As the sun sets, the main road in Patukhola bustles with movement.
Patukhola is a small community in the Dang district of Nepal that lies 400 kilometers southwest of Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu. In the tiny town, just 150 huts line a narrow road. Haystack roofs, stone walls and wooden pillars reflect the state of poverty that is commonplace here. Still, the women on the street tonight, who work at the tea stalls along the path, all wear bright smiles on their faces.
As the women of Patukhola socialize and sip tea in the evening light, there is another woman distant from rest of the group who stares out toward the road. She is alone, scrubbing dishes.
Urmila is 32 years old. She is a member of the Badi community, or the untouchable caste. Though just feet away from the other villagers, she is ignored. As she washes dishes, the bangles that adorn her arms clang and jingle, providing a lively beat. Urmila is wearing an old, but clean and shiny Kurtha Surwal, the traditional dress for Nepali women.
“Dress expresses your personality,” says Urmila with a bright smile, as she drapes her loose scarf around her shoulders.
She is out on the street doing chores, but she is also looking for work. “I hope I will get one customer before I complete the dishwashing,” she says fixing her suspecting eyes on the road while putting clean glasses on a stone slab. “Today is a dull day. But who knows? Sex-starved people turn up in the nick of time.”
By this time yesterday, Urmila had already seen three customers – men who visit her for sex. For a Badi woman like Urmila, her life is a cycle of poverty. Sex is the only way she can earn a living and feed her family of five. Urmila charges 100 rupees, $1.30 USD, for what she calls “one-time sex.” Two-time sex, or intercourse twice in one session, costs 150 rupees.
“It appears that I don’t have luck today,” sighs Urmila, whose main source of livelihood is prostitution. On a normal day she says she serves six customers. “But it is not fixed,” she says. “Sometimes I attend to as many as 10 people and on dry days I don’t receive even a single.”
Finally, after hours of waiting, a man approaches in a hurry. With a smile on her face, Urmila turns and walks to her hut. The man follows her.
Urmila is one of hundreds of Badi women who work as prostitutes here. While there is no government data on the number of Badi sex workers, local studies and nongovernmental groups estimate that there are thousands of Badi prostitutes. There are few statistics that speak to the Badi community. As members of the “untouchable caste,” they are ignored from census data, health programs and other government efforts. While the national census completed in 2001 recognizes just 4,442 members of the Badi community, organizations working for the legal and social empowerment of the Badis, including Social Awareness for Education, SAE, and the Badi Struggle Committee, BSC, report the number of Badis at close to 40,000.
Poverty Fuels Prostitution, but Badis also Prize Health
Once high-class dancers and musicians, the Badi are now among the poorest and most marginalized groups in Nepal. Caste-based discrimination remains widespread despite the fact is was outlawed more than four decades ago. Uma Badi, a former sex worker and now a rights activist with BSC, says many Badi girls began working as prostitutes around the age of 14.
Urmila confirms that she started having sex for money when she too was 14. Binita, 27, also a Badi sex worker who withheld her last name, says “As many of my neighbors took up [the] sex trade to earn a living, I also jumped on the bandwagon.” Today, Binita earns a higher sum for her services that Urmila because she is younger. “Age matters in this profession,” Binita confirms.
“Customers used to stay in a queue because of my striking body,” Urmila says, recalling her 15-year-old self. “I raked in huge money at that time.” She says she earned “a windfall” until she was 17. “After that, times changed,” she says of her now lower wage and more infrequent customers.
Still, both Urmila and Binita say if society allowed it, they would welcome other work opportunities. “I want to work in an office or a factory,” Urmila says in a hopeful tone. But here, caste discrimination reigns. Badi women are scarcely allowed to enter respectable establishments, much less earn employment there.
“Ninety-five percent of Badi women work as sex workers because of poverty,” says Binod Pahadi, a lawyer working for the rights of the Badi community. “The flesh trade is the only option left for them since they have been deprived of employment opportunities,” he says. “Worst is that they are viewed as the untouchable of untouchable and lowest of the low caste by people of so-called upper castes.”
Sex work has become a necessity within the Badi community because women here are the breadwinners in their families. Badi men are typically fishermen and spend time dancing in festivals. The burden of running the household falls to the women, says Tirtha Neupane, a local teacher in Dang. Practicing prostitution is a major source of income because of a lack of other options, he says. “When a Badi girl starts having the first natural cycle, she is forced to follow the tradition spending her first night with the customer as the family receives handsome money for that very night,” he says.
Though prostitution is illegal in Nepal, there is no record of police raids or other legal action to curb Badi prostitution despite the fact it is a well-known practice. “Since some senior police officers themselves are the clients, police are just being mute spectators of their activity,” says a junior police officer working in Dang, who requested anonymity.
Transport workers account for the highest number of clients. Businessmen, security personnel, college bound students and domestic tourists are also frequent customers. “They think we Badi girls are sexually attractive and having sex with us gives a lot of pleasure,” Urmila says, adding one important caveat. One thing that sets Badi prostitutes apart from other sex workers. Badis insist their customers wear condoms. “In the past our [customers] hesitated to wear condoms,” Urmila says. But the vast spread of HIV/AIDS here has caused a fear-based revolution for the Badi prostitutes. “We do not allow them to perform sexual intercourse with us without condoms,” she says and Binita confirms.
Human Rights Demands Met with Inadequate Resources
Badi rights organizations have continued to agitate for legal rights over the last few years, despite the turbulent political landscape in Nepal. Primary demands include achieving a legal identity, rights to property ownership, education and legitimate employment.
“Their demands are genuine,” says Santa Bhattarai, an officer in the Department of Women’s Development. “However, the government [does] not have an adequate budget to address their demands.
But Bhattarai says the government here, though fragile and ever-changing, is ready to provide employment training opportunities to Badi women on one condition. “They should completely quit the sex trade first,” Bhattarai warns.
Urmila and the Badi rights activists say they do not buy these claims. “The government is callous towards Badis. It is shameful to say that the state has inadequate funds for [the] empowerment of Badis,” says Pahadi, the attorney in Dang working for greater rights. “It’s high time the state brought concrete programs for their empowerment.”
But, as long as the problems of Badi women remain unaddressed they will continue to engage in prostitution to earn their livelihoods, he says. Urmila, Binita and many others say that while they wish for greater futures, they do not consider their work to be shameful. They are simply providing for their families.
