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Mumbai bank aims to help sex workers out of poverty cycle

In the heart of Mumbai's red light district several prostitutes sit on brown plastic chairs in a narrow room waiting to do something many have never been able to do before -- deposit their savings in a bank.

The small bank, set up in the notorious Kamathipura area, is the initiative of the sex workers and aims to help them break the vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation that keeps them indebted to brothel owners.

The simple act of squirreling away some money was previously out of reach for many customers of the Sangini Women's Cooperative Bank. Prostitutes are often shunned by regular banks or lack residence documents or birth certificates officially required to open an account in India.

Now, for the last three months, they have been able to enter the bank daily to deposit an average of US$0.25 to US$0.50 and dream of things they will do as their savings grow.

"We may not have house papers, but we also dream," said Indra Jai, 40, lured from a southern village 20 years ago with promises of a job in Mumbai and then forced into prostitution. "We should get respect, our money is also good."

Jai said she dreams of buying a small house and a tailor shop in her village and paying for her 19-year-old son's college education.

The government estimates there are 3 million prostitutes in India, many of whom start as children lured by traffickers. Others are teenagers sold by impoverished family members to brothel owners.

They spend up to five years working for free in dingy, airless rooms to repay the brothel owner's investment. To survive they often turn to moneylenders charging exorbitant interest rates.

Thoughts of breaking the cycle drives the bank's more than 900 customers.
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