How sex trade is expanding through Kolkata’s spas in industry-starved Bengal

“Ki lagbe, college girl, schoolgirl, housewife (What do you want, college girl, school girl or housewife)?”

Asks a female voice responding to a call made to the phone number of a ‘spa’ picked up from a pamphlet stuck on a lamp post in Kolkata. Such pamphlets have recently become ubiquitous in Kolkata, stuck on walls all around, including bus stands, cinema halls, and paan shops.

Call any spa after picking up the number from any of these pamphlets and a shrill voice on the other end of the line loses no time in making the offer: “Ek ghonta, du ghonta, massage, sex, ja korte chan, parben (One hour, two hours, massage, sex, whatever you want is possible).”

In a bid to unravel the dark underbelly of this flesh trade in Bengal’s capital city Kolkata, when this reporter made such a call to one such spa and clarified that all he wanted was a massage, he was told, “Uf sudhu massage (oh, only massage). 1,200 taka ek ghonta, onyo kicchu korle extra (Rs 1,200 for an hour, anything else extra).” The person working at the spa relentlessly explained if the customer changes his mind, the service will be upgraded.

Spa posters have become ubiquitous in Kolkata.

After an agreement that only a massage was needed, the writer was informed, “Sulekha bus stande chole ashun, amader lok thakbe (come to Sulekha bus stand, our man will be there).”

At the bus stand, the mobile rings, “Ami Bishu, apni phone korechilen spa te” (I am Bishu, you called our spa). A man suddenly appears after confirming the writer is the same man who called. The pickup is quick and smooth like the rendezvous of an intelligence officer and the prized source in a hostile terrain.

As Bishu dribbles through the narrow bylanes opposite the huge apartment block where once stood the Sulekha Ink factory, one is reminded of Chuni Goswami and Surajit Sengupta dribbling past defenders in the prime of their youth.

Finally, as the writer enters a dim-lit flat on the ground floor of a three-storey house, Bishu demands a tip and plays the usherer. As Bishu leave, a plump lady with a gaudy lipstick and loud makeup calls out to her brigade, “sobai esho, jara free acche” (all those who are free, come over).

As the young women fall in line, the plump lady says, “Dekhun kake pochondo hoy (see, who you would want).” Once the choice is made, she says assertively, “Full payment ta kore din (make the full payment).”

Minu*, a dark lithe girl, guides the writer to a room.

Local Bengalis prefer the spas so that they can avoid the ignominy of visiting brothels.

As the conversation unfolds, Minu says she is a housewife who lives at Joynagar in south Kolkata. “I am into the ‘massage to sex’ trade to ensure food and education for my children. My husband is a bus conductor and barely earns enough to pay the house rent and take care of “mash koraki” (monthly food and groceries).”

When the massage is done, Minu asks, “aar kicchu sir (anything else sir)?”

On hearing a no, tears well up in her eyes. “Kicchu extra deben sir, okhane je 1200 dilen, ami sudhu 200 pabo (will you give something extra sir. Of the Rs 1,200 you gave sir, I will get only Rs 200.”

As Minu gets her tip, she opens up. “Madam has to pay the police, the house rent is three times the normal. She has to pay some toughies who guard the joint and play the escort like Bishu. So, she can only pay us Rs 200 for an hour. Our extra income from the session depends on sex work, I am not hiding that,” she says in a hushed tone.

“I come at 8 in the morning after a one-hour commute in a crowded train. My husband knows what I am doing but accepts it as fate. I leave this place at 8 pm. If all goes well, I make nearly Rs 1,000 per day.”

The shift from brothels to spas

With these ‘special spas’ spreading all across Kolkata, from posh localities to middle-class residential areas to slums, it has become easy for people to find sex next door.

“It helps people hide the fact that they visit sex workers. This is the biggest advantage of spa sex,” says 48-year-old Biswarsanjan Karmakar*, who lost his wife to Covid three years ago, and is a regular at the ‘spas’.

“It is going for a massage for me; for the girl who comes from suburbs, it is like going to work in a shopping mall; for the owner, it is legitimate parlour business. The real thing is well covered and both police and toughs make easy money with political patronage. The cops by looking the other way and the toughies by playing the escort and protector,” Karmakar says.

The nature of business has transformed. Sex trade in Kolkata is not restricted to red-light areas like Sonagachi where close to 50,000 resident sex workers live. “Nobody takes note when you walk into a neighbourhood massage parlour, but if someone sees you entering Sonagachi, your reputation is gone,” Karmakar tells The Federal.

