Give them a Sahara. Review on Prostitution vs. Pornography

Just yesterday, I read an interview of an Indian porn star Sahara Knite in Time of India. What a daredevil she is. She represents the new Asian women, who have come of age, ready to take on the orthodox society, which want them to be in the safe confines of the four walls, repressing their aspirations and obliging their male counterparts. Hats off to you Sahara!

But despite everything, I have some problems with a comment that you made in the interview given to the newspaper. While you vehemently defended what you do and justified all your acts, but in doing so you (God knows consciously or unconsciously) made a derogatory remark on women, who are engaged in a profession very much like yours. Riding on the high moral grounds, you said: “Being a porn star doesn’t mean I am a pr*stitute. I don’t sleep around with people in my private life.” Well, well well…..

How can you make such comments on prstitutes? If you can justify your acting in porn movies as just a well-paid profession, tell me why prstitution should be debased as a profession. You yourself admitted that porn stars are not exploited or forced into the business, but they willingly do it for money, because it’s a highly paid job. On the other hand, most in the pr*stitution business are either forced to do it or lured into it. Some had to do it because they don’t want their family members to starve. On the contrary, you did not have any such problems, which made you get into the profession.

Not most of the Asian women, who are into prstitution, are as fortunate as you were. Unlike you most of them are illiterate and many entered the trade when they were mere innocent kids. According to a report, 30% of these women are under 20 years of age. 40% are 20-30 years of age, and approximately 15% of them became prstitutes as children under the age of 12. The majority of these women are Dalits or from castes which are recognized as backward under the Indian Constitution. In India, many innocent victims are forced into pr*stitution by their husbands or relatives.

Some are tricked or enticed into prstitution. And the condition under which they work can well be gauged from the following report: “The largest red-light area in Asia called Kamatipura -- a criss-cross of 12 lanes between two railway stations. Women and girls are kept locked in small four-by-four foot rooms, with no windows and made to service 15 to 20 men a day for less than $1 (US). They are subjected to rape, physical abuse, torture, violence, repeated abortions and life-threatening diseases like HIV, TB and hepatitis. They were sold, seduced, tricked, duped, coerced or forced into this life of sxual slavery. The trafficker paid less than $100 (US) for them. NGOs estimate that between 5, 000-7, 000 Nepali girls are trafficked every year to India. NGOs in Bangkok say at least 10, 000 girls and women entering Thailand from poorer neighbouring countries end up in commercial s*x work.

Now girls are trafficked for cheap labour, begging chains and the organ trade as well. In Asia alone about a million women and children are trafficked every year. In the former Soviet states and Eastern European countries there are job placement agencies and marriage bureaus which serve as fronts for pr*stitution rings. Trafficking -- especially for commercial sexual exploitation -- has become a worldwide, multi billion-dollar industry. Boys and girls are favoured targets for sexual exploitation and groups with low social standing are often the most vulnerable, such as minorities and refugees.

Illicit traffic is expanding through the use of child pornography on the Internet, and low-cost Internet advertising of the commercial sex trade, attracting sex tourists and peadophiles.” So dear Sahara, if you think you are not pr*stitute, you are fortunate enough cos you don’t have to go through everything that’s inhuman and sheer physical and mental torture. While you can say audaciously that you are not ashamed of what you are doing, cos u had the options but you chose this profession, these people (whom you made out to look like wretched creatures) don’t even know how to assess their condition. They definitely are not there by their own choice.