Hyderabad: Most women sex workers in Telangana villages are victims of sexual and economic exploitation. They are paid a meagre amount by truck drivers.
A majority of these women have been abandoned by their families or deserted by their husbands. Many have been ousted from their own villages and have no other way of earning their livelihood.
“The women who choose this path face physical and social exclusion. Most of them are abandoned by their families. In the Tandur case too, the woman had been deserted by her husband. Her son stays in a government-run orphanage in Hyderabad,” said Ranga Reddy SP Rema Rajeswari.
The truck drivers pay them as low as rs 20 and none of the women gets more than Rs 300. Some do not even pay and push these women out of the truck after satiating their need.
“There are cruel people. We cannot complain to anybody since what we are doing is not legal. On an average, in this area, a woman sex worker makes Rs 200 or so in a day,” said Meena, (name changed) a 38-year-old sex worker from Suryapet. Danger lurks on the roads, making it difficult for these women to work. Many are abused, a few go missing.
Officials say a part of the unsolved missing cases of women in Telangana can be linked to truck-stop prostitution. There are also several unreported cases of missing women.
On June 25, 2014, the Mahbubnagar police had arrested an autorickshaw driver named V. Raju from Koduru village in the district over the murder of a sex worker. Investigations revealed Ravi killed as many as eight women with blunt weapons.
He picked women from the roadside, took them to deserted places, had sex and killed them. He also robbed them of their ornaments. Most of his victims had been “missing”. Police recovered the decomposed bodies of the victims.
AIDS, HIV high in highway sex workers
A significant number of women sex workers who operate alongside the highways has been diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases including AIDS.
Compared to Hyderabad, the sex workers in the districts are more prone to STD. Due to lack of awareness, many sex workers do not use condoms. The state Aids Control Organisation has link groups functioning in districts to create awareness among sex workers and others.
Since these women are not part of organised sex workers’ groups, often the awareness programmes do not reach them. There is no specific organisation in the state to target these women. According to RR district police, the two sex workers who were arrested for murder, were both HIV positive.
Officials say that the women sex workers targeting the trucks are highly vulnerable to STD since many of their customers come from other states where the STD epidemic is higher compared to Telangana.
According to data released by the National Aids Control Society, at 11.67 per cent, prevalence of HIV was high among female sex workers in Medak district. Also, chances of rehabilitation of sex workers in the districts are very less compared to the sex workers in Hyderabad.
