Radhika's Story by Sharon Hendry

Author:Sharon Hendry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Radhika’s Story: Surviving Human Trafficking
ISBN: 9781780090368
Publisher: New Holland Publishers UK
Published: 2011-03-28T16:00:00+00:00

Radhika’s new ‘home’ immediately conjured up for her an image of a prison within a slum and made the former brothel in Silchar, Assam look like a palace.

Radhika says: ‘I went directly to the fourth floor and met the female gharwali or brothel owner. Maya Tamang was a fat, fair-skinned woman in her late 30s. She was dressed in an expensive yellow and green sari. I scanned her face for any sign of emotion but there was none. Her vacant look terrified me because I instinctively knew it meant she had become indifferent to the evils I was about to endure. I had seen this look before. At that point, Raju prepared to leave. He looked me in the eye and gestured towards Tamang, simply saying: “She will teach you everything you need to know”, before turning on his heels and disappearing into the chaotic street scene outside.

‘Tamang greeted me briefly and asked me to confirm my name before immediately summoning another woman into the room. She was middle-aged and fat with long black hair and she had a large mole on her cheek. Her slanted eyes suggested to me that she was from the Himalaya region of Nepal. It depressed me to meet yet another of my country’s “sisters” who had turned against her own people. I knew immediately by the way they both looked at Rohan, what her role was going to be.’

Radhika was learning fast. As in the previous brothel, Rohan’s presence was considered a distraction from dhanda. The modus operandi of the slum brothel owners was to remove any children from their workers. This not only enabled the girls to function more efficiently, but also gave the Madames something to hold over the girls.

This time Radhika watched as her son was taken away from her for the second time in his life. She couldn’t speak or move, so heart-wrenching was it to watch him go. He didn’t put up a fight. There was no sobbing or screaming like the first time they had parted. He just followed his new ‘surrogate mother’ silently out of the room with his head bowed. He had developed an unhealthy trust in strangers and it broke Radhika’s heart to witness it. As he disappeared from view, she felt the blood rushing to her head and a loud ringing noise in her ears. Her legs gave way beneath her and she collapsed on the floor.

A sharp tug on her wrist jolted Radhika back to harsh reality. She barely had time to wipe the tears and mucus from her face before Maya Tamang, the Sonagachi brothel owner, was barking orders into her face.

In a low, masculine-sounding voice, she began to familiarize her latest slave with the house rules. ‘Listen carefully. At 8 a.m., you will be ready for work. You will stand outside and lure the customers in. Take lunch briefly at 1 p.m., tea at 3 p.m. and dinner at 8 p.m. You will have meat every three days and rice and dhal in between.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.