* Lockdown, virus fears left sex workers without income
* Unable to get aid, bank credit, many went to loan sharks
* Lenders known for ‘outrageous’ rates, ruthlessness
By Roli Srivastava
MUMBAI, Feb 23 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When Indian sex worker Baji fell behind on her repayments to a loan shark during lockdown, her house was ransacked and her only belongings of any value – the kitchen utensils – were stolen. It was another low point in a terrible year.
As COVID-19 hit their incomes, hundreds of cash-strapped sex workers in southern Andhra Pradesh state turned to unofficial moneylenders to get through the pandemic – most of them lacking the papers needed to get formal bank credit, campaigners said.
“I had nothing left in my kitchen the day the lender approached me with a loan offer. He had a polite and assuring manner and said there was no urgency to repay the money,” Baji, 26, who goes by one name, said by phone from Krishna district.
“But he returned week after week. I repaid 1,200 rupees (about $16.50) from the loan itself, but when I stopped they ransacked my home and took all my utensils,” the mother-of-two told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It was traumatic.”
Before the coronavirus swept into India, Baji earned up to 1,000 rupees a day, enough to feed her children and keep a roof over their heads, but last year’s lockdown pushed her and other sex workers in India and beyond to the brink.
There are about 800,000 sex workers across India according to government data but campaigners estimate their numbers to be much higher. More than 100,000 are registered in Andhra Pradesh alone, data with campaigners show.
Reflecting concern about the plight of India’s informal workers, the nation’s human rights panel asked state governments in October to formally recognise sex workers, a step that would have granted them benefits from a $23 billion state aid fund.
But the order was reversed after activists said such a move would be illegal and risked legitimising sex trafficking.
While sex workers did receive some food aid, their lack of earnings made many vulnerable to abuse by loan sharks, especially in Andhra Pradesh where authorities have been trying to rein in widespread informal moneylenders for years.
