of these little girls end up with AIDS and die. And leave behind orphaned children with no extended family structures to support them.
While looking into the role of men in perpetuating trafficking and more generally prostitution, I found that for many men “power was as an end in itself ", exercised by the male client purchasing a sexual service from a woman.
That brings us to the notion of what is Masculinity? Masculinity – or masculinities, is a manifestation of male sexuality. Due to a combination of biological, cultural and social influences, masculinity is often associated with characteristics such as aggressiveness, competitiveness, dominance, strength, courage and control, and relate to our understanding of power in society as a whole. Not one of the group of 30 men for the first month of the workshop defined anatomy as the main difference between men and women. All focused on behavior as the main difference, that there were jobs and roles appropriate for men and women and the “bad” women in the brothels had broken that pattern.
This preoccupation with behavior and ‘appropriate’ jobs as manifestations of masculinity was expressed by the group of men as feelings of being ‘demasculinized’ when they could not play the traditional roles of providers. “I don’t get work everyday. I have stopped saving. I don’t send money home any more; I know my family feels I am not doing my duty as a man. But I need sex. After all, I am still a man, I come here. ” And then they began to explain how they seek affirmation of their masculinity in other ways; violence, rape, buying sex. Two of the members in our group said, “We feel like men when we beat the girls we buy sex from”.
This then led to a discussion about violence- the group began to talk about experiences and influences that socialized them into violence. How starting in childhood, a preconceived mould of masculinity connected to violence was imposed on them. “We are men, violence is not wrong. Why, my elder brother taught me to fight as a child. You have to learn to use your fists if you are a man, he said.” Another member of our group said: “My mother told me to beat my wife from the wedding night itself. She said I was a man and must exert my manhood from the first day. My wife should not get the upper hand. I cannot talk to my wife at all. She shivers when I am near her. So I come to the red-light area. ”
The most interesting comment came from the Bangladeshi goldsmith in our group who said: “I feel upset every time I buy sex and then I lose control and beat the girl.” So why did he buy sex and his answer was “I am a man. I will lose my virility if I do not have sex. I cannot afford to be married. So I come here.” At least five other men in the group echoed his comment about the fear of losing their virility. Ayaz, a master cutter, late 20s, working with a garment factory in Andheri, Mumbai, said: “I feel very ashamed to buy sex. But I too fear losing my abilities, if I do not exercise my manhood periodically.” When asked about the possibility of developing a relationship based on friendship with a woman, he said: “oh, I cannot do that. Our religion forbids it.” The street vendor added during the discussion, “I could masturbate, but what if I become blind? It is much safer to buy a girl.”
After violence and fear, our discussion moved to laziness. The younger men said, “Oh, why should we waste time masturbating. It is much easier to buy a girl. It is not very expensive either.” One of the students in our group added, “I have to spend so much time and energy trying to build a friendship with the snooty girls in my college. I can get sex much faster with the girls in the brothels.” Another student added, “And there is no need for foreplay.”
But why did they need sex so badly? Could they not do without sex, if they did not want to date a girl? The discussions then were about the cultural beliefs and expectations about "manhood." One of the men said, “Oh, all the older men in my workplace would talk about sex and I was considered sissy because I had never had sex. So I am here now.” One of the group members said, “In my culture women have to be passive during sex. Otherwise they are considered bad women. I come here for the kind of sex I cannot enjoy with my wife.” Another said, “I like fair-skinned women. My wife is too dark. So I buy the Nepali girls here.”
Beyond the structural pressures and cultural messages were parenting practices that contributed to the demand for sex-trafficking. “When I turned 15, my father brought me to the red-light area, saying, “you are a man now, you will need sex. We cannot get you married till you have begun to earn, but in the meantime, you can come here,” said one of the street-vendors. Another said, said, he always bought sex with very young girls because his mother had always told him that she would get him, “a doll to play with,” as his bride.
Mothers often reinforce traditional ideas about manhood by showing that they do not expect sons to do household chores or express their emotions. “Yes, my mother too always said that good wives would be submissive. Mine was not. I threw her out and now here I am.”
The educational system and religious institutions also led to a male socialization which steered boys away from building equal relationships based on dignity with the female sex. “As I grew up, I was more and more segregated from women and girls. I did not know what they were like. It was considered immoral in my family for the men to be with girls. Even at social or religious functions, the men and women were on two separate sides of the room. I was really curious about women. If I tried to be friendly with anyone in school or at home, it would be detected and I would be punished. So I came to the red-light area and began to buy girls,” said a student from our group of thirty. One of the street vendors said, “I never had a chance to interact with any women socially. I now feel very shy and I don’t have the social skills to get a girlfriend as they do in the movies. I wanted to be like the movie heroes so I came here instead and bought a girlfriend. I come to the same girl every time. She is my girlfriend. I beat her if she takes other customers.”
