Kamathipura, Asia s largest red-light area is located in Mumbai, India (40 acres).

It is a volatile melange of urban d ecay, prostitution and child trafficking. With the help of this essay I have tried to establish the existing social, economic, poli tical and legal context of Kamathipura. Kamathipura was established by the British for the entertainment of their troops in the early 1800s. After the British left India in 1947, the red-light area was taken over by local brothel-k eepers and sex workers. Over the years Kamathipura expanded and is now considered to be a necessary social evil. Locate d in the heart of the city of Mumbai, it is populated by about 5,000 sex workers, male, female and transgender, either brothel-based or street-based. Kamathipura is also one of the most rundown areas in the city of Mumbai. There are thirteen lanes in Kamathipura and each lane is crowded with small huts, tea-stalls, shops, lodges, pawnshops, eating-joints and brothels. The brothels have tiny roo ms separated from one another by thin curtains. The brothel rooms are rented out to sex workers on an hourly basi s. These rooms are cheap; it costs anywhere from 20 to 100 Rupees to use the rooms. More than 40% of sex workers in Kamathipura are homeless. They live on the streets, on the footpaths and pavements. Their belongings fit in a small plastic bag which they carry with them everywher e they go. At night, they stand on the same street and solicit sex. When they get clients, they rent a brothel-room for some time and pay a share of their earnings to the brothel-keeper. Apart from sex workers, female and male brothelkeepers, pimps, clients and husbands and partners of sex workers are also seen on the streets of Kamathipura . Sex work is the primary business in the area and an income-generating option to those directly and indirectly inv olved in it. From sex workers, brothelowners, shopkeepers, restaurants owners, hotels/ bar owners to pimps, clients and the po lice, sex work is a moneymaking business. The government authorities do not talk about improving the life of sex workers in Kamathipura because if they do, they are being supportive of an illegal and immoral profession. A majority of the residents of Kamathipura are migrants from other states of Ind ia and from neighboring countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh. Once introduced to the sex industry, the y do not return to their native places. Almost 90% of the people living in Kamathipura have some sexually transm itted infection at any given point in time and 70% are estimated to be HIV positive. The people liv ing in Kamathipura belong to the low socioeconomic strata of Indian society. They are b elow the poverty line and cannot afford to live in any other location in the city. Kamathipura provides them with cheap accommodation, food, drinks and drugs. There are numerous dance bars, movie halls and gambling joints in the area for entertainment. People know each other and any newcomer is welcome provided he or she is willing to liv e in isolation to the outside world. No one ever protests against the deplorable situation of the area. If any govern

ment authority takes interest in the area, their business will be ruined, sex workers will be arrested and thousands of people in the area will be jobless and hungry. People in Kamathipura therefore live in silence and accept their cla ndestine existence. People here are infamous in the outside world and do not belong to the glitter a nd glory of Mumbai city. Their existence is confined to the margins of the society, to the thirteen lanes of Ka mathipura. The anonymity of these lanes helps them forget their unfortunate past. No matter how harsh and dangerou s it is, they all live here, finding acceptance in the apathy of Kamathipura. Their dignity, which is often questione d by the outside world, is not contested in Kamathipura. It is their belief that it is safe amidst its dangers! With no where to go it is their belief that kamathipura holds a constant future for them with a bre miminum provision of food. But there is a constant social decay in the society which is being neglected by people. Most of the sex workers are now preset with wrong not ions inbuilt in them. They believe suffering is a part of their life that was inflicted on them in their chilhood when they were raped for the first time. Also do they now believe that kamathipura is a place that holds security for them in this world. Often when re scued they fail to believe so. There is a numerous training session that needs to be provided to them to make them confident enough to move out into the outer world. This only reflects the ammount of torture that could be inflicted on them in the brothels. There needs to be urgent need and attention to be paid at stopping these dark busines'that run in kamathipura. Luckily what AIDS couldn't do, a rea l estate boom is now doing. Kamathipura sits on prime land on Grant road, close to south and land here become too precious to be a redlight are. It is inevitable that the area will soon die granting freedom to all its slaves. But it is organised sex trade and exploitati on that needs to be stopped, before sex will be sold on the streets, in parks and under bridges.