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The light was still dim when Monawara Begum slipped on her sandals and began her morning rounds. With a slight snort, this 44-year-old woman walked the alleys, frowning as she tried to distinguish sounds indicating trouble coming from corrugated sheet metal and concrete block buildings. A stinking stream of sewage and used preservatives ran between the precarious buildings. Begum shook his bracelet-laden wrist several times to disperse a cloud of flies. The other hand was tense, ready to grab a stick if the situation called for it. His kingdom is the fenced-in community of Kandapara, the oldest brothel in Bangladesh. Situated on the outskirts of a textile city northwest of the capital, Dhaka, it is one of 11 Bangladeshi “brothel towns”,one of the most unknown legacies of British imperialism.
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In its countless rows of windowless rooms, Kandapara is home to more than 600 women and girls.
On a normal day, more than 3,000 customers pass through its streets.
The children, most of whom were born in the brothel, play tag in its narrow passageways running alongside bright pink walls painted with huge yellow hearts.
Monowara (as she is known in the brothel) came to Kandapara 30 years ago, when she was a child, a victim of trafficking in women.
Since then, armed with little more than her wits, she has learned to fight her way through the intricate hierarchies, cruelty, and violence of the institution.
Today she is one of the most powerful women in the complex.
Last year he desperately needed her ability to adapt. When, in March, COVID-19 began to penetrate the country, the police closed the doors of the brothel tightly and bolt to prevent customers from entering. The weeks went by, and many women did not have secure access to income or food. In some cases, the pandemic has put Kandapara sex workers on the brink of starvation.
Short-term customer loss was not the only real threat women faced. Some of the inhabitants of the city of Tangail had been trying to close the brothel for years. Begum feared that a coronavirus outbreak within their walls would provide them with invaluable ammunition. She and several hundred other women had been enslaved in Kandapara. Still, the brothel was also his bulwark against homelessness. Before, Begum went to bed planning his escape. Now what is keeping her from sleeping is the possibility that Kandapara will soon close forever.
When the virus reached South Asia, Begum watched the evening news and memorized the symptoms. In the morning, she would sternly instruct the younger girls to watch out for coughs and signs of the flu, and to wash their hands for a long time. She didn't say that she was afraid of dying, that she worried that no one would hug her or say goodbye to her properly. Life had taught him one thing: a woman should never show weakness.
As a child, Begum believed she could overcome dangers.
He grew up in a farming family in the slow and humid market city of Sajipur, and he quickly learned the Qur'an by heart.
She was faster than her friends in the schoolyard and more agile at climbing trees.
His mother also had a playful streak.
Sometimes she would wake Monowara and her sister in the middle of the night and give them sweets fresh from the fire:
banana
pakora
,
shemai
,
pitha
and
chitoi pitha
baked, fried or boiled in milk,
jaggery
(a kind of brown sugar) and spices.
On a normal day, more than 3,000 clients pass through the brothel
When Begum was 11 years old, her mother died in childbirth, and she vowed that she would never eat sweets again. The baby did not survive, and the father also died at six months. Begum and his sister became the joint property of their seven uncles. Her new tutors told her that she was lazy and difficult, that she had not dried the straw well or swept the ground well.
Begum had never been a "modish" child, as her mother put it when she combed her black hair with coconut oil. When one of her uncles took the stick from the cattle and threatened her with it, she ran across the green jute fields until she was just a dot in the distance. When someone else put her to bed without eating for three days, she slipped into a neighbor's house and feasted on his jackfruit tree. He dug his fingernails under the hard bark covered with spikes and scooped out handfuls of meat before wrapping the seeds in a banana leaf and burying them deep into the earth.
In 1988, shortly after her 12th birthday, one of her uncles married her to a man in his 30s. Her new husband often raped her. When he invited his friends to do the same, she fled to her maternal uncle's house. But she was not safe there either, since he too tried to rape her.
Begum thought of the rumors he had heard about a town near Tangail, an hour away, where women and girls lived alone.
