Sabeen: If you had other work, then would you be able to speak up more? If someone didn’t want to use a condom, could you decline that client?​ 

Former sex worker: They can’t say no until they earn themselves. From some other source. Then they have willpower. If they don’t get a client that day, then [they can think] “forget it, we don’t need it”.​ ​ ​

Sex Workers in Lahore

Sex workers in Lahore's Red Light District are one of the most stigmatized and impoverished groups in Pakistan. Born into prostitution, they are stuck in a cycle of violence and abuse from clients, husbands, partners, and sometimes family members. Sex workers often report being tricked into having sex or being beaten and raped. Sex workers rarely report these incidents of violence, due to stigma, and fear of retaliation, criminalization, or harassment. In 2018 with the help of a Pakistani NGO, Bedari, I met with a group of sex workers, who shared harrowing stories characterized by a loss of power, independence, and dignity. 

Excerpts from the interview are below.

Sabeen: How much violence do you experience from your partners?

Sex Worker: I’ll share reality with you. If he’s your boyfriend, husband, or client, he is most definitely violent. He is violent because he just wants to show that he is a man, he wants to say that he is a man. This is my own value.

---

Lubna Tayyab, a former sex worker, started a small community-based organization in Lahore's Red Light District, called Sheed Society.

      "Sex worker and sweeper – they are both needed, but neither is accepted. Every man wants a sex worker, every house wants a sweeper. But no one accepts us. They come here and commit sins,  in the darkness of the night, and then during the day, they are the good ones, and we are the bad ones? We need to empower these women. 

      Why us? Did God send us different air? Different light of the sun? Do we get grain from somewhere else? Everything that the general community eats, we eat the same thing. We are in so much need, if one girl is making money, 10 people are eating from that. They have responsibilities. They have their uncles, grandmothers, children, to take care of. Where do they go? Have any of you ever accepted one of them? They can’t even think to leave because of their necessity. Has anyone from the outside come to this community to help us? Let’s give them respect. We won’t make them wives, we’ll make them our sisters. Let go of this work, we’ll take care of you. Who hasn’t come here to do an interview with me? BBC, CNN, Dawn, Samaa, GEO, there isn’t one Pakistani channel who hasn’t come here to interview. But no one does anything."

Vocational Training

In partnership with Sheed Society, a small sex worker NGO in the Red Light District, Go Green Welfare Society & Sadya's salon, we intend to provide a 3-month paid internship for sex workers, consisting of vocational training in hair and make-up, along with financial literacy education. GO Green Welfare Society has trained people who are transgender, who at the end of the internship started their own private business, or began employment at hair salons and news channels. Following completion of the internship, trainees receive practice with mock-interviews, assistance with portfolios and social media profiles, with the intention to work at salons, media companies, or start their own businesses.

Funds raised will be allocated towards the following: 

·      salary for 3-month paid internship for sex workers (so they do not need to work)

·      salary for two hair/make-up trainers, who are former sex workers 

·      salary for a project supervisor, daughter of a former sex worker

·      new make-up kits, tools, wardrobes & cellphones for trainees

·      matched savings to assist with start up of business & kick off new vocation!

·      project management costs, such as transportation, literacy materials, etc.

rellabeauty will be gifting each woman a lipstick, so they can start their internship and this new journey feeling beautiful and confident!

This project aims for sex workers to reduce income from sex work, or leave sex work completely. This program will ONLY benefit the sex worker population, and intends to increase safety, security, and autonomy in their lives.

Last year I raised $5000, and still need to raise $15,000 more. Sex workers have been historically shunned from society, with often little to no means of getting out. Please join me in eradicating the need for women to engage in sex work for income and sustenance, and helping a population that has long been ignored and marginalized in Pakistan. 

Photos by Zainul Abidin; Lahore, Pakistan

​https://www.facebook.com/sabeen.ahmed.35