When Pinky saw an
unusually large crowd outside her room on the night of November 8, she was a
little startled. She peeped cautiously; the place is notorious for violent
crimes—assault, rape, gang rape, even murder.
Pinky is one of the
more than 30,000 sex workers who do business every night at Sonagachi in
Kolkata, Asia’s biggest and most crowded red-light area.
Then she saw her pimp
collecting money and seating people in a kind of first-come-first-served queue.
She recognised m
is a development journalist based in Kolkata. She has been reporting from red-light and prostitution-impacted areas across India and several other parts of the world for over 15 years. She has received the Chameli Devi Jain award, The Statesman Rural Reporting award, and The Brief Media award, among others.