Men only visited to pay them, people said, but she wasn't sure why.
Whatever happened there had to be better than his situation, he thought.
At three in the morning, while her uncle and aunt were sleeping, the little girl crept through the mud hut with her mother's wedding sari in her arms.
Outside, in the moonlight, she wrapped the embroidered red silk around her waist, folding and gathering the fabric to try not to drag it across the floor.
Sex worker Sewali (left) talks to a client in her room at the Kandapara brothel in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
A street next to the Kandapara brothel in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
Clothes hanging inside the Kandapara brothel compound in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
The last thing her mother said to her before she died was to try to be nice. Begum hoped she could remember how to behave when she was in this town, not be rude or disappoint her mother. She lifted her skirt and ran to the local market. He had no money when he left his uncle's house, but he ran into a bus driver who had known his father and agreed not to charge him for the ticket. When he got off the bus in the city of Tangail, he did not know where to go. A tea vendor spotted her next to her stall and offered to help her find a job as a maid, but after a few months her new boss tried to marry her off as well. At 12, he fled for the third time in a year.
Back on the streets of Tangail, Begum described the women's village to a
rickshaw
driver
and begged him to take her there.
He led her through the city until they came to a group of huts that stood on sticky mud that reached up to her ankles.
The driver called out to a short woman who was sitting under a ceiba tree in front of the group.
The woman crossed the street barefoot, beckoning Begum down.
The little girl felt herself blush: her period had come, and she could feel the blood soaking into the leather seat.
The woman smiled and brought water to clean it.
He told her that her name was Sufia, and that she could stay and sleep in her bed.
He then escorted the girl into the compound through a barbed wire fence.
The first three days that Begum spent with Sufia were spent in a haze of moments sleeping exhausted, snacks and tea. Every now and then, on my way to the water pump at the end of an alley, I would see girls who looked their age leading men to their rooms. When he asked why, the girls laughed and told him that she would soon do the same. Begum knew something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what it was.
On the fourth day, Sufia tapped her awake. "One of my brothers has come to see you," he said. "Receive it and talk to it." Begum shook his head. The man at the door looked even older than the husband she had run from. Sufia did not give in. "This man may be old, but money has no age," he settled. Later, tearful and in pain, Begum asked Sufia for her fees. The woman replied that the money had already been spent on paying the rent.
Shocked by Sufia's assault and betrayal, Begum asked one of the uniformed policemen patrolling the brothel for help.
She told her that a man had raped her and that Sufia would not allow her to return home.
The agent agreed to question Sufia, who immediately offered him a deal: he too could rape the girl at no cost.
"Once you're here, there's no going back," the policeman warned her when she begged him to stop.
"You have to do the same as the others do."
Life had taught Begum something: a woman should never show weakness
Begum didn't want to do what the others did.
After a few weeks, one morning she washed her mother's wedding sari and put it to dry in the sun.
When he returned in the afternoon to collect it, it had disappeared.
After that, he had to flee.
Just before dawn, he slipped through the barbed wire that surrounded Kandapara and ran through the dark streets until he reached the central market in Tangail.
There he huddled behind a sack of rice and looked for someone to ask for help.
A shopkeeper recognized her from the brothel and sent a boy running to wake up Sufia, who came looking furious.
The woman dragged Begum back to the brothel followed by a crowd of onlookers drawn by the screams of the 12-year-old girl.
Begum howled until his throat ached.
"You're being crazy," Sufia scolded him.
Another woman threatened to beat him until he shut up.
They locked her in a room and stood guard.
Customers came and went, but she couldn't get out.
The industrial-scale child abuse complex that Begum had run into had been in operation for about 200 years. Although the exact date of its creation is unknown, Kandapara is a product of the British Empire. The brothel stands on the banks of the Louhajang River, a much larger tributary of the Brahmaputra and one of the great arteries of imperial commerce. Kandapara was one of the brothel-towns that developed along the course of the great river, which runs from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. Other brothels, like the one in Daulatdia, to the west, were installed along the railways built also during the imperial era.
