Kamathipura is a neighbourhood in Mumbai, India known for prostitution. It was first settled after 1795 with the construction of causeways that connected the erstwhile seven islands of Mumbai. Initially known as Lal Bazaar, it got its name from the Kamathis (workers) of other areas of the country, who were labourers on sexual sites. Due to tough police crackdowns, in the late 1990s with the rise of AIDS and government's redevelopment policy that helped sex workers to move out of the profession and subsequently out of Kamathipura, the number of sex workers in the area has dwindled. In 1992, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) recorded there were 45,000 sex workers here which was reduced to 1,600 in 2009 and 500 in 2018. Many sex workers have migrated to other areas in Maharashtra with real estate developers taking over the high-priced real estate. In 2018 the Maharashtra government sought tenders to demolish and redevelop the area.
Shivdaspur is a census town and a red light district in Varanasi in eastern Uttar Pradesh in India. It resides on periphery of Varanasi city, surrounded by Lahartara, Manduadih.
Sonagachi is a neighbourhood in Kolkata, India, located in North Kolkata near the intersection of Jatindra Mohan Avenue with Beadon Street and Sovabazar, about one kilometer north of the Marble Palace area. Sonagachi is among the largest red-light districts in Asia and the world with several hundred multi-storey brothels residing more than 16,000 commercial sex workers.
Prostitution is legal in India, but a number of related activities including soliciting, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, prostitution in a hotel, child prostitution, pimping and pandering are illegal. There are, however, many brothels illegally operating in Indian cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Pune, and Nagpur, among others. UNAIDS estimate there were 657,829 prostitutes in the country as of 2016. Other unofficial estimates have calculated India has roughly 3 million prostitutes. India is widely regarded as having one of the world's largest commercial sex industry. It has emerged as a global hub of sex tourism, attracting sex tourists from wealthy countries. The sex industry in India is a multi-billion dollar one, and one of the fastest growing.
Sanlaap is an Indian feminist non-governmental organisation, established by Indrani Sinha in 1987 in Calcutta. Based in Calcutta, the group aims to protect the human rights of women and girls. Sanlaap is a developmental organisation that works towards correction of social imbalances which present themselves as gender injustice and violence against women and children. The primary work is focused against trafficking of women and children for commercial sexual exploitation, sexual abuse and forced prostitution. As part of its work, the group starts shops to train girls to make a living and foster their independence.
The All Bengal Women's Union was started in the 1932, when a group of women in West Bengal formed a cadre of like-minded women to help their helpless, exploited and victimized fellow women.
Zana Briski is a British photographer and filmmaker, best known for Born into Brothels, the 2004 Oscar winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, which she directed. She founded Kids with Cameras, a non-profit organization that teaches the art of photography to marginalized children in communities throughout the world. Her interest in photography began at age 10.
Moni Nag was an Indian anthropologist specialising in the politics of sexuality.
The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, or simply Durbar, is a collective of 60,000 sex workers in West Bengal. Established on 15 February 1992, in Sonagachi, the largest red-light district in Kolkata, West Bengal, India with estimated 11,000 sex workers, Durbar has been working on women's rights and sex workers' rights advocacy, anti-human trafficking and HIV/AIDS prevention. The Durbar states that its aims are the challenging and altering of the barriers that form the everyday reality of sex workers' lives as they relate to their poverty or their ostracism. Durbar runs 51 free clinics for sex workers across West Bengal, with support from organisations such as the Ford Foundation and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), who also help Durbar in its initiatives like networking, rights protection and creating alternative livelihood for sex workers.
Prostitution in Kolkata is present in different forms and Kolkata's sex industry is one of the largest in Asia. Prostitution may be brothel-based or non-brothel based as in the case of call girls. India is regarded as having one of the largest commercial sex trades globally. Kolkata has many red-light districts, out of which Sonagachi is the largest red-light district in Asia with more than 50,000 commercial sex workers.
G.B. Road,Garstin Bastion Road, is a road running from Ajmeri Gate to Lahori Gate in Delhi, India. It is a large red-light district. It has several hundred multi-storey brothels and there are estimated to be over 1,000 sex workers. It is lined with two or three-storey buildings that have shops on the ground floor. About twenty of these buildings have about 100 brothels on the first floor that open at night after the shops at ground level close. It is the biggest red light area in Delhi.
Amherst Street is a north–south street in Central Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal. The street was named after William Amherst, 1st Earl Amherst. It has been renamed as Raja Rammohan Roy Sarani after Raja Rammohan Roy, one of the most famous social-reformers of India. The road starts from Vivekananda Road crossing and extends up to Bepin Behari Ganguly Street crossing via MG Road crossing and Surya Sen Street crossing. On the extreme north lies Raja Rammohan Roy Memorial Museum and on the extreme south lies the Bank of India (Bowbazar).
In the Flesh: three lives in prostitution is a 2003 independent documentary by Bishakha Datta about the lives of three Indian sex workers, written for a family audience. It is a low-budget film set in Calcutta and Mumbai that describes the everyday life of its subjects.
Bigshot is a digital camera designed by Shree K. Nayar at Columbia University's Computer Vision Laboratory for experiential learning. The design was conceived in 2006, went into prototype in 2009, had trials in 2011, and was put into production and worldwide distribution in August 2013.
All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (AIIH&PH) is a pioneering Indian institute for research and training in public health and allied sciences in Kolkata. It was established on 30 December 1932 with assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation. It functions under Director General of Health Services, New Delhi, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India and is now affiliated with West Bengal University of Health Sciences, established in 2003. It also has a rural training centre in Singur and urban training centre in Chetla.
Meergunj or Meerganj is a red-light area in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. infamous for flesh-trade. Apart from local sex workers, many are trafficked from the Indian states of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and the neighbouring countries of Nepal and Bangladesh.
Geralyn White Dreyfous is an American film producer. She has produced multiple documentary and narrative films focusing on social justice issues including The Invisible War (2012), The Square (2013), The Hunting Ground (2015), Won't You Be My Neighbor? (2018), The Great Hack (2019), and On the Record (2020). Dreyfous has been nominated for Primetime Emmy awards.
Mumbai, is a city in India which contains the neighborhood of Kamathipura, one of the largest red-light districts in Asia. India is regarded as having one of the largest commercial sex trades globally. These neighborhoods are so large and popular that Mumbai has been called the "ultimate destination" for sex tourism. The red-light districts or lal bazaars in Mumbai are inhabited by thousands of sex workers including women, men, children, and transgender people.
Smarajit Jana was a public health scientist of the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata. He is notable for his work for the rights of sex workers in Sonagachi. He was an epidemiologist and member of the Indian National Task Force on COVID-19 but ironically died due to Coronavirus.
Ross Kauffman is an American film director, producer, and cinematographer. He has directed Born into Brothels (2004), which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film, E-Team (2014), Of Medicine and Miracles (2022) and Wild Wild Space (2024).
