More then 1250 ‘dance bars’ and ‘ladies service bars’ have come into existence since 1965 to date in Maharashtra. While the ‘dance bar’ phenomena emerged in 1977. Their number touched thousands after 1990. It has grown significantly in the last decade. Now there are approximately 800 of such bars or hotels in and around Mumbai city alone. The phenomenon is spreading rapidly in the adjacent suburb cities such as New Bombay, Panvel, Thane, Khopoli, Bhivandi, Dombivli, Shahapur. At the same time such places are mushrooming all along the highways throughout Maharashtra and even in and around other cities such as Pune, Nashik, Aurangabad, Solapur, Kolhapur, Nagapur and small cities and towns within the state.
On 30th of March 2005 the state government of Maharashtra announced its decision to close down dance bars. Subsequently, the local police forcibly closed bars outside Mumbai city without any government order or notice. In July 2005, the bill banning the dance in the bars was passed unanimously by the state legislatures without any provision for rehabilitation of the bargirls.
This sudden and unilateral decision of the State Government of Maharashtra to close down ‘dance bars’ in the state is going to create a grave human crisis in the history of India. Though this decision was well applauded and endorsed by the white-collar middle class, it is about to deprive the source of livelihood for around seventy five thousand ‘bargirls’ (women workers in the bar) and three hundred thousand male bar workers directly. It is also going to affect large number of people indirectly.
Since last one year, we are in the process of unionising the bargirls. It involved study of the living and working conditions of the bargirls. Apart from the legal issues pertaining to them it led to the identification of the issues related to their caste, class, age composition, their marital status, traditions and their socio-economic and educational background.
During this process we visited more then 600 bars of different districts of the state, organised protests on different issues, conducted more the 50 meetings and two training programmes, enrolled more then 12000 members in the Union, documented more then 100 life stories.
Since the announcement of the decision, we are almost fighting a battle with the state on the issue of rehabilitation. It involved mobilisation of two mass rallies attended by more then 50000 bargirls and staging indefinite sit in which lasted for almost a month. Intense lobbying and networking was done to raise the issue at the national level by involving UPA Chairperson, NCW, NHRC, NCSCST and Indian Parliament. Alliance was build up with more then 50 women, social groups, and several influential personalities from different streams of the society. All this advocacy, lobbying and mobilisation work effectively delayed the promulgation of the ultimate order for more then four months.
The bill has allowed functioning of the ladies bars, which employ 10000 to 12000 of total 75000 bargirls. Hence, more then 60000 young women are about to become jobless in a single stroke. This number is apart from the 10000 girls who were working in the bars outside Mumbai city and who already have lost their source of livelihood with the illegal closure of their bars immediately after the announcement. Tracking the impact of this eviction on these girls show that most of them have entered into sex work for their survival and they have become far too vulnerable to trafficking. Many of them are getting arrested in the different towns of different states for engaging into commercial sex wok in the public places. Few of them have gone back to their native villages in UP and Rajstan and even there they are being harassed by the local police. Lack of education and any other skill have left majority of these girls with no other option then sex work to feed their families.
Contrary to the claims of the government this shows that the closure of bars will increase trafficking both within India and internationally. It is sad that instead of checking human trafficking, their action is going to increase it enormously and on international scale. The ban on dance in the bars cannot be anti trafficking measure, as it is going to have exactly opposite impact. Thousands of girls will have no alternative then to accept proposals for performing in the Gulf countries, where they are usually duped and forced into prostitution. This suggests what will happen to large number of girls after the complete closure of bars. Suddenly depriving such huge number of women of their livelihood source without proper rehabilitation is going to force them into prostitution en mass.
This situation needs urgent humanitarian response from NGOs and the concerned individuals on a scale of any natural disaster where large number of people gets displaced. Mapping and tracking of the displacement is required to design appropriate assistance and rehabilitation strategy. There is a need to address issues that have the potential to decrease the vulnerability of the displaced girls vis-ŕ-vis the criminal networks, police harassments. There is a need to evolve supportive structure at the local level for the girls scattered all over the country. Special efforts needed for continuance of education of the children and especially girl children of the evicted bargirls. This displacement is going to increase health risks for the victims and it required adequate attention.
-VARSHA KALE
(President, Bhartiya Bargirls Union)
Cell no.: 919870429972
Can guys join?