The British transformed prostitution in South Asia by moving sex workers to enclaves like Kandapara and establishing brothel neighborhoods in cities.
In the 19th century, venereal diseases were rampant among overseas regiments, and the London Government was desperate to keep them under control.
Despite evidence that soldiers were infecting local women, rather than the other way around, throughout the empire administrators segregated sex workers, confining them to houses and complexes where they could be watched for signs of infection.
The British transformed prostitution in South Asia by moving sex workers to enclaves like Kandapara and establishing brothel neighborhoods in cities.
The brothels continued to operate after the British left the subcontinent in 1947. They served local customers and provided lucrative income to the owners. In theory, Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971 opened a new chapter for institutions like Kandapara. The young country had a relatively liberal view of prostitution, and the profession was formally declared legal in 2000. An article in Bangladesh's constitution also stated that the state would "endeavor to prevent" the business, an ambiguity that haunts female workers. of Bangladeshi sex to this day. Their profession is tolerated, but their rights are not upheld as they should be, and women have only limited legal protection.Local functionaries are legally required to certify that all who work in a brothel are over 18 years old, but several non-profit organizations have reported that many of the girls are under 15 years old.
Sex worker Munni smokes a cigarette outside her room before serving a client at the Kandapara brothel in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
A free-time sex worker with her babu (boyfriend) in front of her room at the Kandapara brothel in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
The shoes of a sex worker and her client as they both hang out in her room.
Kandapara brothel in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 (Mahmud Hossain Opu) Mahmud Hossain Opu
By 1998, when Begum arrived, Kandapara had become almost an urban nucleus with around 50 establishments. The dormitory houses were built on plots of private city owners or wealthier madamas, known as
sardernis
in Bengali. Most of these
sardernis
made their profits not from selling sex, but from buying young people and minors to work for them. The girls were indebted to the madam until they had repaid the sum paid by them. Some
Sardernis
had 10 or 12 girls at a time, and used the proceeds to build more houses in the brothel and increase their influence. Even when the trafficking victims had paid off their
debt
, they often had to pay rent to their exploiters.
Every dawn, hundreds of men came to Kandapara: bus drivers, policemen, teachers, engineers, and boys on their way to school.
They lined up in front of the girls' rooms while unbuttoning their shirts to buy time.
When they finished, they hurried out with sandals in hand.
At the age of 12, Begum entered the lowest echelon of the complex brothel economic system.
In one day, on average, he would receive five men, one after the other, until evening, when he would soak a cloth in hot water and put it on his body to try to relieve pain.
Sometimes, usually while she was getting dressed, a customer would ask her age.
When she told him, he used to cry.
After eight months as a Sufian girl, Begum again tried to free herself.
He found another policeman and asked for something more realistic.
She told him that she wanted to stay in the brothel, but to work for herself.
The policeman decided to help her, and ordered one of the owners to rent the girl a room on the other side of the complex.
Although Begum still had to pay rent, in theory she could now decide how to earn the money, who to have sex with, and how much to charge for it.
Her husband raped her often.
Then he invited his friends to do the same
Begum did not know what had prompted the policeman to intervene. Perhaps the fact that he had shown up at Kandapara of his own free will, he thought. Since Sufia hadn't bought it, she hadn't taken on any debt. The brothel was a lawless place in many ways, and yet it operated according to a set of unwritten rules. For Sufia to keep her would be a code breaker.
Over the next five years, Begum learned to live her experience with men at a distance, treating them like they were background noise. Occasionally he enjoyed physical contact; most of the time he felt bored or disgusted. She also started making friends. When a customer brought him a cassette player and a collection of tapes, other brothel girls crowded into his small room to sing along. They laughed at each other and joked that Begum looked like a boy, since at 15 she was still thin as a toothpick and had short hair. On weekends, she and her new friends would walk around Tangail and watch movies at the cinema. The plot was always the same: a girl was in danger from evil villains, until, in the end,a handsome and generous man stepped in and saved her.
