Malayalam Archives

Greetings. I got married at a very young age. at the age of 17 itself. It was a love marriage. Em… after marriage, a few years later, my husband was out of work, he used to be a daily wage earner. Eventually we had children – two children. Since my husband wasn’t able to earn wages to take care of our children, I began to get involved with my husband’s brother – my brother-in-law. We then managed to strengthen and develop our family. I soon became established doing sex work. Then my brother-in-law died in an accident. After that, I asked my husband to try finding a job in order to look after the children… *pauses and tears up*

My children used to cry of hunger *voice shakes* and from then on I started to go outside for work. My husband did not go to work till our children were around 10 years old… Also, my husband’s relatives and my relatives used to always fight and since it was a love marriage against the wishes of my relatives, my family members don’t take care of me. They say – “You went and acted as per your wishes, so now you should experience this and deal with it.” This work gave me courage – the courage to show my relatives that I can live well despite marrying someone I wished to marry.

While I was working as a sex worker, I had a chechi (a term in Malayalam, used to refer to an old woman who is like a sister). She informed me about a scheduled meeting for sex workers as part of an HIV project at a medical college. She told me, “I don’t know how to talk to people but you can engage with them. So you should partake in that meeting.” So I went for two consequent days and then attended the monthly meetings for two months. Then at this **** Sir from *** organization started coming to that Government medical college. He asked me – “Do you  know how to speak in Tamil?” I told him – “I studied in Malayalam but I can speak in Tamil.” He then taught me to read and write in Tamil. That is how he then asked me to join as a peer worker. He said – “If you are able to work as a peer worker, then you have to find sex workers in the area. Take them to the hospital, get them tested once in three months, then one test in six months. On testing, if they are diagnosed with HIV, then I am supposed to take them to the medical college hospital and get them started on  A.R.T (antiretroviral therapy). You should also buy and distribute the medicines and check if they adhere to the therapy and if they take medicines correctly, throughout the months. The therapy is begun only after the CD4 test so there is all this work involved.” Since I got involved in the peer job, I got monthly wages for the work done – a monthly wage from ***. That is how I began to see sex work – it is a labor only no! Just like how people would go for carpentry jobs or masonry or construction work, or work on a contract, and then carry loads for a living – all of these are forms of work, so then this is also a job only no, so thinking like this gave me courage. They gave us courage. In general in our place, a sex worker gets paid around 500 INR but through this we get 1000 INR. So with this… then my husband also started going to work properly. So since I used to take people to Government hospitals for these tests, I began to explain to my husband that the work I do is a job. I don’t tell him that I go for sex work. I tell him that I am working on an HIV project and I step outside of home with courage. That is how I worked for over 20 years with ***. ***… today, they are well-known and in all things, they encourage me to speak up, even outside like in Mumbai, Kolkata, Maharashtra, Delhi… even recently we went to a place, I forget the name… everywhere, I got this courage from ***. *** gave me the courage I have – I didn’t know how to speak properly, I didn’t know how to assemble people and speak in front of the public… They taught me and trained me to speak. I have done all sorts of training… um… peer training, counselling training, sex-worker training… All kinds of trainings I have knowledge about and conducted… I got courage because of all these trainings. When they ask me if I am willing to attend any meeting, I go willingly with courage.

My children grew up. One son and one daughter. I got my son married at 21 and built him a house as well. I also got my daughter married at 21. My son has two kids and my daughter has two kids. Now, when I say I am part of this HIV project, I feel proud, because we can meet complete strangers who we have never met before and they only become our companions, our kin, no! Many people living with HIV are of our own communities only no… See when we come here, even with pain on our minds, we come together with happiness and experience some wellness when we meet. The only difficulty I feel is not knowing the language. When I have to speak to the group, it is difficult to communicate and I am unable to express myself openly to them. I would like to understand what they are saying… That is the only difficulty.

I did sex work and faced a lot of difficulties all this while and only in the last 6 years I have not faced much difficulties. My children got married – I got my daughter married off. Even though I have joined this work, I don’t do it all the time. Once or twice a month, I go for this work because if I get too involved – my children now have families so we have to live well together – so they may see and be suspicious…

But I have come to understand and will consider that sex work is also legitimate labour. And there is only happiness for me now…