Tales from the world’s oldest profession in Pakistan

Prostitution is not legal in Pakistan, but at a time when the widening gap between the rich and the poor has given rise to armed thefts by boys, some girls, too, have taken the extreme step by adopting prostitution to support their impoverished families. And their number is on the higher side due to growing poverty.

Hailing from a small village of Okara district, Mumtaz is a poor woman from a poor family. Her husband’s idleness coupled with the dream of a better future for her children, unwittingly landed her in a ‘dera’ (brothel in local lingo). Such deras shelter female sex workers, who offer their services on and off the premises. Women known as madam or auntie usually run these deras. Having served in the dera for long, a pimp sent Mumtaz to a Mandi Bahauddin dera to help her make quick bucks. For being educated and proficient in basic mathematics, she took no time in becoming the in-charge of the dera. In the meantime, her husband somehow got wind of her activities. The irate husband won her over to visit his village, but fired gunshots in her leg. It followed separation between the two. Mumtaz then became the ‘middle woman’ and began arranging prostitutes for clients on payment ranging between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000.

The more beautiful a girl is, the more price she fetches. Mumtaz holds out an assurance to clients that the girl picked up by them for sex service will stay with them until the time is over. In most of the cases, poverty-stricken parents, siblings or even husbands leave girls or women with Mumtaz for prostitution. They receive money in advance and on a monthly basis. In some cases, girls themselves approach Mumtaz for formally getting into the sex trade for money. They charge between Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 for a few hours from clients, but have to give major chunk of the money to Mumtaz like ‘middle women’. And the girls spending whole night with clients get Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,000, but don’t know what their mistresses pocket. According to Mumtaz, she supplies female sex workers to the deras allover the country, but Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Bahawalpur make most of their clientele. According to her, mostly abject poverty forces girls into prostitution