Begum began to think about his future. I saw two possible ways out of prostitution. The first was to save what she earned and buy herself from a teenage victim of trafficking. Some
Sardernis
were in their early 20s, not much older than her, and had two or three girls locked in small rooms. Her friends tried to get her interested in trafficking, but she felt she couldn't do to another girl what Sufia had done to her. The
sardernis
shrugged their shoulders: "Either you buy, or they buy from you," they told him.
The other possible way was for a client to become her boyfriend or husband.
Men used to whisper those kinds of promises when they buckled up, and many of Begum's friends swallowed their whispers, scrawled their names and phone numbers with lipstick on the bedroom walls, and snapped pictures of wedding saris out of magazines. .
When the local jeweler made his rounds with the glass case under his arm, the girls crowded around him and pointed out the bracelets they would wear on their wedding day.
They insisted that they were about to leave, that they were only a few months away from leaving the brothel.
Begum didn't like daydreaming so much.
Movies were great, she thought, but marriage always ended in violence or rape.
Begum didn't like daydreaming so much.
Movies were great, she thought, but marriage always ended in violence or rape.
In the afternoons, when the men had returned to their offices and the streets of Kandapara were quiet, the young woman sat listening to the old women of the brothel, former sex workers in their 50s and 60s who now survived thanks to the generosity of older women. youths.
They taught him to cook and take care of his health.
Although she was not seduced by the idea of becoming one of them, it seemed the least bad option.
The rite of passage for teenagers: prostitutes
When a Tangail teenager gets his first job, his older male colleagues often offer to guide him through a rite of passage: a night of drinking in Kandapara followed by the loss of his virginity. When the boy stumbles out of the room, his friends greet him with loud applause. Then he is already part of the massive and multigenerational clientele of Kandapara, made up of the thousands of men who walk through the doors of the brothel every day.
Although the destinies of Kandapara and Tangail are intimately linked, the relationship between the two is tense. The money seeps through Kandapara and back into the Tangail economy. Women from the poorest families in the city work in the brothel as cooks and cleaners. The average monthly income of a sex worker is about 30,000 taka, the equivalent of around 300 euros and approximately five times more than what a cleaner earns. Local government officials are regular visitors. Despite this, city dwellers view Kandapara with distaste, and sex workers are prohibited from being buried in public cemeteries.
Sex worker Sewali combs her hair in her room at the Kandapara brothel in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 (Mahmud Hossain Opu) Mahmud Hossain Opu
Sex worker Kulsum plays with her cat in Tangail's Kandapara brothel.
September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
Bangladesh is predominantly Muslim, with a significant Hindu minority, and was founded on secular principles.
Over the past 50 years, conservative religious voices have become louder.
Municipal authorities and religious groups in other parts of the country succeeded in closing several brothels in the 1990s, and Kandapara also faced calls for their closure.
For a long time, the residents of the complex were obliged to identify themselves in public as sex workers when they went to Tangail. They were prohibited from wearing
salwar kameez
(the traditional long shirt and trouser outfit), and had to fold the sari to reveal the petticoat, so that they would mark themselves as brothel women. Most humiliating of all, they weren't allowed to wear shoes. The
oldest sarderni
in the brothel was working with the police to fine any woman who violated the dress code outside the gates of Kandapara.
As Begum approached her 20s, her resentment grew at the contempt with which she was treated. She hated the rules about the way she dressed and the way people looked at her. Women grabbed their husbands when she went to the market, and shopkeepers made rude comments to her. Shame was insidious, many women fell into depression, and self-harm was the order of the day. Begum used to see groups of women and girls praying in the brothel's main Hindu shrine, asking for forgiveness. Some never wanted to leave the brothel.
Begum wasn't the only one who hated rules.
Hashi and Alo (a pseudonym) had come to Kandapara as children, victims of trafficking.