A chilling reason, which finally led to the dissolution of the workshops with this group, was expressed by the member of the criminal syndicate. He was a member of the Shiv Sena, a Hindu ultra-nationalist political party. He said: “I come and buy Muslim women here. They need to know we are superior and this is our country. After we demolished the Babri Mosque in 1992, I actually went to some Muslim homes and humiliated the women, just as the Moguls had done to Hindu women hundreds of years ago.”
Admittedly, this was not a scientific way of gathering information – all the discussions were freewheeling and unstructured. But based on this experience Apne Aap did two pilot workshops of two weeks each on “a new vision of masculinity” at two sites: a) one with 50 migrant workers in Delhi and b) one with 20 clients in the red-light area of Mumbai. The question that we tried to determine was whether a ‘free and enlightened’ man in a just world would still make the choice of paying for sexual services. Was it possible to work towards a model of masculinity which did not perpetrate violence but promoted synergy between the sexes to transcend gender?
Our workshops tried to develop a more flexible vision of manhood in which men were more respectful of their relationships with women.
So the challenge was to change the attitude and behavior, of men towards women and to get them to stop buying sex. Could the men change? Yes and no, suggests the findings from our workshops. These men equipped with the right kind of knowledge and skills were eager to improve their behavior.
However, the deeper-rooted gendered inequalities that shaped there sexual encounters were more difficult to transform. In our pilots we spoke to the men about the physiology of sex and we challenged socio-cultural factors that shaped their sexual encounters. We also reiterated the consequences and the harm caused to the trafficked girls/women they bought sex from. Men responded very positively, pleased that they could now make more informed decisions. However, the men still decided when and where sex would happen, continued to buy sex-although were perhaps more considerate towards their partners. “I don’t beat her anymore,” said the goldsmith. The street-vendor and the garment worker said they, “we don’t go to the red-light area now.” One student said, “I am trying to make friends with a girl in my college. I don’t feel guilty about it.” Ten members from our original group had dropped out and only four spoke of any actual behavior change.
But we feel if we continue with this approach, we will have an impact on reducing demand to sex-trafficking. Our point of success is that we encouraged the men to view themselves as individual human beings and not just as representatives of masculine culture. We began to analyze and question the values that promoted or glamorized violence – competition, hardness, insensitivity, idolizing winners in war, sports and business life and the concept of “male honor” prevailing in male cultures.
The other successful strategy was to develop and value fatherhood – the men were concerned about their children and were willing to listen to ideas about new ways to bring them up.
We picked up our third strategy from a number of men’s anti-violence programs that have worked to overcome the naturalizing of men’s violence and by dismantling most consistent stereotypes about ‘what do the men you know like to do most?’ We tried to find alternative models of masculinity by getting spiritual leaders, employers and film stars to come and talk and act as role models of men who value compassion and community building over more constraining gender roles. The participants in both pilots responded with curiosity and it seemed that further encounters could lead to transformation.
This approach recognizes that violent men can be helped through therapy, and violence can be prevented; men can be empowered to define and live masculinity in new ways. The topic is no longer merely about the victims, the women who have been and are being abused, but also about those who abuse.
For men, I guess, reality looks different. They are, after all, the suppliers and buyers of the third biggest business in the world today, the real-life trading of women as sexual slaves, a phenomenon which has exploded in the last ten years. They do not want to and are not made to see the consequences of their demand for submission and sexual services.
This is also true of men in political institutions and the police. They tend to trivialise or marginalise the issue of sex-trafficking. Their wide acceptability allows the clients to operate more freely. Apne Aap’s next strategy is to work with the law-enforcement agencies and the judiciary to sensitise them to the harm caused and to coninue to develop and hold workshops with cleints.
Apne Aap Women Worldwide has been working to end sex-trafficking since 1998. It supports community initiatives among trafficked women and children and those at risk to trafficking in Mumbai, Kolkata and Forbesganj, Bihar in India. Its head office is in Kolkata, West Bengal. At least 300,000 children and 100,000 women have been trafficked to, within and out of India in the past 5 years, according to the National Commission for Women, India. ( website: www.apneaap.org)
