Telling true stories

A newsletter for and by prostitutes gives them a voice.

Though I was raised in this place, I've always resented it. I always wanted to get married and get out of this place. I used to tell my mother, 'Marry me off to anyone but do not ask me to join the line'. I always dreamt of becoming a wife."

This is Veena's story, but it's not unlike the many other narratives you will find in what may be India's first magazine with the voice of prostitutes.

Red Light Despatch is the monthly publication of Apne Aap, an initiative to stop human trafficking through the formation of self-help groups. Muckraking in Nepal led founder and former journalist Ruchira Gupta to making the Emmy award winning documentary The Selling of Innocents.

This was, as she says, a story she couldn't walk away from and she became instrumental in creating an organisation around it. In the five years since it was formally registered as a trust, Gupta reports there are 4,800 members drawn from the prostitute communities of Mumbai, Bihar and Kolkata.

Each month editorial contributions pour in from the labyrinthine bylanes of Kamathipura and Forbesganj in Bihar to Kidderpore in Kolkata. Some editorial discernment is provided by Gupta along with another former-journalist trustee member.

"We try and maintain the narrative structure," says Gupta, "although sometimes it is so non-linear "" not unlike bursts of their own suppressed memories "" that some coaxing is done to get the story out."

There are certain patterns of stories that emerge like protecting family structures. And although there also seems to be a conscious inclination to speak of dreams and hopes of a "pretty world outside", no attempt is made to sugar-coat content.

There are endearing instances of editorial commitment to authenticity through the product. The January issue has two adolescent members interview Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi and when one of the interviewees discovers Ebadi, like herself, is Muslim, she goes "Oh wow."

Red Light Despatch is more an A-4 booklet than a magazine. That is because it advocates a low-cost production model. The newsroom is the central office in each brothel.

'Correspondents' are encouraged to type out their own stories or dictate them to those who have been exposed, through the organisation, to computer literacy. Once accumulated, it is printed centrally, in three languages, and photocopied.

Red Light Despatch isn't only therapy through narrative; it also works as an advocacy project, as a platform for statement making on behalf of the community. Gupta explains that the idea for a community newspaper emerged because attendance at their weekly newspaper reading forums was dropping.

Inquiries revealed that members felt that mainstream media had no relevance to their lives. "Let's face it, the newspapers are not concerned with the marginalised; if a law on prostitution is amended, they don't even come to know of it," she explains.

The magazine has a powerful agenda "" to create a sense of identity lost in systemic negation. In fact, there is no attempt made to conceal identities, so that the physical newsletter then becomes an object of validation.

The other objective met is that of breaking the boundaries of isolation. "Their lives are so ghettoised that a prostitute in Kamathipura doesn't know that her 'sister' in Bhiwandi faces the same issues that she does," Gupta explains.

That's precisely why she is so thrilled about voluntary contributions coming in from prostitute groups in the Philippines and France. "They are relieved to hear theirs is a universal story," she says.

Readership is culled from the vast database Gupta has accumulated from her many years as a journalist and work with the UN in various capacities. Actress Ashley Judd wrote in, commending the issue she read, so did

American feminist icon Gloria Steinem. All going according to plan, the magazine will soon be formally registered and its circulation will go from private to mainstream.

The stories might seem gloomy to some, but Gupta urges that you don't read them out of pity. Says Gupta, "After being portrayed voyeuristically or judgmentally, you can finally hear their stories inside out and not outside in."