Hashi was 15 years older than Begum, and by then she had become a
sarderni
who controlled several girls, including her younger sister.
The three women weren't exactly friends, but they got together in 1996, when a non-profit organization called CARE Bangladesh, dedicated to promoting better sexual health among brothel workers, organized an off-site course.
The women wanted to be elegant, and all three of them wore shoes.
The industrial-scale child abuse complex that Begum had gotten into had been in operation for about 200 years.
When they returned, the
main
sarderni
of the brothel was waiting for them.
He saw the shoes and immediately fined them.
They were furious, and Alo refused to pay.
The three women began to encourage others to oppose the rules.
Dozens of sex workers responded to the call and began to leave the compound wearing shoes and
salwar kameez
, the country's traditional robe.
The police responded instantly, forcibly removing their shoes and throwing them on the ground.
Alo was briefly detained.
Rumors were circulating that the
brothel's
oldest
sarderni was
offering a reward for each of the protesters.
Begum was hiding for a few days in a neighbor's house.
The women turned to a doctor from CEDA Bangladesh for advice. The doctor arranged a meeting with the local police commissioner, who, to Begum's surprise, seemed more interested in listening to them than in reprimanding them. The next night, he called another meeting in the central shrine of the brothel and announced that the occupants of Kandapara could dress as they wanted when they went to Tangail.
Begum was intoxicated with the feeling of victory. A year later, CEDA offered to pay 25 Kanda women for a flight to India to attend a congress on the rights of sex workers. In Calcutta, the young woman was amazed to see that everyone dressed the same; it was impossible to distinguish who were sex workers and who were government officials. There she met members of Durbar, a cooperative of more than 30,000 Indian sex workers who convinced her that she deserved more than shoes. Begum's world changed profoundly when she realized that she was not an
occhut
, an untouchable.
On the plane home, Monowara, Hashi, and Alo were yelling ideas across the hall. They decided to create an organization to look after the interests of the Kandapara sex workers. They called her Nari Mukti Sangha (women's liberation). As soon as they announced their plans, 40 companions signed up.
The founders of Nari Mukti Sangha opened an office just outside the brothel walls. They paid for their precarious administration with donations before launching a microcredit program and using the interest to pay the office rent. The stairs to their headquarters were narrow and dusty, but they painted the railing yellow and pink and bought a low rattan sofa and a large wooden desk. When everything was set up, Begum sat behind the desk, stubbed out a marijuana cigarette in the ashtray, and pondered what he wanted to do. He hoped to convince the government to build a shelter for retired sex workers and a school for children born in the brothel. Above all,he wanted to end the practice of buying from underage girls.
Before that could become a reality, the three women had to consolidate their authority in the brothel. Kandapara had always had a leader: the
richest and most influential
sarderni
, who had the weight and resources to bribe the local police department. At the time, the
chief
sarderni
was a friend of Begum, a beautiful and charismatic woman named Aleya who seduced police chiefs and government officials into turning a blind eye to the empire of child trafficking in exchange for a share of the Benefits. Aleya rarely bought and sold girls herself. I didn't need it. She used her contacts and took a percentage of other women's income.
It took years to displace Aleya. Rather than confront her directly, the three women created a parallel power structure to slowly undermine her authority. They rubbed shoulders with officials in Tangail and Dhaka, and turned to other organizations for extra help, such as free condoms and medical supplies. In 2002, the inhabitants of the brothel were invited to vote on the board of directors of Nari Mukti Sangha. Alo became president, and Begum secretary.
Aleya's clientele network weakened, but the
chief
Sarderni
did not calmly accept defeat.
Begum says that she was afraid that Aleya would have her, Hashi and Alo killed.
In the end, the founders of the organization contacted the police commissioner who had supported their protests against the dress code.
They told her that Aleya was bribing notaries and police officers to falsify documents certifying that girls as young as 11 or 12 were old enough to legally work in the brothel.
A sex worker enters her room behind a client.