“The sex trade, once brothel-based is today totally decentralised. It is like ordering from an online store rather visiting a big store.”

Ironically, besides decentralisation and easy availability, Kolkata’s sex trade, easily one of the biggest in Asia, is the only industry in industry-starved Bengal that is expanding.

When former Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya's efforts to attract investment to the state, like the famous Tata's Nano car factory, failed in the face of opposition agitation, Bengal lost its big chance to reclaim its pristine primacy in Indian industry. The present government of Mamata Banerjee is working on strengthening small and medium industries, but unemployment is rising.

A Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee protest demanding legalisation of sex trade.

According to a Niti Aayog report titled ‘National Multidimensional Poverty Index: A Progress of Review 2023’, 11.89% of West Bengal’s population lives under multidimensional poverty. While agriculture-related schemes and various other freebies have drained the government’s finances, its debt constitutes more than a third of its state GDP, while its tax revenue has often accounted for less than a third of its total annual receipts in recent years.

In West Bengal, more than 4 lakh women comprise 18 per cent of the total persons engaged in own enterprises while 2.5 lakh comprise 15 per cent of total employment in establishments. But for every woman employed, three to four are out of work.

With more than 60,000 women in brothels like Sonagachi and Free School Street (now Mirza Ghalib Street) and 200 to 300 registered and unregistered spas, no wonder the trade is booming.

Two spa ‘managers’, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that both the client base and the service provider profile has changed. “The brothels are flooded with girls from Nepal and Bangladesh or from Hindi-speaking states like Bihar and Jharkhand while the spa massage girls are local Bengali women, ranging from college girls to young housewives. The brothel visitors are also outsiders, mostly from Bangladesh, or Bihar and UP, while local Bengalis prefer the neighbourhood spas,” said a ‘spa’ manager.

Bengal Police estimates about 30,000 Bangladeshi and 15,000 Nepali women are part of the state’s sex trade, working mostly out of Kolkata brothels.

The other spa ‘manager’ said the less smart girls manage some extra money with tips but the real smart ones who are tech savvy turn to online soliciting. “They do video sex and even blackmail some gullible customers by threatening to circulate compromising videos. These girls hook customers into video sex sessions which are recorded. Then the threat goes out — pay or go viral. Most end up paying to save their reputation.”

Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee

Kolkata has the distinction of having the world’s largest trade union of sex workers — the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (Unstoppable Women Coordination Committee) which boasts of close to 65,000 sex workers in West Bengal.

Women demanding an end to human trafficking and legalisation of sex trade play holi.

Established on February 15, 1992, in Sonagachi, Kolkata’s largest red-light district, with an estimated 11,000 sex workers, Durbar has been fighting for the legalisation of sex trade and rights of sex workers. The organisation has also been active in combating human trafficking, and children in the sex trade.

Masterminded by a famous public health scientist Smarajit Jana, Durbar also championed the cause of “safe sex” to prevent sexually transmitted deceases such as HIV/AIDS.

Jana died in 2O2O but left behind a network of 48 Durbar branches and 51 free clinics for sex workers across West Bengal, which are run with support from organisations such as the Ford Foundation and the National AIDS Control Organisation. This organisation also help Durbar in its initiatives like networking, rights protection and creating alternative livelihood for sex workers.

Durbar has campaigned hard for the abolition of ‘The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956’ (PITA), and legalisation of sex work. Many sex workers now have voters’ identity cards, health insurance and even bank accounts. In 1995, its consumer cooperative society and micro-credit programme, ‘Usha’ (literally meaning light), ensured that the government of West Bengal altered the state's cooperative law to register it as a sex workers’s cooperative, instead of a 'housewives cooperative' under the prevalent state laws.

By 2006-2007, small saving of its 5,000 members lead to an annual turnover to ₹9.75 crore (US$1.2 million), with loan of ₹2.12 crore (US$270,000) distributed amongst its members, which also helped break the monopoly of local moneylenders, who would charge interest rates of up to 300%.

Durbar also hosted India’s first national convention of sex workers on November 14, 1997, in Kolkata, titled 'Sex Work is Real Work: We Demand Workers Rights'.

But the thousands of 'massage girls' in the spa industry enjoy none of the protection and rights that Durbar has managed for the brothel-based sex workers.

“These women constitute the dark underbelly of Bengal's burgeoning sex trade,” says Women Rights campaigner Debjani Sardar, who left work at a spa when pushed to do “fun job” for men.

(Some names in the story have been changed to protect identities and privacy.)