“Like every other parent, we too want our children to enjoy their childhood.” This is the simple message that a collective of female commercial sex workers want to send across to political parties with a five-point charter of demands.

The demands include: setting up a welfare board for them, pension for retired sex workers, government support for the education of their children, serious efforts to prevent trafficking of women and children and alternative employment for those wanting to come out of the profession.

“Like every other parent, we too want our children to enjoy their childhood.” This is the simple message that a collective of female commercial sex workers want to send across to political parties with a five-point charter of demands.

The demands include: setting up a welfare board for them, pension for retired sex workers, government support for the education of their children, serious efforts to prevent trafficking of women and children and alternative employment for those wanting to come out of the profession.

The Chennai-based Indira Female Peer Educators Collective(IFPEC),  which has 2088 female sex workers as members, has asked all sex workers to exercise their franchise on May 13.

At a meeting held on April 17, the collective deliberated on their stand in the Lok Sabha elections and came up with the charter of demands. Drawing the attention of the political parties to their plight, they say that they run short of resources to educate their children as they do not have a regular income and even the little they earn goes to pimps and brothel runners. So they demand that the political parties ensure that their children get school and college education.

On the need for a welfare board, they say that it will help improve their quality of life and empower them to fight discrimination and also address various issues related to their lives like violence. They say that despite a plethora of developmental programmes for women, there is none that aims at rehabilitating sex workers. By providing basic employable skills to sex workers, many of them can be encouraged to turn a new leaf, they say.

The collective was formed five years ago primarily to protect sex workers from anti-social elements and to help them overcome their problems as a support group.

Source: ExpressBuzz, India