Apne Aap: Stopping Intergenerational Prostitution in India

As I hold the fragile baby named Khushi in my arms, I smile. She looks healthier than she has in the past few weeks. Her life was almost over before it began. She is four months old but the size of a newborn. Born at home to a family of six siblings, her mother was struggling to keep her fed. She almost died of disease until Priyanka and Monika, two staff members of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, came and convinced the mother to take her to a hospital.
Last fall, there was another baby boy the same age as Khushi. He too was born at home to a family of nine siblings. When he got very sick with a high temperature, we pleaded with the mother to take him to the hospital. He was treated by the “village doctor” instead of being taken to the hospital. He died the next day after the “village doctor” said he would be fine. To most people, taking a dying child to a hospital seems like normal behaviour but these mothers, feared being ridiculed, refused many times. The mothers of both Khushi and the little boy are prostitutes.
Khushi’s mother belongs to a community in India that traditionally engages in intergenerational prostitution–the Pernas. Although two years younger than me-in her mid-twenties-her face looks tired and her eyes, though beautiful, are hardened with pain. She was married at a young age (the average age of marriage in India is 14) and after their first child, her husband started driving her to clients’ homes to begin the “family business” of prostitution. ...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - October 1, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs