Kandapara evicted sex workers demand right to get back home
The evicted sex workers of Kandapara brothel in Tangail Sadar, one of the largest red-light zones of the country, have demanded they be given back their homes.
They made the call to the government of Bangladesh at a human chain programme organised in front of the National Press Club in the capital today.
“The authorities are evicting us being influenced by a local powerful group,” said Shahnaj, a sex worker removed from Kandapara. “We want our homes back.”
The sex workers requested the government’s immediate attention in the matter.
In the past, influential quarters have tried several times to dispossess the land at Kandapara from the possession of these sex workers condemned into prostitution.
This morning, Mahbub Hossain, deputy commissioner of Tangail, visited the Kandapara area and assured the victims of “proper rehabilitation” and denied the involvement of any influential group.
Primarily, the sex workers will be moved to a nearby safe home sponsored by a non-government organisation (NGO) “on humanitarian grounds,” he said. “We have rehabilitated around 50 sex workers.”
The local administration along with other NGOs and rights groups will provide these sex workers with housing, education, food and employment, he added.
However, the official did not tell as to why the sex workers were being relocated from one of the biggest prostitution centres of the country that has been in existence for the past 200 years.
Now, the area has been cordoned off with a sign-board that said the land of Kandapara would be given back to their “original owners.”
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