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Mura, Far Western Province, Nepal, Nov 2007. Soni Badi,
25, is a
sex worker. As a Badi Dalit she is prevented from
owning land, has little access to education and other
services crucial to sustain life and avoid lifelong poverty.
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Thousands of Dalit girls are forced into
prostitution every year. The link between caste and forced prostitution
is apparent in the Devadasi and Jogini systems practiced in
India.
Another aspect is the problem of forced conversions of Hindu girls in Pakistan.
In India, the Devadasi and Jogini systems are a form of religiously sanctioned sexual
abuse. Originally a sacred, religious practice, the Devadasi dedication
of girls to temples has turned into a systematic abuse of young Dalit
girls serving as prostitutes for dominant caste community members.
Most girls and women in India’s urban brothels come from
Dalit,
lower-caste, tribal, or minority communities.
In 2007, Anti-Slavery International published a study on the practice of ritual sexual slavery or forced religious 'marriage'. It found that 93% of Devadasi were from Scheduled Castes (Dalits) and 7% from Scheduled Tribes (indigenous) in India.
Keeping
Dalit women
as prostitutes and tying prostitution to bondage is a means of
subjugation by dominant castes seeking to enforce their social status
and economic superiority.
Girls who become Devadasi and Jogini are prohibited from marrying and are stigmatized by the community. The children of Devadasi and Jogini suffer from discrimination because they do not have a recognized father.
In Nepal, the Badi caste is a Dalit ‘sub-caste’.
Many Badi women are forced into prostitution and end up being
trafficked to Mumbai’s sex industry. The traditional ties of the Badi
community to the sex trade may make girls and women in this community
particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Badi girls are
frequently pressured by their families to start working as a prostitute
at an early age to help with the household income. Lack of education
and discrimination means that other job opportunities are rare. Their
‘customers’ are frequently upper caste men – local businessmen,
politicians etc - who shun them in public.
In Pakistan, Hindu girls are particularly vulnerable to forced conversion under the disguise of marriage of choice. The worst victims are Scheduled Caste girls who are kidnapped or lured into conversion, sexually exploited and then abandoned. Typically
girls are abducted, raped and kept in custody, where they are forced to
sign marriage certificates and claim that they have converted to Islam.
Several UN treaty bodies have expressed concern about the harmful, customary practices
of the dowry and devadasi systems, forced marriage, sexual
exploitation, and marital rape, with an emphasis on the vulnerable
position of women from the Dalit and tribal communities.
sourece: idsn.org
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