A sacrifice for you

A typical American would look at the Devadasi community or commercial sex work in India with the mindset of prostitution, sex slave, sex work, or trafficked women. All of these term are true in some sense for the foreign browser, however, did the reasons behind the work ever considered to be a freedom of choice? In many cases for the Dalit women in India, sex work are more of a choice than forced labor.

One Devadasi women’s life story brought a different view on this topic. She was dedicated into the system at three months old because her family was at the dedicating ceremony and it needed a fourth girl to fulfill the dedication; therefore, her parents gave her up. Although the Devadasi system was viewed as an honorable system where the girls were dedicated to the gods, it has turned into a work of girls giving men their pleasurable needs. The Devadasi system is now illegal in India; she explained that she wants to get married now but cannot because she is viewed as a dirty and men do not respect her for being a Devadasi. After being introduced to Visthar in Koppa, she is now aware of the different ways that can better her life. All she could hope for is that her daughter does not follow her path and instead get a good education to follow up with the world. And by joining Visthar was a big step for her because they provide her with this hope.

This story reminds me of my mother and her sacrifice for our family. As a child she worked very hard to help her family get food and the necessities to survive each day by working all day in a field in Laos. She also managed to survive the journey through a jungle filled with Hmong-killing Laos militants and the Mekong River to successfully reside in Thailand. After a year, both my parents were admitted into the United States in hopes that her children would not live the harsh and poor life she did. Her long over-time work hours and dedication to provide her children with basic needs like food, water, and transportation to school to name a few led her to where she is now. Her way of finding peace and happiness in her life is providing her children with what she believes will get them through society by working extra hours at any job thrown at her even undocumented “under-the-table” jobs.

I see the connection between the Devadasi women and my mom; they didn’t really have a choice but to to survive in the environment that they were born into. Both looked forward to seeing their children succeeding or at least not go through what they did by providing them with whatever they can do to fulfill this hope of theirs. I see both as very powerful people because they took charge of their life and took whatever challenges that came their way either it was bad stigma in society or long working hours.

Not everyone in sex work or illegal work signifies a desperate need to get out of it. It may be the only way to better their life for the children or other reasons. It also depends on how corrupt the government is in that society. In India’s case, sex work is better than cleaning toilets and sewers, which pays much lower, than sex work which pays more in the opinions of most sex workers. So what will you say about this?

I say that due to my mom’s hard working life, it has led me to be in India now. Without her support in taking hours off work to participate in field trips at school, sending me to school because I missed the bus, providing the unnecessary demanded school supplies for school, and sending me to college I would not be the women that I am today. Even though she couldn’t help me with math homework or revise my paper for class, I feel that her sacrifice has brought me a long way; therefore, I believe the Devadasi or sex worker women’s children will very much benefit from their hard “dirty” life.