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Sangini Cooperative Bank was
the only financial institution in Mumbai to offer sex workers access to
savings and credit. Now that the bank has closed, the women are left
with only two options: hide their money or risk losing it to
moneylenders and con men.
For the 10 years it was open,
Sangini Cooperative Bank (center) gave 5,000 sex workers access to
savings, credit and insurance when no other bank would accept their
money.Puja Changoiwala
MUMBAI, India –
Dressed in a black, cotton nightgown, her lips painted a dark pink,
28-year-old Uzma* leans against a streetlamp in Mumbai’s Kamathipura, Asia’s second-largest red light district.
The sex worker’s target for the day is six clients, which will make her
1,500 rupees ($23). The amount will cover her day’s basic expenses:
daily rent to the owner of the brothel she works in and her food. The
rest she will sew into a blouse she doesn’t use and hide it away in
her trunk.
“Money needs to be hidden,” Uzma says. “In the past, clients have
beaten me up after they learned I was hoarding cash, took the money and
fled. Even my boyfriend tends to get violent and takes off with
the money.”
It is only recently that Uzma has had to resort to hiding her money.
Until a few months ago, every time she had a client, she would walk to
the Sangini Cooperative Bank nearby and deposit her earnings into her
account. Sangini bank, which got its name from the Hindi word for
“friend” or “companion,” catered specifically to sex workers, offering
them access to financial services when most conventional banks would
turn them away.
But Sangini struggled to make money and was forced to close in
November 2017. Now Uzma and 5,000 other sex workers in Kamathipura who
used the bank are left with no place to store their “dirty” money.
“Most of these women were sold into sexual slavery by their relatives
or pimps,” says Maya Lama, 57, an activist working with sex workers
in Kamathipura.
“They do not have birth certificates, school leaving certificates or
proof of residence – documents that are required to open bank accounts
in India. Worse, regular banks have asked us to keep sex workers away
since other customers protest against banking with them.”
Sangini, which launched in Mumbai in 2007, was only the second bank
of its kind in the country, following a similar initiative in Kolkata.The
bank let sex workers open accounts with no minimum deposit requirement
and offered savings accounts to homeless girls. It had a small staff of
10 volunteers, also sex workers in Kamathipura, and three or four
collection agents, who would visit brothels to pick up deposits from
account holders.
“Collection agents made all the difference,” says Shilpa Merchant, former national coordinator of the Washington D.C.-based NGOPopulation Services International, which initially funded Sangini.
Many sex workers are not allowed to leave their brothels until they
have paid back the amount their madams spent on “purchasing” them, a
goal made almost impossible as madams add rent, food and electricity
bills to what the women owe. “The numbers keep spiralling. It’s years
before the women are able to repay the amount and leave the brothels,”
Merchant says. “With no access to the outside world, collection agents
became saviors for the women.”
‘More Than a Bank’
When Sangini first opened, Merchant says they hoped to have at least
150 accounts registered during the first year. By the end of the first
day, they had already registered more than 100.
“It was more than a bank,” says Mumzura Bibi, 40, a commercial sex worker who had an account with Sangini for eight years.
“There were instances when women would get arrested for illegal
soliciting, and bank employees would withdraw money from their accounts,
bail them out. They’d even come to hospitals to deliver money whenever a
woman was in need. They also counseled us in money management [and]
issues pertaining to our sexual health.”
A
sex worker hides her face from the camera in one of the bylanes of
Kamathipura in south-central Mumbai, Asia’s second-largest red light
district. (Puja Changoiwala)
Riziya Thakur, 35, was trafficked to Kamathipura from Kolkata nine
years ago. With the money she saved in her Sangini account, she bought a
house and a few acres of farmland for herself and her three children.
“The bank let me save my money, and secure my children’s future,” she
says. “Now, with nowhere to keep the money, I pay daily installments to
a moneylender. And the rest I end up spending as it comes.”
Anjali Desai, who worked as Sangini’s bank manager from 2012 until
the bank closed, says most sex workers are in debt, owing money to
pimps, brothel runners and moneylenders who charge them interest rates
as high as 100 percent. The bank, she says, helped the women save the
little money they had and make 3 percent interest on their savings.
“There was a 62-year-old sex worker who arranged money for her son’s
wedding through her savings. There was another who could pay thousands
of rupees in doctor fees for her heart ailment because she had savings
with the bank. Now, they’re stitching up the cash in their clothes and
pillow covers,” Desai says.
Initially backed by Population Services International for two years,
Sangini shut for three months in 2009 when it ran out of funding. Then
the India 800 Foundation, a Delhi-based NGO supported by the Ethnic Minority Foundation, U.K. stepped in and the bank opened again.
But it proved unsustainable as a business. One month’s running costs
would eat up almost a year’s worth of profits. The bank also lost a
substantial amount when it offered interest-free loans to the women
around five years ago, many of which were never paid back. In mid-2017,
the foundation withdrew its support and the bank had to cease
operations. (The Kolkata bank, which is run entirely by sex workers, is
still open.)
“We sent out tens of proposals to garner funds for the bank, but no
donor was forthcoming. The moment we mentioned sex workers, they would
walk away,” says Narayan Hegde, chairman of India 800 and trustee
of Sangini.
No One They Can Trust
Originally launched by HIV awareness
activists who realized day-to-day survival was a bigger concern for sex
workers than contracting the disease, the bank quickly became a route to
financial inclusion for part of the population that is overlooked by
government policy. In 2014, the Indian government started the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana to ensure everyone affordable access to financial services like banking, credit and insurance. According to the government’s progress report, as of the second week of March, women made up more than half of the scheme’s 313.4 million beneficiaries.
But Hegde says the benefits often don’t extend to sex workers since
those women don’t have the documents needed to open bank accounts. And
many of those who do have the requisite identification aren’t even aware
the scheme exists.
“Several of them are not comfortable visiting regular banks since they don’t feel welcome there,” Hegde says.
After
Sangini bank shut, Asha Rai, who has spent three and a half decades as a
sex worker,
gave her money to a local postman for safekeeping. He soon
disappeared, taking her life savings with him. (Puja Changoiwala)
With nowhere to put their earnings, Kamathipura’s sex workers have no
choice but to hide their money or entrust it to someone else, making
themselves vulnerable to fraudsters. Asha Rai, 55, has spent three and a
half decades in the profession. After the bank shut last year, Rai,
like other sex workers, was handed all her savings. Since she doesn’t
have a permanent home, she was clueless as to where to store her money.
She decided to give the cash to a postman working in the area for safe
keeping. Soon after, he disappeared with all of her money.
“Tens of women had trusted the postman with their money, and all of
them ended up getting duped. We approached the police, but they couldn’t
find him,” Rai says.
“I’ve been pushed back 40 years – every penny I’d made was lost. The bank was one of the few entities sex workers could trust.”
With nowhere to put their earnings, Kamathipura’s sex workers have no
choice but to hide their money or entrust it to someone else, making
themselves vulnerable to fraudsters. Asha Rai, 55, has spent three and a
half decades in the profession. After the bank shut last year, Rai,
like other sex workers, was handed all her savings. Since she doesn’t
have a permanent home, she was clueless as to where to store her money.
She decided to give the cash to a postman working in the area for safe
keeping. Soon after, he disappeared with all of her money.
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