Mumbai Slum

Some days ago our class had the opportunity to visit on of Mumbais many slums. This one had been since the 90s and were according to me accaptable. The houses were in concrete, there were toilets but the sewage laid open, just as the garbage.


Many of us in the class have felt that we are lacking the field knowledge about Indias problems, we are dayliy beeing told about trafficking, sexselective abortions, slums and child mortality and poverty, but its hard to understand when you never get the opportunity to accualy see this aswell. So it was a very humbling experience to be able to go there.

Our insitute are having a project together with a U.S organization about hiv/AIDS, STI/STD (sexually transmitted infections/diseases) masculinity and health. This is being done through posters, street theaters and discussiongroups and health clincic for men. In India the main numbers of health clinics for reproductive health and STD's are for women, even though the problem even might be more critical for men... for the simple reason that its men who go to the prostitutes..


I read a artical in a swedish paper
( http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/utrikes/did_16178758.asp )
saying that in Mumbai there are 80.000 CSW, commersial sexworkers, whereas 40.000 is to be children... the trafficking is a huge problem, where poor girls from rural areas are being sold/forced and tricked to come to Mumbai and are the forced into prostitution. Mr S, a student at IIPS has spoken to about 250 CSW at several places, and one of them told him that she was sold by her boyfriend at the age of 13 and had during the first night been with 11 men... The fact that this question feels to have a nonimportant label in India makes me crazy! On a dayly bases thousends of women are forced/commersially raped and trafficked and what does the police do? In 2005, 16 men when to trial for trafficking, but not even one singel man got evicted!!!

Im blessed to be born in Sweden, not beeing poor, and having such a radical prostitutionlaw that we have! E