A girl stands beside the main Agra to Jaipur highway. She is fourteen years old and the bidding war for her virginity has begun. When the highest bid has been secured the client may visit her as much as he likes over the course of ten days. Then, with the money paid, the community will throw a large party - much like a wedding celebration - to mark her initiation. Her family will be proud of her for in this particular caste, prostitution is a family business. The price for a virgin is two...
more »A girl stands beside the main Agra to Jaipur highway. She is fourteen years old and the bidding war for her virginity has begun. When the highest bid has been secured the client may visit her as much as he likes over the course of ten days. Then, with the money paid, the community will throw a large party - much like a wedding celebration - to mark her initiation. Her family will be proud of her for in this particular caste, prostitution is a family business. The price for a virgin is two hundred times that of a girl who has already entered the trade.
The Bedia caste in the Bharatpur region of Rajasthan traditionally sees its women enter the sex trade at the age of thirteen or fourteen. Caste-based prostitution has meant that there are no girls for the men to marry, for they can only marry virgins. To add to their problems, unemployment is rife. So the girls buy brides for their brothers and support the whole family by selling themselves 20 or 30 times a day until they are too old to attract custom.
It is too late to help this generation, but a local NGO, working with PLAN UK, has begun to educate the children of the sex workers in schools, and so try to break a cycle of abuse.
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