Winds of change on GB Road: RSS medical project employs sex worker
Seated on a cemented slab at a deserted Delhi municipal school, now the site of a unique medical outreach project for commercial sex workers (CSWs) of GB Road, Bano presents a picture of grace and grit. She is one of these women and yet not one of them.
“Main ab wahan se hat gayi hoon. Mujhe alag nahi hone de rahe the. Kehtey the maar denge. Par maine soch liya tha kuchh bhi ho jaye main ladungi aur niklungi…Sewa Bharti mein lag gayi, unkaa saath mila (I have put past life behind me. They (the handlers) were not letting me go. They threatened to kill me but I had decided to escape at all costs. Sewa Bharti gave me a job, they helped me a lot),” she says, pride filling up her otherwise dull eyes.
Today, Bano is the driving force behind Project Utkarsh — the RSS’s first medical initiative for commercial sex workers. As an RSS employee, she encourages thousands of sex workers on GB Road to seek care at project’s Sunday OPD, where top doctors from AIIMS, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, RML, Safdarjung, Lok Nayak and Lady Hardinge volunteer under the banner of Sewa Bharti and National Medicos Organisation, RSS-linked bodies.
The concept of Utkarsh, the first regular medical clinic for this area’s CSWs, was born in Covid-19 times.
“When we frequented GB Road during Covid to distribute ration to women here, we realised they needed much more. Most of all they needed medical attention. That’s how Utkarsh was born. We mobilised the community and were lucky to get from the MCD this dilapidated school building to run the project. It began on January 1, 2023 and is taking off now,” Sewa Bharti Delhi’s general secretary Sushil Gupta tells The Tribune.
The Sunday OPD on GB Road is now visited by nearly 100 sex workers and 55 of their wards are enrolled for daily school tutorials that run here.
“Just this year, three children of sex workers cleared their Class X exams with the help of Utkarsh’s coaching. Our medical camps have treated women for serious illnesses, including cervical cancer,” says Utkarsh president Pushpa Mishra, professor of gynaecology at Lok Nayak Hospital. The clinic is served by top doctors, including Ganga Ram gynaecology specialist Chandra Mansukhani and former Ganga Ram experts Kanwal Gujral (HOD gynaecology) and Dr Suyash (psychiatry).
As the project takes off, winds of change are blowing in the lives of sex workers. Three of them, including Bano, have landed regular jobs at Utkarsh. But it was not easy to get here. Vandana Vats, secretary, Utkarsh, recalls, “Under the gaze of handlers, sex workers were previously too afraid to come. It was only when they realised we were non-judgmental and only wanted to help that they began visiting in hordes. Today, they practically run the project.”
Bano swears by Vandana, who has developed ties of trust with most women here. Vandana is the only outsider woman to have ever visited Bano’s GB Road brothel — room no. 51.
“I trust her,” Bano says proudly mentioning her recent marriage with Abdul Salam, a former pimp.
“Now I work at Utkarsh and my husband drives an e-rickshaw. We finally slammed the doors on past life,” says Bano, originally from Bengaluru.
Lured to Delhi by an acquaintance after her parents’ demise, Bano was 14 years old when she was first forced into sex work. “My long hair were shaved off and cries for help muzzled. I sought help from all my customers, but no one obliged,” she says pledging to help other sex workers.
Asked what she planned next, Bano flung a wedding card at The Tribune team. She and Abdul will this week host weddings of two girls born to GB Road sex workers. “You are invited,” they tell us.
India