Two previous attempts to evict the brothel, in 2006 and 2010, were unsuccessful
Sex workers evicted from Kandapara brothel have sought refuge and new work spaces in hotels and residential areas in Tangail town. Some have taken to walking the streets. Others reportedly have also migrated to adjacent areas such as Daulatdia, Jamalpur and Mymensingh brothels.
After hours, residential streets, offices, and school and college campuses get converted into sex work premises. Those who have been able to afford the rent have presented their pimps as husbands and moved their work into houses in the area. Others rented homes by saying their husbands worked overseas.
Those who couldn’t afford to hire out spaces work in the open and sleep in the slums.
Residential hotel owners were reportedly doing brisk business after sex workers faced an ultimatum to vacate their brothel and were evicted after July 12, as the displaced sex workers sought spaces to live and trade in.
Hotels in Club Road, Victoria Road, Bara Masjid Road, Bot tola intersection in Tangail town, and Elenga Bus stand in Kalihati upazila faced a heavy influx of sex workers looking for a place to go.
A non-government organisation source said 37 of 56 house owners in Kandapara were female, while the remaining 19 were male. Some 803 rooms in the 56 houses served as the work and living spaces of 991 sex workers. Three hundred and sixteen of these sex workers were minors.
Sources said a large proportion of the money sex workers earned went to brokers, the police and ruling party musclemen. The remaining money was distributed among the house owners and sex workers.
Drug pushers operated in the brothel to feed the needs of workers and their clients alike, creating a local marketplace for drug users in the town.
Two previous attempts to evict the brothel, in 2006 and 2010, were unsuccessful.
Activists of the Asamajik Karjkolap Protirodh Committee (committee to prevent anti-social activities) said they were unhappy to see evicted sex workers disperse and migrate to new locations. They claimed they had called for the eviction of the brothel for moral reasons but were stunned to find that sex workers had merely scattered across the township and restarted operations.
The self-appointed moral watchdog vowed to continue to confront the brothels and had called on law enforcement agencies to help them.
Law enforcers told the Dhaka Tribune they were trying to rout the proliferation of sex-work venues in the town.
Local residents said the sudden eviction without a rehabilitation plan for sex workers was unwise.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
