InterPress News Service (IPS); 11 August 1997.
Meena Menon

The huts are hidden behind bamboo screens. But their occupants sit on chairs by the railway line, frilly dresses over even very young bodies, their lips darkened with lipsticks.

This is Railway Bazaar, one of the red light areas of Dimapur, which has some 500 commercial sex workers, according to conservative estimates. In the state of Nagaland, Dimapur is one of the north-east's most important trading centres, with a large migrant population and a big military base, both of which provide sex workers with regular business.

Many of the girls are very young. DP who wanted to be identified only by her initials, has been a sex worker for 11 years. She says she is originally from western India, from Baroda. "I was visiting Delhi with my relatives and I got lost in a big crowd. After that I have never seen my family. Somebody brought me here. I want to leave. I hate this place, this work and the food," she says, her eyes brimming with tears.

Her friend is from Tezpur in the neighbouring state of Assam. "I thought I would lead a happily married life but I was sold here for 1,500 rupees (40 dollars). What can I do now. I would like to leave but where can I go."

Dr Lanu Aier, medical officer, STD/AIDS, at the Dimapur Civil Hospital, who runs a clinic in Railway Bazaar, said there were small pockets in Dimapur where the flesh trade was concentrated and many of the women belonged to a floating population which travelled to Assam and back and also to other states.

Their clients, from the army or truck drivers, travelling salesman, policemen and migrant workers, also travel back and forth. From villages across India to Nagaland and its neighbouring states, they belong to the high-risk category of people likely to be infected with the deadly HIV/AIDS virus.

Detailed studies have not been done, but according to dermatologist Dr Vizolie in Kohima, the state capital, there were 451 cases of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) in 1994, of which six were HIV positive. In 1995, the number rose to 12 and in 1996 to 14, while the number of STD cases touched 775. Of 100 antenatal mothers tested, five were HIV positive.

Dr Vizolie said the rising trend of STDs was alarming and among the affected, the men were mostly married while the women in most cases were single.

"In the past in Naga society, sex was respected. Now it's abused," says Dili Solomon, director of Prodigals' Home, an NGO that works with drug addicts and sex workers in Dimapur.

According to a report by Prodigals' Home, red light areas in Dimapur are only about 10 years old. Before that, sex workers from Bangladesh and Nepal, lived around the railway colony. Naga women have turned to prostitution only very recently.

Social workers think the huge army presence in the state, deployed to control the separatist Naga rebellion, has contributed to a rise in the cases of prostitution in some parts of the state.

An anthropologist explains that commercial sex is indeed new to Naga society. "Our society was not that strict, once a girl attained puberty, everybody accepts that she develops a friendship with a member of the opposite sex. There is a healthy relationship between the sexes, they mixed freely and developed friendships. Traditional prostitution as we know it, did not exist at all," said Dr Anungla, head of the Anthropology department, Jotsoma Science College, near Kohima.

But today, a restless younger generation, which has grown up in the shadow of a long-drawn struggle for Naga independence, is experimenting with drugs, sex and alcohol, she pointed out.

In Kohima, the capital, there is no red light area. However, multi-partner sex is increasing and girls as young as 12 have been detected with STD. Says dermatologist Dr Vizolie the prevalence of 'herpes simplex' is very alarming, and evidence that prostitution is no longer alien to Naga society.

Doctors at the Naga National Hospital in Kohima worry that the AIDS virus could also be spreading through casual multi-partner sex with the vigorous anti-drugs campaign in the wake of the alarming spread of the AIDS disease among drug addicts in Manipur, a neighbouring state, starting to reduce the intravenous transmission of the virus.

A 100 kms north of Kohima in the town of Mokokchung, Dr Senti Longkumer, said there were seven doctors treating STD cases in the town and they received 20 cases a month at least.

The root of the problem was not always commercial sex. Though police in Kohima and elsewhere said rape was virtually non- existent, it is evident that the reality is quite different. Doctors at the government hospitals said they have had cases of minors being sexually abused.

"Nobody will talk about rape or sexual abuse, though that does not mean it does not take place," said one journalist.

S.S. Tripathy, until recently the police chief of Dimapur, was candid about the issue. "The line distinguishing prostitution and casual sex is very thin here. There is a high incidence of casual sex and we cannot pin it down as prostitution always. Sexual promiscuity is a way of life here, though there is a taboo attached to prostitution. The army and CRPF (para- military) presence is adding to the increase in prostitution." (End/IPS/mm/an/97)

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