Kamathipura sex workers struggle to survive amid lockdown

It is late aftenoon and still no customer has turned up at her door in Kamathipura, infamous as the flesh trade district of Mumbai.

This is the eighth day that sex worker Soni, 49, has not got a single "kastamber" (customer), as she pronounces it.

Dressed in a velvet maxi, she peeps out every now and then from behind the curtain of her room door on the road outside lying empty, in view of the lockdown imposed to contain the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

The situation has brought despair not just for her but for thousands of other sex workers who have been involved in prostitution in Kamathipura since several decades.

Soni, who hails from Nepal, has been a sex worker in the '10th gully' of Kamathipura since the last 25 years.

"Poora jindagi idhar nikala, itna bam fata, attack hua, kitna bimari aya, lekin aisa halat kabhi nahi tha" (spent the whole life in this work. The city witnessed bomb blasts, attacks, many diseases, but this kind of situation never occurred in the past," she told PTI in 'Mumbai style' Hindi.

She has not earned a single rupee since last Sunday and does not see any chance of the situation improving in the next few days.

"If this continues, what will I eat, how will I pay rent to room owner are the questions before me," she said.

Besides Soni, there are three more women in the room who say that on normal days, they earn Rs 2,000 to 3,000.

Asked how they are managing their food, Soni said, "I have brought some groceries, but they will last only two-three days. I will now have to spend cautiously from my savings."
Another sex worker Kiran said, "Why dont you people tell Modi (Prime Minister) to send us money as we also have aged parents and children to look after."