Kandapara whorehouse, in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
A woman smokes marijuana with her babu (boyfriend) in their room at the Kandapara brothel in Tangail.
September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
Monowara Begum paces the alleys of Kandapara.
Tangail, September 15, 2020 Mahmud Hossain Opu
Begum had seen with his own eyes how a policeman beat to death one of Aleya's girls, who had stuck a towel in her mouth to stifle her screams.
Following the event, the commissioner sent a new police unit to the brothel.
After that, Aleya didn't hold out for long.
In 2004, he sneaked out of Kandapara.
The organization for the liberation of women had won.
By his thirties, Begum was one of the brothel's most prominent personalities. He no longer dealt directly with clients, but took a part of the rents he collected on behalf of the
Sardernis who
owned the plots. However, he found that leadership has its limits. Every few weeks, he would hear the familiar sound of plastic suitcase wheels dragging across the brothel's flagstone floor and feel his stomach clench. Some women came of their own accord, often fleeing abuse or misery; many had been sold against their will for prostitution.
Ending the traffic - the practice that had caught her in Kandapara - was more difficult than she expected. Bangladesh was making progress in reducing poverty and improving girls' access to education, so there were not as many minors at risk of trafficking as when Begum arrived at the brothel.
Still
, there were good business opportunities for traffickers, known as
dalals
, who were
profiting
from the system and were not going to give up without a fight.
Begum veía a menudo cómo los dalals (que casi siempre eran hombres) tanteaban a las trabajadoras sexuales para averiguar qué sardernis podían estar buscando una nueva chica para comprarla. Una vez lo dirigían a una posible compradora, el dalal iniciaba una sinuosa conversación mientras tomaban un té, durante la cual la sarderni evaluaba hasta qué punto el dalal era de fiar, y este sopesaba qué precio podía pedir. Cuando llegaban a un acuerdo, la sarderni hacía un pago por adelantado al dalal. Al cabo de un par de días, este volvía, acompañado invariablemente por una adolescente adormilada y aterrorizada. Si la chica era muy joven, la sarderni le daba Oradexón, un esteroide que suele utilizarse para engordar a las vacas, con la esperanza de acelerar su desarrollo.
“Una vez que estás aquí, no hay vuelta atrás”, le dijo el policía. “Tienes que hacer lo que hacen las demás”
Cada dalal tenía su propia técnica para encontrar niñas en Bangladés. A veces, un hombre engatusaba a una chica haciéndole creer que estaba enamorado de ella, con el único fin de venderla en el prostíbulo en cuanto bajara la guardia. Otros se ponían de acuerdo con mujeres para abordar a las chicas en las paradas de autobús y las estaciones de tren, ofrecerles trabajo en una fábrica de ropa, y acabar llevándolas a Kandapara.
Si una niña acudía a Begum porque quería abandonar el prostíbulo, esta la ayudaba. La ex trabajadora sexual calcula que unas 30 niñas escaparon de Kandapara con su ayuda a lo largo de los años. Las sardernis refunfuñaban a sus espaldas. “No les gusto, es la pura verdad”, reconocía ella. Algunas sardernis intentaban congraciarse con Begum ofreciéndose a comprar a los traficantes una niña para ella. Begum las rechazaba con una sonrisa, bromeando que no entendía el negocio y que nunca sería rica.
Para cumplir sus aspiraciones de ser presidenta de la organización de mujeres, sabía que necesitaba el apoyo de las sardernis, que seguían teniendo peso en el prostíbulo. Hasta la mujer más ruidosa y grosera se callaba cuando pasaba una de ellas con el oro y la plata tintineando en muñecas y tobillos. Begum nunca las denunció al comisario de policía ni al comisionado de la ciudad, con los que hablaba varias veces por semana. Si alguien preguntaba, ella respondía que hacía tiempo que no veía ninguna chica menor de edad.
