Prostitutes of God (Documentary)

SARAH HARRIS: The first thing that strikes you when you come to India is a sense of extreme contrasts. While some people are still shitting on train tracks and eating banana leaves, others are drinking Frappuccinos and wearing Gucci sunglasses. Along with this feeling of progress and advancement, there is still this undercurrent of tradition, religion and superstition and an even more deeply rooted caste system. I didn't realize how stark these contrasts between new and old India were until I came here last year to research an article on sex trafficking. And on my first day here, I met a group of temple

prostitutes

who told me about this ancient Hindu system where prepubescent girls are dedicated to a goddess and, for the rest of their lives, become sex slaves to the temple. .

The name of that system is devadasi. This train is a bit like The Darjeeling Limited, except we have cockroaches sleeping under our beds. And there's no one serving sweet lime. Hello. So, in the beginning, being a devadasi had nothing to do with prostitution. In medieval India, they were glamorous temple dancers and had a high social status. They performed sacred religious rituals and danced out of loyalty in the name of a goddess called Yellamma. Over the centuries, the bond between the devadasis and their temples gradually diminished, along with their social status. They became paid mistresses of priests, then kings, and later wealthy landowners.

In the 19th century, Western missionaries attempted to abolish the tradition, calling it grotesque and immoral, driving devadasis underground. Today, devadasis are no different from ordinary street

prostitutes

, who cater to drunk truckers and bored businessmen. Although the practice has been illegal for more than 20 years, up to 3,000 girls continue to be secretly subjected to it each year. We traveled to the border town of Sangli, which straddles the two southern Indian states of Karnataka and Maharastra. Its red light district is home to hundreds of devadasi sex workers, and that afternoon, Anitha, one of the most successful brothel owners, invited us there.

She is a member of an NGO called SANGRAM, which fights to empower local sex workers. The communication was quite painful as our interpreter Somashekar was having trouble with her English. Are everyone who lives in the houses next door, on this entire street, also sex workers like Anitha? Yes. SARAH HARRIS: So the whole neighborhood. And are those who live around here all friends? They are all friends? SARAH HARRIS: So when the customer comes in, the door closes. And this... SARAH HARRIS: She's not a client? Is she also a sex worker? SOMASHEKAR: Sex worker. SARAH HARRIS: And she uses this room?

SOMASHEKAR: SOMASHEKAR: That's another one of Anitha's friends lying there. Hello. SARAH HARRIS: Is this what he's saying? SOMASHEKAR: I am. SARAH HARRIS: You. SARAH HARRIS: Tell me again. So are you talking like you? Are you telling me... Somashekar? SOMASHEKAR: Huh? SARAH HARRIS: So you're a sex worker. SOMASHEKAR: I am a sex worker. SARAH HARRIS: You're a sex worker. And you came to Anitha's room and... SARAH HARRIS: Yes. SARAH HARRIS: You work in this room and Anitha works in this room. SOMASHEKAR: This room. SARAH HARRIS: So everyone works together. OK. SARAH HARRIS: The whole place is completely different than what I thought it would be.

I imagined these anonymous, seedy brothels that looked like hotels. And in fact, there are children running everywhere. There are women washing clothes, preparing lunch. And it feels like a pretty close-knit little community. The ladies of Sangli wouldn't let me go without showing me the temple around the corner. It seemed that wherever there were brothels, the goddess Yellamma was never far away. For Anitha and her friends, being a devadasi was nothing to be ashamed of. Sex work was her choice. They had condoms, the power of numbers, and SANGRAM looking after them. But these were only a lucky few.

For the vast majority of devadasis, prostitution is not an option. It is imposed on them and, in most cases, their parents. Like most Hindu legends, the story of the goddess Yellamma is long, complicated and surreal. No matter how many times we heard it, it still didn't make much sense. But it seems to be something like this. The whole ordeal begins when her husband orders her son to cut off her head after discovering her spying on two playful people by a lake. After a complex process of death, reincarnation, and a bunch of fat, blue-skinned Hindu gods in gold bikinis, the goddess Yellamma was born.

She fled to the villages of Karnataka and became a cult symbol for the lower Hindu castes. So after a really sweaty 10 hour train journey, we finally reached this town called Mudhol in North Karnataka. And it is in the villages around here that we have been told that they have the highest concentration of devadasi women in India. It is estimated that 23,000 women in this part of India have dedicated themselves to the goddess. And about half of them will have turned to sex work to feed their families. SARAH HARRIS: We travel to the outskirts of this dusty transit town to meet two devadasi teenagers.

SARAH HARRIS: Madigas are considered dirty and polluting and are only allowed to work in the most humble positions, such as sweepers, sewage collectors and, of course, prostitutes. When we took the girls shopping, they seemed terrified that the upper castes would recognize them as devadasis, and they did. SARAH HARRIS: It was surreal to see the reaction they had. The merchants did not even look them in the eye. SARAH HARRIS: Now it seems that this religious ritual is just a justification for poor families to pimp their daughters. SARAH HARRIS: It was strange standing with Belavva's family on the floor of her one-room cabin, knowing that it is also the place where she has sex with clients while her brothers and sisters wait outside.

