KOLKATA, India, July 26 (TrustLaw) - Their eyes lined with black pencil and lips painted red, women in sequined saris line the labyrinth of squalid lanes that make up Sonagachi, one of Asia's largest red light districts in the old quarters of this bustling eastern Indian city.
In front of open sewers, they chat on mobile phones and flirt with customers, who follow them into the dark doorways of decrepit brothels, up winding staircases into tiny rooms with just a bed, television and posters of Hindu gods on the walls.
In the global battle against HIV/AIDS, sex workers like those in Sonagachi are a crucial link in a chain of infection that some 20,000 experts gathered in Washington are debating how to break -- but without having foreign sex workers there.
U.S. travel restrictions on visas for sex workers mean thousands of them have been unable to attend the annual International AIDS Conference (IAC), the world's largest forum to discuss policy on fighting the deadly virus.
In protest, sex workers from around the world have been staging a parallel conference in Kolkata -- a five-day "Sex Worker Freedom Festival" to demand an end to the discrimination many face due to their profession.
Kolkata, July 22 (ANI): Sex workers from over 41 countries, who were denied permission to attend the International AIDS Conference in the U.S., held a parallel conference here.
Titled the Sex Worker Freedom Festival, the weeklong conference that commenced on Saturday was organised by the Durbar Mahila Samanvaya Committee (DMSC), and was attended by over 550 sex workers.
The global coordinator of the Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP), Ruth Morgan Thomas, said the U.S. has been hypocritical in not allowing sex workers to attend conference.
"The Sex Worker Freedom Festival is organised because of the US travel restrictions. They prevented sex workers from all over the world from going to the Washington AIDS Conference. We are here to talk about our rights," Thomas said.
She added the conference would provide an insight regarding the rights of sex workers and will help in taking initiatives that would help to eradicate AIDS.