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Demolition of houses in Baina condemned

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, JULY 1. The demolition last month of a large settlement, where hundreds of commercial sex workers and their families lived, at the Baina beach in Goa has been condemned by human rights organisations.

A fact-finding team, which recently visited Baina, told the press here today that women and children had been forcefully evicted. The demolition had been carried out by the Goa Government using force and the people had been asked to accept train or bus tickets to return to their native places, although many of them had been living there for 40 years, they alleged.

The team, comprising members of the National Network of Sex Workers, said the Goa Government had "wilfully ignored" the fact that sex workers were equal citizens and they too had human rights. The main target of this drive, the women, had been asked to return to their hometowns as they were "outsiders" and had no business in Goa, said Meena Seshu of Rainbow Planet, a coalition of organisations working for the rights of sexual minorities, sex workers and people living with AIDS.

Sonali Wayal of Positive People, Goa, said that over 1500 homes, in which between 7,000 and 8,000 people lived, were the target of this eviction. The Government had sheltered some 200 people in a community hall but the conditions there were pathetic. The people were being threatened and beaten and asked to go back to their native States, she said. Shabana Kazi of VAMP, a collective of women in prostitution which is based in Maharashtra, said that women and infants were made to sit in the open, even in rain, without food or water.

Ms. Seshu, who has worked with commercial sex workers for over a decade in Sangli, Maharashtra, said that such an order was unconstitutional. "When we went for our investigation, we were called outsiders and told by the authorities that we had no right to be in Goa. We have a constitutional right to live and work in this country. Is Goa not a part of India?"

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