Booming flesh trade goes unchecked

Baburam Kharel

KATHMANDU, Nov 30 - As Thamel was gearing up for nightlife four young sex workers inside a guest house were busy putting on make-up to attract 'clients'. Thier bosses inside a lodge at Ganeshsthan in Thamel were urging them to hurry up for their job -- sleeping ...

The clients, who were covering their faces, checked out the girls (all of whom seemed to be in their mid to late teens) and started bargaining with the handlers. "Select one of us," one girl said. "Or leave!

"Much too expensive," said one prospective customer, after learning that it would cost him Rs 4,000 to spend a whole night with a girl. The price came down to Rs 1,000 for a "single shot".

The young pimp, who hails from Parbat district and claims to be studying in a college at Banasthali, tried to convince the man to stay, saying that the girls there were cheaper compared to other places in Thamel.

As some more customers refused to pay the sum, the pimp took them to another hotel near Narsingh Chowk. It was modern and with smart girls, he said. This scribe accompanying a friend, both posing as customers, followed. Inside the hotel's waiting room, there were two young girls who looked married in their sindoor and pote.

A dark and tall man asked one girl, "Are you married ?" "No," came the reply."We put on sindur and chura to avoid attention of police and the public.

According to the girls, they were not regular sex workers, but the hotel owners had 'ordered' them to sleep with the guests in order to be liable for their salaries -- which they were yet to receive.

 "We are tired of this work. We want another job," said one dark-complexioned girl from Nuwakot currently sharing a room at Samakhusi with her mother. "But we have been forced into this line of business because of the paucity of decent jobs for us.

According to Arjun, a former police officer, who also runs a 'brothel' in a Thamel hotel in partnership with a friend, sex-workers are entitled to get 70 percent of the money charged from the guests and the rest goes to police and local gangsters.

Arjun boasts of his ability to provide beautiful sex workers. If demand is high at his brothel another hotel in the area and massage parlors also supply girls for his business. "Cleints can select whichever girl they like," he says.

Subhalal Thing, secretary of Nepal Progressive Massage Workers' Union, claims that of the 125 massage parlors in Thamel area, over 80 percent are involved in sex business. "Sex business in massage parlors has been creating hurdles for those who do genuine massage work," he says.

Dinesh, another pimp who regularly supplies clients to a lodge and a dance bar, says, "Most of the small guest houses are involved in flesh trade." Dinesh, who is from Khotang district, is a college student and doing this job "part time" for a year.

Prostitution is illegal in the country but many girls from remote districts end up having to earn a livelihood for themselves and their families by selling sex in the capital and other urban centers. They say poverty and unemployment forced them into the trade.

College students, big business people and foreigners are the usual sex clients. Pimps say their business is flourishing under the protection of police and other powerful people.

But police are not ready to buy this. "We cannot take any action against the pimps or the sex workersfor lack of evidence," says police inspector Basundhara Khadka of Metropolitan Police Sector, Sorrakhutte. "The allegations that we are abetting sex workers is baseless.

What is worse is that young girls who are into prostitution, besides being vulnerable to abuse, have emerged as transmission agents for HIV/AIDS. According to Dinesh, many sex workers in private confess to harbouring the deadly virus.

According to a study conducted by New Era, the girls get anywhere from Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 for one-time sex. The professionals, though, get more. One girl has to sleep with at least five to eight customers in a workday.

The estimated number of sex workers in Nepal is over 25,000, with about 5,000 in Kathmandu. Around 5,000 children are thought to be involved in prostitution and around 35 percent of all sex workers will have entered the trade by the time they are 15.

(Only first names have been used in some cases to protect individual identities.