Healthcare With Dignity! Delhi's Red-Light District Gets First-Of-Its-Kind Clinic For Sex Workers & Their Families

Earlier this week, Scroll published an exclusive article by Johanna Deeksha titled 'Why Indian sex workers dread going to a hospital?' It was a wake-up call to the public regarding how the basic healthcare systems of the country discriminated against sex workers in the country. Sex workers from various states recounted how they continue to be ignored, overcharged, and ill-treated when they seek healthcare.

Despite the Supreme Court rulings entitling sex workers to dignity and categorising sex work as a profession, the community continues to be largely shunned from the mainstream. As a result, many sex workers continue to shell out more money and go to private hospitals just so as to be treated with respect and dignity.

Offering Basic Right Of Health

A first-ever health clinic dedicated to sex workers and their families has opened up in Delhi's red-light area of GB Road. The clinic, started by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Sewa Bharti in collaboration with Utkarsh Initiative, is equipped with facilities for routine check-ups and other treatments. It has been set up in a portion of a non-functional school and would have seven doctors appointed to treat the patients. During its inauguration on January 1st, the General Secretary of Sewa Bharti Delhi Province, Sushil Gupta, said, "We have started this initiative on the first day of the year to start this year with the right initiative catering to the secluded and exploited strata of the society."

The Garstin Bastion Road, popularly known as the GB Road, is a stretch of area running from Ajmeri Gate to Lahori Gate and has as many as hundreds of brothels that house thousands of sex workers. Many among them dread reaching out to healthcare facilities in the country due to the kind of stigma tagged upon them. Gupta said that the first such initiative in the area aims to resolve this issue and aid the sex workers and their families to address their health requirements and get treated with dignity and respect.

Getting Treated With Dignity

A report by the Business Standard quoted a sex worker saying, "doctors start behaving differently when they learn we are sex workers." They often even refuse to touch the patient and understand their conditions, and as a result, the sex worker's health is put on the line. The worker stated that with the opening of the new clinic dedicated to their community, the situation would change for good and help them fight the stigma they face while visiting clinics.

The fact that sex workers in India face difficulties in all phases of their life is a known reality and accessing healthcare is one such noted aspect in multiple studies. A 2012 study conducted among over 300 sex workers in Maharashtra found that 66 per cent of them had been discriminated against by health workers because of their profession. Out of this, 61.4 per cent of them have faced some form of mockery or degrading comments from professionals. Many among them, when they fell ill, were forced to undergo multiple Sexually-transmitted illnesses (STI) tests.

A lot of these cases commented that such discriminatory behaviour was prevalent in government hospitals. Due to this reason, a larger proportion of sex workers continue to visit healthcare centres run privately or by NGOs to be treated for their conditions with respect. In such a space and time, a healthcare facility dedicated entirely to sex workers and their families offers a ray of hope to thousands engaged in the profession.

Also Read: Historical: 'Sex Workers Entitled To Dignity', Supreme Court Calls Prostitution A 'Profession'