Painting Scarlet Letters

Editorial:
That there are sex workers in Gangtok should not have surprised anyone. Absurdly though, when news of a pimp’s arrest and rescue of two girls from a rented apartment here made headlines, it appears to have shocked many. Unfortunately, instead of concern over the social condition which is snaring more victims, the news has had the opposite effect and is colouring perceptions offensively. On Sunday, an example of such over-reaction was displayed by suspicious neighbours who called up the cops casting aspersions on a person who had lady guests at home. The cops responded and took in the “accused” for questioning. No case was registered and the youth returned home.
In a town where neighbours are not known to intervene even in cases of domestic abuse, this exuberance at tracking the activities of single, young and independent people in the neighbourhood is discomfiting because these are mostly by people who are quick to start painting scarlet letters branding others. Now, with the media headlines and our penchant for shallow sensationalism, has given them a toehold to go about moral policing. Many landlords have already started screening enquiries from single, young women more minutely and in some instances, have asked young tenants they are suspicious of, to find some other accommodation. As already mentioned, there are also busy-bodies tattling on “suspicious” activities as well. This is wrong, unhealthy and unreasonable.
For one, women caught in the paid-sex nexus in Sikkim are all victims – sucked into either by their privation or dependence or forced into it by overbearing pimps [as in the recent case] or lured in by the obnoxious amounts of money being thrown around. If they can’t be saved from these influences, then the society at large has also lost the right to target them. This is not to say that “business” be allowed to operate unhindered, but it is important to handle these cases with more sensitivity so that people are not doubly victimised- once by their situation and then again by public humiliation. A mirror needs to held up to the prying eyes spying at localities around town in the wake of the last police bust because the coloured appraisal is making things difficult for young women living on their own in Gangtok. The only working women’s hostel in Gangtok can accommodate very few and every girl who wishes to stay here, struggle and make a life for herself should have the right to do so on her own terms, without having to walk through a voyeuristic screening.