La mujer acallaba su conciencia diciéndose a sí misma que, de todas maneras, en Bangladés las mujeres y las niñas acababan siendo víctimas del maltrato y la explotación. Al menos en Kandapara existía algo parecido a una red de apoyo. Si ella llegaba a estar al mando, las cosas serían diferentes, pensaba. No solo acabaría con el tráfico de mujeres, sino con la tragedia incesante del burdel. En Kandapara siempre había rivalidades y venganzas, y las mujeres mandaban a los amigos de sus novios a amedrentar a otras mujeres que las habían hecho enfadar o se habían interpuesto en su camino.
Cuando más le gustaba el prostíbulo a Begum era por las noches. Las calles se refrescaban, la mayoría de los hombres se habían marchado, y las mujeres podían relajarse y respirar
Cuando Begum creía que estaba imponiendo poco a poco algo así como un orden, la peleas volvían a empezar: una mujer adicta a la metanfetamina pegaba a su hijo, o una chica daba a luz y alguien intentaba robarle el bebé. A veces, Begum tenía la sensación de que no tenía más remedio que coger el palo de uno de los guardas. Es por su bien, pensaba mientras hacía crujir el bambú contra la parte posterior de los muslos de una adolescente. ¿Por qué demonios no podían aprender a comportarse?
Cuando más le gustaba el prostíbulo a Begum era por las noches. Las calles se refrescaban, la mayoría de los hombres se habían marchado, y las mujeres podían relajarse y respirar. Subían el volumen de 20 equipos de sonido que competían entre sí y se arremolinaban cogidas del brazo por las callejuelas en una confusión de cabello suelto, risas y alboroto.
A ella nunca le gustó bailar. Por aquel entonces, había cumplido los 40 y solía mirar las fiestas desde un rincón de la habitación de una de las mujeres más jóvenes, envuelta en humo de marihuana y sirviéndose chupitos de aguardiente casero a temperatura ambiente. En aquellos momentos, se sentía casi como en casa. Como si tuviese algo que perder.
Una mañana de sábado del verano de 2014, docenas de jóvenes, encabezados por el hermano del alcalde, llegaron armados de palos y queroseno y amenazaron con quemar el burdel hasta los cimientos si sus habitantes no se marchaban en una hora. Los funcionarios de la administración decían que iban a derribarlo. Los periódicos locales informaron de que el ataque era un intento de quedarse con los terrenos del prostíbulo.
Ante la amenaza de perder su hogar, su comunidad y su medio de vida, Begum y sus amigas viajaron a Dacca a protestar. Al cabo de unos meses, el Tribunal Supremo de Bangladés permitió a las mujeres volver a Tangail y reconstruir el complejo.
La breve clausura de Kandapara puso de manifiesto la falta de opciones para sus ocupantes. Algunas amigas de Begum intentaron encontrar trabajo en la industria de la confección de Dacca, pero el estigma de la prostitución dificultaba conseguir o conservar un empleo en otros sectores. La mayoría acabaron ofreciendo servicios sexuales en la calle, donde estaban mucho más expuestas a la violencia.
Las trabajadoras sexuales se encontraban más seguras cuando estaban juntas, a Begum no le cabía ninguna duda. Las veteranas enseñaban a leer a las recién llegadas, y las mujeres en la veintena cocinaban para las que tenían demasiada artritis para trabajar. A veces, las mujeres aceptaban más clientes de lo habitual para pagar el alquiler de una amiga si esta no podía trabajar, por ejemplo, porque se estaba recuperando de un aborto. Si un hombre pegaba a una mujer, las sardernis llegaban corriendo con palos y piedras, se lo llevaban a rastras y se aseguraban de que no volviese.
“Compras o te compran”, le decían
A veces, Begum trataba a las mujeres más jóvenes como una madre. “La felicidad es ayudar a los demás”, entonaba mientas les peinaba el cabello con los dedos repitiendo las palabras de su madre. Cuando una mujer iba a dar a luz ‒algo que sucedía cada pocos meses‒, Begum rasgaba trapos y hervía agua para ayudar en el parto. Pocas cosas le gustaban tanto como ver la cara de un recién nacido.
