No longer by the lamppost

Phones make me feel safe. The police can’t catch me and people don’t get to waste my time. I don’t have to wait for clients on the roads or pay chunks of my income to my pimp and nobody gets to find out what I do for a living, everyone wins,” Razia, a sex worker from Lahore, candidly talks to Pakistan Today about how her mobile phone has made her profession easier.
“I got a call on the Valentine’s Day, went to a rest house, did my job, took the money and left,” she says, “It is that simple.”
Dubbing it as ‘secure, lucrative and easy,’ the sex workers in the city have left the traditional path of hiring a pimp or waiting for their clients on the roads and are using modern tools like the social media and the internet to expand their business. International donor agencies working on sex trade in Lahore have pointed to the link between the increase in mobile phone and internet usage by the prostitutes and the expansion of their business. Other Non-Government Organisations engaged in the spread of HIV and AIDS in the prostitutes have registered an increase in prostitution also since the phones and the internet provide a good ‘cover up’ to the women.
Owners of brothels have also claimed that the use of technology has made their job easier since it gets harder for the police to track them and they are just ‘a few buttons away’ from their clients. Sources privy to Punjab AIDS Control Programme told Pakistan Today that another reason for the ‘increase’ in sex workers could be the fact that the international donor agencies compel the government to use the term ‘sex workers’ instead of prostitutes and no health or social organisation could claim to ‘help’ the illegal trade.
“We advise them to adopt preventive measures while engaging in sex and then we send the police over to nab them,” the source said, adding “This issue is still a taboo in Pakistan and it is not recognised.”
Imran Khan Lohani, a supervisor of an NGO dealing with women infected with HIV/AIDS, said the UNICEF and NGOs in their different joint ventures had highlighted around 40 areas in Lahore where one or two members of every family were associated with the skin trade. He said approximately 70,000 sex workers, including Female Sex Workers (FSW), Hijras, Men having Sex with Men (MSM) and injecting drug users were involved in this business in Lahore. He said the estimated numbers directly or indirectly involved in this business were about 0.2 million if their clients are also included. “I also have accounts on some forums from where my clients can pick me up,” Shamim, a prostitute, told Pakistan Today, adding “I send an MMS and a price list to my clients via my iPhone.”
“I have my own brothel and a porno website. I also put ads up of my women to attract customers. They see the videos and the pictures and then they come to my brothel,” Kamran alias Kalu, an owner of brothel house in Red Light area of Taxali Gate, told Pakistan Today, adding that the internet had definitely helped his business.
“Foreign clients also find it easier to contact me on the internet,” he said.
MALES HAVING SEX WITH MALES ON THE RISE: Punjab AIDS Control Programme Treatment Coordinator Dr Tayyaba Rasheed told Pakistan Today that compared to female sex workers, the numbers of male sex workers was increasing much more rapidly. She said the only way people could be deterred from joining the business would be informing them of the risk of acquiring fatal diseases such as AIDS and other STDs.
Talking to Pakistan Today, Punjab AIDS Control Programme Director Dr Suleman Shahid said according to the Canada-Pakistan HIV/AIDS Surveillance Project the approximate number of sex workers in Lahore were 23,766. He said there were about 7.2 sex workers for every 1000 men in Lahore. Dr Suleman said male sex workers were quite thinly distributed in the city as around only 5 to 10 male sex workers were found operating at pick-up points or cruising sites.
Pakistan Medical Society Chairman Dr Masood Akhter Sheikh said the rise of sex workers in the city could be judged through the fact that one in every 22 patients visiting different hospitals of the city had a sexually transmitted disease including Hepatitis B and C.
He said children were being forced into this profession and it was a dangerous thing as according to a UNICEF report, 1 in every 3 girls and 4 in 7 boys were likely to be sexually exploited or abused in someway before reaching the age of 18 years in Pakistan. He said the reason behind this raise was poverty, drug addiction, rising incidences of sexual abuses, law enforcement agencies’ failure to curb prostitution, lust for money and most importantly the use of secure modes like cell phones.