Born into Brothels

Tonight I chose to watch the documentary "Born into Brothels". Its about a Londoner moving into India's infamous Red Light District to document the lives of women living there. Quickly, it turns into a story of her teaching the children photography and trying to find places for them in schools.

Essentially, because their parents are sex workers (criminals, in the eyes of the government), many schools would not take them . As well, it made it challenging to acquire necessary documents - birth certificates, passports, etc. Even worse, schools required negative HIV tests before they would accept the students. The stigma of HIV in India must be huge, as here we know (although we don't always practise) that HIV is cannot be transmitted through casual contact. The school the journalist found for the girls would not allow the girls to go home, even for things such as a new birth, or a death, or a wedding. They were allowed visitors and had scheduled 10 day breaks three times per year. Yet school is the only way for these children to have a chance to become something other than a sex worker. The girls, even at 10, understood this, as did their mothers. The boys too understood this reality.

In the end, most of the children were not allowed to go to school (by their families), or left school, some, according to their own will, and others at the insistence of their families. The documentary only portrayed the one girl who stayed in school in a positive light. The journalist was upset with the children because some were resistant to all her help, including one boy who became less engaged after losing his grandmother. She can be frustrated that she can't do more, but she cannot except that placing them in schools which give them little freedom will solve all their problems. Education can help break poverty cycles, but these children still need their families. In this case, it may be more that their families need them: these children are very aware of the challenges their families face daily, even just in having food to eat. They know that by being at school, they are not contributing to their family's income, and are in a safer, cleaner and healthier place. It seems that they carry a certain amount of guilt. And so, for the most part, they end up back in the brothels from which they came.

What does all of this say about the world? About breaking poverty cycles and development? The West doesn't have the answers and the problems go so much deeper than can be captured on film or in words. Families have to be the focus of solutions, not just children. Schools have to allow children flexibility, and more importantly, the world needs to care for their families. Women should not ever need to sell themselves to give their families the basics, nor should children have to shoulder the burden of providing for their family. That kind of poverty is unnecessary in a world were so many have so much.