A pesar de todo, la suya era una vida solitaria. Cuando llegó la pandemia a principios de 2020 y el Gobierno cerró las puertas de Kandapara, solo quedaban 10 mujeres de las que había en el burdel cuando ella llegó. Unas cuantas amigas habían conocido a hombres que habían cumplido su promesa de liberarlas; otras se habían quitado la vida, como Sahana, con su cara dulce, “hermana de día, hija de noche”. También Anu, que llevaba el pelo canoso recogido en un cuidadoso moño, igual que Begum, y que había muerto de sida en 2019. Y Shirin, que fue asesinada dos semanas antes del confinamiento del pasado marzo. Nadie sabía quién la había matado.
Hasta Alo y Hashi, con las que había fundado Nari Mukti Sangha, habían empezado a desaparecer durante semanas. Estaban comprando terrenos para empezar una nueva vida fuera del prostíbulo. Begum sentía que las estaba perdiendo. A veces le costaba saludarles con alegría cuando volvían de un viaje.
Por supuesto, la marcha de Alo de Kandapara podía tener su lado bueno. Después de 18 años, Begum no era más que la secretaria de Mari Mukti Sangh, y Alo seguía siendo la presidenta de la organización. Se suponía que había que celebrar elecciones cada dos años, pero Alo no se había molestado en organizarlas desde 2013.
Las chicas del burdel ya llamaban a Begum Netri (líder), y ella quería que se confirmase su autoridad. Ella era la persona a la que acudían las mujeres en busca de ayuda. Ella fue la que cruzó Tangail en rickshaw en plena pandemia para pedir al comisionado de la ciudad apoyo para Kandapara. Ella negoció una entrega de 10 kilos de arroz por persona al principio del brote, así como una pequeña reducción del alquiler.
Si alguien preguntaba, Begum respondía que hacía tiempo que no veía ninguna chica menor de edad
En junio del año pasado, las mujeres llamaban a la puerta de Begum a todas horas. El arroz se había acabado, y el burdel confinado estaba empezando a hervir de impaciencia. Las primeras en estallar fueron Hashi, la otra miembro del trío fundador de Nari Mukti Sangha, y su hermana pequeña, que robaron un juego de llaves a un guarda de seguridad y abrieron a la fuerza una de las puertas del prostíbulo. Begum le gritó que no lo hiciera, y las mujeres se pelearon delante de una multitud de espectadores. Al final las separaron, pero Hashi y su hermana ganaron: en contra de las recomendaciones del Gobierno, las puertas quedaron abiertas y los clientes empezaron a dejarse caer por allí. Begum no sabía qué hacer.
Las estaciones pasaban, el aire estaba cargado de humedad. Al final del día, Begum se descalzaba sus sandalias de cuero. No paraba de toser, y le preocupaba si sobreviviría a los próximos meses. Algunas noches rezaba pidiendo perdón. Otras veces pensaba en su pasado: los dulces recién sacados del fuego que comía cuando era niña; la sangre que empapaba el asiento de un rickshaw; un sari de boda robado de la cuerda de tender. En su vida tantas cosas habían salido mal que pensaba que era culpa suya. “El valor sale de los pies y sube a la cabeza”, decía Hashi los días malos. “No hay más que seguir adelante”.
A veces se imaginaba otra vida. ¿Le estaría permitido a una mujer de 44 años volver a Sajipur y cultivar arroz y trigo sin un hombre? Se preguntaba cómo sería su familia si se hubiese quedado con su marido y hubiese tenido hijos. Quizá hubiera sido mejor que estar sola. Entonces recordaba al hombre con el que la habían obligado a casarse, sus puños violentos, y se reía. Qué suerte tenía de ser libre.
Este artículo ha sido publicado en el marco de la asociación entre la revista 1843 de The Economist y The Fuller Project. Puede leer la versión original en este enlace.
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