Hotline Asia Urgent Appeals -- UA990806(13)

Action Requested || Sample Letter || Background

Summary

Around four hundred Bangladeshi women, who work as sex workers at Tanbazar and Nimtoli, with their children, were forcibly evicted in the early morning of 24 July 1999, in the name of a 'rehabilitation programme' by about 300 police and officials of the Social Welfare Department. Some 267 sex workers were taken involuntarily to government shelters or vagrant homes at Kashimpur and Pubail for rehabilitation. Eyewitnesses claimed that there were at least 400 sex workers forcibly taken away and 600 fled away during the eviction. Sources claimed that at the vagrant home in Kashimpur, dozens of sex workers were subjected to torture when they refused to have sex with the employees of the vagrant home. Despite the government declared intention to rehabilitate these sex workers to uphold their basic right to have a healthy and respectable life, as enshrined in the Constitution, the continued threats of forced evictions, torture and rape of sex workers calls for international attention and assistance.

Please write to the Government of Bangladesh and the United Nations Development Programme representative, to express your deep concern about the inhumane treatment of the sex workers from Tanbazar and Nimtoli brothels and call for immediate action to:

• stop any further eviction and harassment of sex workers and their children;

• ensure the security and safety of sex workers inside government vagrant homes where they were subjected to torture and rape;

• uphold the commitment to rehabilitate the sex workers by providing them health awareness education and vocational training as well as schooling for their children.

Sample Letter

Background

Tanbazar, the oldest and largest red light area in Bangladesh, is reputedly 200 years old having been built by the former British colonial regime. It is situated at the river port in Narayangonj district, 25km southeast of Dhaka. There are over 3,000 sex workers in Tanbazar and 600 in the nearby Nimtoli where they live with their children. Many of them support their extended families with their 'income' and profits madefrom the brothels also support many local commercial activities and enterprises.

A sex worker was stabbed to death at Tanbazar on 1 July 1999 and the murder was used to highlight the underworld nature of the brothels, allegedly to strengthen local opinion against the sex workers. This was seen as a threat to the safety of the sex workers and over 2,400 have already left. As local resources report, sex workers are in fact the victims of power politics. Since it is an easy and quick way of earning money, politicians are fighting for money and power over the brothels.

On 4 July 1999, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina declared a grant for a rehabilitation programme designed for the sex workers. Tk 20 million (approximately US$400,000) will be used for welfare and Tk 100 million (approximately US$2 million) will be used for the 5-year rehabilitation project launched by Social Welfare Department and the United Nations Rehabilitation Programme. Those who are willing to give up their profession will be provided with health awareness education, vocational training (e.g. sewing, handcrafting, etc.) and schooling for their children. The sex workers are supposed to be recruited voluntarily and involved in each stage of the programme. Force should not be used. However the women were never consulted and the forced eviction even happened in late July.

Despite various protests by the sex workers and non-governmental organizations and pleadings to the government to stop eviction from their brothels until a proper implementation of the rehabilitation programme, the police forcibly took away over 400 sex workers at Tanbazar to vagrant homes at Kashimpur and Pubail for rehabilitation and injured more than 100 sex workers and their children at Tanbazar in the early morning of 24 July 1999. Those who escaped eviction were barred from getting back their possessions when they returned to their brothels.

It was alleged that the sex workers kept at Kashimpur were beaten with sticks when they refused to have sex with the employees of the vagrant homes. Their relatives are also prohibited from visiting them. They have been showing marks of injuries on their faces, hands and thighs to passers-by, especially to the journalists who are not allowed to enter the vagrant homes. As of August 2, about 50 sex workers have been released from Kashimpur vagrant home, while a few hundred are still being kept inside the vagrant homes. As the Article 15, 17 and 18 of the Bangladesh Constitution states that each citizen has the right to get proper education, health, shelter, respectable work, effective measures by the government should be taken to prevent further threats of forced eviction, torture and rape of the sex workers.

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