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Indian village holds mass wedding to save women from prostitution

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Karen Whiteley
WVoN co-editor

A Gujarat village held a mass wedding last week in an attempt to save the women involved from a life of prostitution.

Wadia, known to locals as the ‘village of prostitutes’, has a tradition of prostitution which has existed for centuries.

The women of the village do not marry and work as prostitutes in nearby towns.  Some do so willingly, others are forced through a mixture of poverty and coercion. Many men in the village live off the women’s earnings and act as pimps.

Another aspect to the tradition however, is that if a women does marry, or becomes engaged, she can no longer be forced into the sex trade.

The wedding was organised by Vicharta Samuday Samarthan Manch (VSSM), a non-governmental organisation working with marginalised nomadic communities.

The event was the culmination of five years’ work by the organisation gaining the trust of the grooms involved, who previously viewed any girl from the village as unworthy of marriage.

Eight brides were married while another 12 girls became engaged at the event.

According to Mittal Patel of VSSM:

‘Marriage means that the young girls will be saved from the traditional profession of prostitution.

‘These marriages are likely to bring about a social revolution for the women of this community and would be the beginning of the end of a regressive tradition that they have been following [for] generations.’

In addition to marriage,the women will require further assistance to end the cycle of sex work.

‘Alternative employment to the women is necessary such as teaching them embroidery, boosting irrigation for their fields and for them to do animal husbandry. This will end this cycle. No woman wants to do this by choice,’ said Patel.

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