Sonagachi 5.52

Sonagachi is reputedly South Asia's and hence simultaneously India's largest red-light district. It was started by British East India Company as british soilders' wives were in England. The East India Company used to bring local widows to the area for sexual exploitation. Sonagachi is located in Kolkata, India. Its area contains several hundred multi-story brothels and an estimated 11,000 sex workers (2012). Sonagachi is located in North Kolkata near the intersection of Chittaranjan Avenue and Shobhabazar with Beadon Street, about one kilometer north of Kolkata's Marble Palace area.EtymologyThere are some legends that this area was owned by Darkwanath Thakur. He and some local zaminder started brothel business here.The area was named after a saint called Sanaullah and later the name was changed to the current one. Sanaullah or Sona Gazi was a Muslim saint. His tomb still remains as Mazar there.Current situationToday, several NGOs and government organizations operate here for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases (STD) including AIDS. The book Guilty Without Trial by the founders of the NGO Sanlaap based much of their research into human trafficking in India on this area.The Sonagachi project is a sex workers' cooperative that operates in the area and empowers sex workers to insist on condom use and to stand up against abuse. Run by the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee It was founded by public health scientist Smarajit Jana in 1992 but is now largely run by the prostitutes themselves. While some are crediting DMSC with keeping a relatively low rate of HIV infection among prostitutes in Sonagachi—5.17% of the 13,000 prostitutes in Sonagachi are estimated to be HIV positive —this HIV rate is in fact no different than the average HIV rate for female prostitutes in India, which is estimated to be 5.1% (the HIV rate infection among prostitutes as well as among the general population varies widely by region in India).