JANAMAITHRI POLICE AND SURAKSHA PROJECT UNITES TO REDUCE THE VULNERABILITY OF FEMALE SEX WORKERS

[BEST PRACTICE DOCUMENTATION UNIT OF KSACS]

Harassment and violence towards sexual minorities like female sex
workers and MSMs are common and it often causes blockage in effective
outreach of Targeted Intervention Projects. The atrocities increase
the vulnerability of these groups in turn reducing their capacity to
negotiate for safer sex practices. If the obstacle of violence and
harassment is prevented effectively on time, it will provide a
conducive environment for high risk group members to exercise their
safer sex choices independently, by recognizing their rights, dignity,
and autonomy. It will also lift the morale and boost the self-esteem
of these sexual minority groups. All these will consecutively help
them focus more on their health, specifically in relation to STIs and
HIV/AIDS.

Operational Guideline issued by National AIDS Control Organization
(NACO) for the implementation of Targeted Intervention programme
suggests launching a Crisis Response Team to act in time to all the
issues of harassment and violence reported against female sex workers
and other high risk groups in the context of HIV/AIDS. It is expected
that the crisis response interventions in TIs will certainly increase
outreach to the members of HRGs which in turn will strengthen the
NGO’s/CBO’s relationship with them and help to gain their trust. It is
also expected that genuine crisis response will facilitate the
establishment of good therapeutic rapport between field workers and
members of high risk groups, helping communication on safe sex
practices and available services.

Almost all the Targeted Intervention Projects in Kerala initiated
crises response system and a response team to prevent violence and
harassment like verbal abuse, arrest on false charges, physical abuse,
sexual assault, etc. come from the general public, police, local
goons, local leaders, clients, within the HRG community itself, etc.
Though all Projects tried to include all the ingredients in the crisis
response system, it has yet to start functioning properly in many
projects due to various known and unknown reasons. Poor net working
of the project implementation team with local police is one of the
major reasons among them.

Walayar Valley Lions Suraksha Project that works among female sex
workers in Palakkad District has set a replicable initiative in
ensuring the cooperation of Police in establishing crisis response
system. The Project could ensure the active participation of the
community police named ‘Janamaitri Police’, in their crisis response
team. The Janamaitri Police themselves agreed to provide their phone
number in the ‘crisis card’ that circulated among the female sex
workers in the district , so as to enable direct call to the police in
case of a crisis. Palakkad, being the border district, female sex
workers are accustomed to cross border sexual encounters as they are
highly mobile. Often, they face problems from the part of their
clients, truckers, middlemen, etc. Whenever a crisis happens, the SWs
can directly contact the Janamaitri Police or the Helpline number of
the CBO provided on the crisis card. Upon receiving the information of
crisis, both the Janamaitri Police and the CBO team will discuss the
issue and take reciprocal actions to address the issue. On an average,
3-5 crisis calls are being attended by the Janamaitri Police per week
from female sex workers in the District. Similarly, many calls are
being attended by the CBO helpline number which was managed by the
crisis response team.

‘For the past six months we have not charged any cases against sex
workers under the ITP or IPC Acts. At the same time we helped several
of them from the viciousness of their clients, local goons, middlemen,
etc,’ says Mr. Radhakrishnan, Community Relation Officer of Janamaitri
Police, Palakkad. It is interesting to note that some of the street
based sex workers have laminated the crises card to keep it safely as
they believe the crisis card will help them in any emergency
situations.

It is obvious that the involvement of the Janamaitri Police in Crisis
response raised an incredible trust among the FSWs to the crisis
response system of the Project. It will certainly improve their self-
esteem as well as their negotiation capacity for safe sex practices.
Ultimately, it will support the behavior change process of the female
sex workers in the district.