SOCIETY

Kolkata sex workers back Mumbai's jobless bar dancers

     Kolkata: Hundreds of sex workers of Kolkata's Sonagachi area, one of India's largest red light areas, organised a rally in support of Maharashtra's jobless bar dancers on Thursday. Around 500 sex workers, both male and female, marched through the streets of the City of Joy under the banner of Durbar Mahila Samannya Samitycarrying placards and shouting slogans condemning the ban. The sex workers, who have been campaigning for the legitimisation of their trade, demanded that the poor bar girls should be provided with an alternate source of living. "We are rallying in support of the dance bar girls who have been rendered jobless. But I believe that every person has a right to earn and run his livelihood, so the government should rethink its decision," said Sudipta Biswas, a sex worker. The Maharashtra Government had passed the bill banning dance bars across the state on July 23, which came into effect from August 15. The decision threw at least 75,000 unskilled women and men, including dancers, waiters, barmen, cooks and cleaners out of work. The government's decision to shut down 1,300 bars statewide, ironically on India's Independence Day, brought a spate of miseries for these young but mostly uneducated women and others who depended on them for livelihood. Authorities say that the dance bars are a corruptive influence on young minds, breeding crime and prostitution in India's financial and entertainment capital. But the dancers and their backers say the bars are the only way the women, many of them single mothers, can earn a living. Rights groups argue that the ban can force thousands into prostitution in the city's slums, where many of their mothers actually started out. The girls -- they are forced out of the business as they cross 30 years of age -- take home 70 percent of the tips and the bar owners keep 30 percent. The dance bars themselves are hardly X-rated. The women wear saris, showing no more than their midriffs. The average music video or Bollywood "item number" -- raunchy song and dance routines -- shows more flesh. Customers garland the girls with cash, or throw money -- the favourite way is to hold a wad of notes between thumb and finger and shower them over the dancer. In the up market bars, a rich customer spends thousands of dollars on a favoured dancer in one night, showering 100 or 500- rupee notes (2.30-11.50 dollars).
-Sept 2, 2005

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