The iron grills that line the modest skyline of north Delhi’s Shraddhanand Marg — identified with relative ease as the Capital’s official red light district when referred to by the abbreviation of its former moniker GB (Garstin Bastion) Road — were unusually empty on Tuesday.
“Business has been badly hit since the (demonetisation) announcement... clients either do not turn up at all or come with Rs.500 or Rs.1,000 notes. With rates that range between Rs.250 and Rs.350, we do not have spare change for a sauda (transaction),” Sangeeta (name changed) told The Hindu, adding that business had gradually ground to a halt over the last week.
‘We don’t have cards’
“Ours is not an escort service like the private ones which work with hotels. At GB Road, we cater to the lowest common denominator of society – the daily wage labourer, the rickshaw puller, the autowallah, people who do not use, or even have, a credit or debit card, exactly like us,” said Najma (name changed), her colleague.
Khairati Lal Bhola, president of the Bhartiya Patita Uddhar Sabha, an NGO that works for sex workers’ rights, said they started getting distress calls from brothel managers within minutes of the announcement that rendered inestimable cash savings made over years useless for sex workers.
Over the last week, more than half the estimated 3,000 women working in around 110 brothels on GB Road have left for their villages, said Iqbal Ahmed, the NGO’s secretary.
Many are going back home to use local contacts, who might exchange their money without asking too many questions, Mr. Ahmed said.
“There is simply no business that is coming our way because of the crunch in liquidity and loose change and we are helping each other with whatever little cash we have,” said Nasreen Ahmed, vice-president of the NGO, from kotha number 50.
“One of our girls needs to travel to Karnataka to tend to her ailing daughter, but given the daily limit on exchange of old notes and the little amount of ‘good cash’ she has, the girl can either buy a train ticket home or pay the medical bills when she reaches there,” Ms. Ahmed said.