BALAVVA: SARAH HARRIS: Karnataka is one of the largest sugarcane producers in India. Hundreds of trucks pass through towns like this every day. The roadside can be a scary place. Horny drivers and bored farm workers gather here, looking for ways to spend their wages. They are one of the main transmitters of HIV throughout India, spreading the virus across the country's extensive road network, putting girls like Mala and Belavva at risk of contracting this deadly disease. SARAH HARRIS: Back in Sangli, we were invited to meet another devadasi named Pandu. We were told she was different, but we weren't prepared for how different she was.

SARAH HARRIS: Every morning she spent two hours polishing brass statues of Yellamma and blessing her beloved shrine. SARAH HARRIS: Can you ask him to show me how to make chai? Powdered tea. Wow, that's a lot of sugar. Damn hell. SARAH HARRIS: Still? Going, going, going, going, going. SARAH HARRIS: Can we see him dancing today? We have to persuade him, talk to him sweetly. Oh wow. Wow, Pandu. Who is this boy? You put a saree on her head. SARAH HARRIS: He has money between his teeth. Your best friend, Sudir. Wow, what a nice photo. Wow thank you.

SARAH HARRIS: Later that day, at our hotel, Pandu showed us his favorite Bollywood videos and the famous Sangli condom trick. SARAH HARRIS: You're about to witness a demonstration of the classic Sangli condom trick that Pandu just showed me when his male clients don't want to use a condom. SARAH HARRIS: I think I lost. Pandu may want a better life for his daughter, but for many other devadasis, there is a lot of money to be made recruiting the next generation. Now we are on our way to another village, about five kilometers from Mudhol. And most of the women living there belong to the Madiga caste, so most of them are vulnerable to becoming devadasis.

One of the interesting things about this town is that we can go to the house of a devadasi woman who has made a real career out of prostitution. And she has built this huge house in the middle of town as a kind of symbol of her success. So that she can become a role model for the other girls living in the village that becoming a devadasi is a good way of life. The legendary owner, Champa, doesn't even live here. She is too busy cheating in Bombay. Inside, shiny display cases of unused tableware line the walls as a testament to her success.

There were groups of village children wandering around the house to gawk at the flickering color televisions and the shelves full of broken electrical equipment. The message is clear: prostitution is a lucrative business. This is the necklace, the muthu, that devadasi women wear when they dedicate themselves. And his is hanging on the wall of her mud hut. She is an old woman named Shavvavva and one of the oldest devadasi women in the village. And they just told me that she brought the first radio to this town. No one had ever seen a radio before she brought it here.

Walking around the village, we noticed Yellamma's presence everywhere. The locals told us that all the devadasis in the area were preparing for the full moon festival, which is apparently the most important event in the Yellamma calendar. After hearing so much about the famous full moon festival in Saundatti, we drove four hours out of town to enjoy the first day of this month-long Yellamma celebration. Right up there, in the center of that great arch, is the face of the goddess Yellamma. That is her entrance to her temple here in Saundatti. Over the course of 28 days, more than half a million people will pass through the doors of the temple.

A shanty town arises around the famous Yellamma shrine. The place is filled with eye-catching Hindu icons, Bollywood music, sticky sweets and the symbolic red and yellow colors of goddess Yellamma. Hello. Nice to meet you. We're not allowed... we're not going to take the camera inside. No. SARAH HARRIS: This is the Yellamma temple, which is like the main attraction of Saundatti. It is here that for hundreds and hundreds of years, all the devadasi girls have come for their dedication ceremonies, which are now illegal. And we're not allowed in, so we just have to shoot from outside, but you can see hundreds of people walking around, praying to the goddess.

Everything around the temple is very, very colorful, and you have all these red and yellow dyes that the women put on their foreheads. And this is to represent the goddess Yellamma. And the green bangles are in rows along the side of the road here, and they are the bangles that they put on the girls during their dedication devadasi ceremonies. And tonight is the celebration of the moon, and they will break their bracelets as a symbol of widowhood. This is also one of the places where women traffickers come and pick up potential prostitutes. Brothel madams will travel from big cities like Bombay and Pune and come to Saundatti for these festivals to pick up young girls for trafficking.

Amid all the religious fervor, there was a clear sense that secrets were being hidden behind closed doors. Families are offered generous remuneration in exchange for their young daughters, often under the pretext of a better future. But this is where you will find the next generation of devadasi youth who become prostitutes. What we really wanted to do was see an actual opening ceremony, but it didn't look like it was going to happen. And like a bunch of pale Westerners with cameras, we didn't exactly go unnoticed. Fortunately, we met a former devadasi and social activist named Sitavva. She agreed to host a mock opening ceremony to give us an idea of ​​what really goes on behind the scenes.

SITAVVA: SARAH HARRIS: Leaving Saundatti, we were disturbed by everything we had seen. The bright colors and energy of the festival were overshadowed by the sordid reality of a religious ceremony that condones child prostitution. Our last stop before returning home was in the small town of Sarol, where we had arranged to meet three generations of Devadasi women, all from the same family. When we arrived, we were told that the daughter had recently died of HIV. SARAH HARRIS: India is a land of extremes, polarized by extravagant new wealth and ancient poverty. Everywhere you look, a battle is raging between the traditional forces of religion, caste and superstition and the inevitable force of Western capitalism.

Nowhere are these clashes more evident than in the plight of the devadasis, where religious devotion has been exploited for commercial purposes. The devadasi tradition is destroying families and communities, generation after generation. And with the advent of AIDS and HIV, the practice now comes with a deadly price. And today, any vestige of the cultural origins of the devadasis has virtually disappeared. All that remains is a system that turns children into prostitutes and their parents into pimps.