“You really think I would be here if my husband was with me?” asks Papiya when asked about her family. Her tiny home, one unventilated room in a dingy building, has been neatly partitioned, fitting in a kitchen and a bedroom with a sliding door.
She lives only with her five-year-old daughter, who is, at the moment, busy playing with a mirror and forceps. She has two other children, “I was in Kolkata for four months. I got my daughter married there. My son studies in a boarding school in the distant suburbs of Mumbai. I cannot afford to stay away for long. I have to manage the monthly rent and overhead expenses as well.”
Raima, another woman from West Bengal, has also been working to help her family back home, where she has bought some land, and an autorickshaw. “I have been here for five years and have been saving money for my family. My sister’s son runs the auto. I got a loan [with the land as security] and once that is repaid, I will go back to my village, where I have two daughters aged 16 and 17,” she tells us while playing candy crush on her cellphone.
‘Here’ is Kamathipura, Mumbai’s biggest red-light district, sandwiched between Mumbai Central and Grant Road railway stations, and Papiya and Raima (both names changed) are among the nearly 20,000 sex workers who make a living there. And they, like many of their neighbours, dream of being able to leave the profession and going back home.
For a lot of the women of Kamathipura, the dream remains elusive; Mumbai is an expensive city to live in for anyone, and for these women, it’s even harder. Aside from regular expenses, even a small home, like Papiya’s, rents for Rs 30,000 a month. And then there’s fees to be paid to brothel owners, pimps and protectors.
Papiya and Raima have been able to go some way towards their goals, though. The difference is that they are both members of Sangini Mahila Seva Cooperative Society Ltd.
Sangini is a cooperative that has been, since 2007, exclusively working towards providing banking services to the commercial sex workers of Kamathipura. It has more than 5,000 accounts of which more than 3,000 are active with regular — almost daily in some instances — deposits.
It still manages to open a few new accounts every day. Sangini’s four-person team, all volunteers, cover the neighbouring fourteen lanes of Kamathipura on foot to collect deposits from account holders who are not able to come to the office.
The cooperative’s office is in the 13th lane near a police chowky opposite Behram Cafe, one among many such low-lit run down cafes in the area, a location it shifted to from a larger space in the 11th lane a couple of years ago; they had to move due to a paucity of funds, something that hampers most of their activities.
Sangini has a bare-minimum staff strength at the moment: three people in the office and four volunteers.
Anjali Desai, who is the one of the three office staffers, has been working with Sangini since 2012 and remembers the names of all the women and even their account balances.
“They are not just our account holders,” she says, “We educate them on money management; if they come to withdraw a large amount, we ask them for the reason and try to convince them to make do with a smaller withdrawal. We tell them the importance of keeping their money with us. Earlier, clients or the gharwallis (brothel owners) used to steal their money and the women had no recourse. Sangini has helped them to overcome this problem.”
Ms Desai says that there have even been instances when women arrested by the police have called up Sangini staffers to come to the police station with the bail amount. “We withdraw money from their account and go to the police station.”
Sangini’s growing popularity with — and acceptance from — the sex workers of the area can be gauged from the numbers: most days, the amounts deposited by the women total more than Rs 1 lakh.
Ms Desai says, “The quantum of deposits is a direct factor of their business. They need to pay the brothel owners, and also for overheads like food, electricity, clothes, cleaning etc. The balance is deposited in the bank and there are some accounts in which the balance even went beyond Rs 5 lakh at some point of time.”
Saira Sadith Choudhury is a Sangini volunteer. Her task is going door to door to collect deposits. She makes her rounds wearing a light red overcoat, which the neighbourhood now identifies with Sangini.
“On an average, I am able to get deposits from around 50-60 women every day,” she say. “There have been days when I got more than a lakh in just one day. It all depends on their dhanda (business).”
While the corpus of deposits is rising, Sangini is finding the going tough due to shortage of funds. It had to shut two branches — one each in Bhiwandi and Vashi — and move to its current office to save on rent. Even this small space costs Rs 30,000 per month.
Sangini banks with Bank of India (BoI), where it deposits what it collects from its members. The interest yield is a modest 3.5%, which the cooperative passes on to the women. Ms Desai told The Hindu that Sangini had recently begun parking a part of the funds in fixed deposits to earn a higher rate of interest.
Sangini was launched with support from Population Services International (PSI), a global health organisation focused on issues like family planning, HIV and AIDS. In 2000, PSI had also launched another organisation, Sanghamitra, to address healthcare issues of the women and rehabilitation of their children.
But in 2010, PSI withdrew support from both organisations. Sangini managed to get some financial support from the India800 Foundation in 2011, but the bank is just about managing to survive.
Not that it has ever been easy. Indra Vasamani, who began working as a Sanghamitra volunteer around 15 years ago, remembers that brothel owners used to drive her away with brooms or by attempting to pour boiling water on her.
“We used to get our salary on time when PSI was here. For almost a year after PSI left we didn’t get any salary.” Many of the volunteers left after a while, but she and three others stayed on. Her tasks include distributing condoms to the women, and, “If we see an underage girl, we inform the local police. There are drop centres [basic childcare facilities] for the kids of the locality. We make Sanghamitra cards for the women based on any identity proof that they have. Using those cards, these women can open an account with Sangini.”
Dedicated staffers and volunteers notwithstanding, Sangini desperately needs financial support if it is to succeed with its long-term development programmes, like vocational training for rehabilitation of the women and a boarding school for their children.
Dr Narayan Hegde, who works with BAIF Foundation and is one of the trustees of Sangini, says that Sangini has been a game-changer for the women of the area, since their lack of formal identity and address documentation prevents them from using more conventional banking avenues. But, he says, funds are drying up fast, which is hampering their activities.
“We are seeking support,” he says. “According to our projections, the annual budget requirements for [developmental] activities is Rs 24.55 lakh in 2016, Rs 27 lakh in 2017 and Rs 29.70 lakh in 2018, amounting to Rs 81.25 lakh.” Dr Hegde is trying to create awareness about Sangini among well-known personalities that are known to support philanthropy.
Though salary levels have stayed stagnant since 2011, the commitment level among Sangini’s team has not gone down; there is a strong sense of attachment to the organisation, its purpose, and their members.
Rekha Sarkar, who has been a Sanghamitra volunteer, and a Sangini account holder, since 2007, is an example. She puts it like this: “All those who opened an account when Sangini started in 2007 were given a silver coin. I used that coin for my daughter’s marriage. I will keep working for the betterment of the women of this area.”
Dr Narayan Hegde can be contacted at nghegde@baif.org.in
Anjali Desai can be contacted at anjalidesai04@gmail.com
Name | Sangini Mahila Seva Cooperative Society Ltd |
Operational | Since 2007 |
Location | 13th Lane, Kamathipura |
Area of operation | Providing banking services to Mumbai’s commercial sex workers |
Staff | 3 office staffers; 4 volunteers |
Strengths | Highly trusted by all commercial sex workers, who are not able to open bank accounts owing to lack of identity and address proof. Volunteers go door-to-door to collect deposits. |
Challenges | There is shortage of funds, stagnation of staff salaries and little room for promoting rehabilitation work. Two branches were closed and moved to a small office to manage operations at a lower cost. |
Success stories | Opened more than 5,000 accounts. Sex workers are now able to afford good education for their children. Some have used the money to build houses, bought land, and a vehicle in their native towns. Some have bought houses in the suburbs of Mumbai so that their children do not grow up in the red light area. |
