Walking into Sonagachi feels like stepping into a different world: narrow lanes stacked with multi-storey brothels, the hum of lives lived in the open yet hidden away, and behind closed doors a story of survival, exploitation and resistance. Nestled in North Kolkata, the neighbourhood of Sonagachi (literally “Sona Gachi” or “tree of gold” in Bengali) may sound poetic, but for some 10,000–15,000 (and by some estimates more) women, girls and transgender people who work in its brothels it is a challenging front line of the sex trade in South Asia.
Historically, Sonagachi emerged during colonial Calcutta as one of the few tolerated red-light zones: brothels clustered near railway lines, docks and busy thoroughfares. Its legend traces to a Sufi saint “Sona Gazi” whose shrine gave the locality its name. Over the decades the area morphed into a vast, complex ecosystem of commercial sex: staircases lined with small rooms, madams (“mashis” in local parlance) who manage the units, and the women themselves who negotiate clients, debts, risks of violence, disease — and the hope of something better. Inside, the organisation Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) — set up in Sonagachi in the early 1990s — has worked to organise sex workers, provide peer-education on health, lobby for rights and build a sense of community solidarity.
The reality, however, is far from romantic. Many of the women describe their path into Sonagachi as one of economic desperation: leaving rural Bengal or neighbouring states, or crossing the open border from Nepal or Bangladesh, promised a wage, but ended up sold, trafficked or trapped in debt-bondage. In Sonagachi you will find a significant number of women from Nepal — the New Indian Express reports that recent political and economic turmoil in Nepal has knocked the lives of these women sideways, leaving them unable to reach their families or send money home. A PDF study from 2005 similarly documents how a swathe of Nepalese women entered brothel-based prostitution in Kolkata after being trafficked under false promises.
Inside the brothels, women speak of “kaam” (work) that they did not choose but for which they have no “exit” (nirgam) route. Many are stuck servicing clients, managing debt, and dealing with bruised dignity in a society that regards them as “fallen” (patit) or tainted. Research shows that 90 % of commercial sex workers in red-light areas are caught in debt-traps that cannot realistically be paid off in a lifetime. Health risks loom large: early interventions in Sonagachi found the HIV prevalence was lower than expected for a brothel district thanks to peer education and condom programmes — still, the threat of sexually-transmitted infections remains.
Culturally, Sonagachi is both visible and invisible. The women here often observe religious rituals — a recent story highlighted how sex workers in Kolkata offered prayers to the goddess Durga during Durga Puja, hoping for protection, strength and the chance of something better (mukti). At the same time, the lanes behind the markets and guesthouses remain cut-off from mainstream society: little political voice, very few protection mechanisms, and widespread stigma. The recent update to voter-rolls in West Bengal (“SIR” revision) triggered panic among sex-workers who feared being excluded because many lacked documented parentage or stable address.
In the face of these odds, some in Sonagachi are fighting back. The cooperative bank set up under DMSC in 1995, Usha Multipurpose Cooperative Society, helped women save money, take low-interest loans and assert rights such as voting (they secured voter ID cards in 2007). Education programmes for children of sex workers, micro-credit schemes and campaigns against trafficking show the grit and hope in an ecosystem built around marginalisation.
But what remains is this: Sonagachi is a mirror of stark inequality and gendered injustice in modern India, where a woman’s vulnerability can be compounded by migration, lack of papers, caste and class, and by living and working in a place like this. The lives of the sex workers are marked by an unrelenting daily grind: clients who refuse condoms, brothel-owners who demand debts are paid, police harassment, health scares and the spectre of human trafficking. One worker quoted in a past story described the negotiation thus: “If I force the condom, he will just go next door.”
In many ways, Sonagachi remains a city within a city. The Bengali phrase “boula jon” might apply loosely — “inside the world of women” — but here it is a world defined by choice stripped away, survival forced on, resilience built in the cracks of exclusion. The golden tree may stand above its legacy, but beneath its shade people still fight, hope and sometimes succumb.
For a visitor or a writer, the story of Sonagachi is not one of glamour but of hard-poverty, lost dreams and quiet endurance. It is a location of human rights struggle, of hidden histories, and of an economy that operates on bodies and hopes. Coming face to face with Sonagachi invites discomfort — and the recognition that in the shadows of Kolkata’s hustle, thousands of lives continue that many refuse to see.
Spicy Auntie has walked the lanes of Sonagachi more times than polite society would admit. And let me tell you, my darlings, nothing in those neon-lit alleys shocks me anymore — not because the suffering isn’t gutting, not because the exploitation isn’t obscene, but because I’ve seen the same story replayed in Bangkok’s Patpong, Manila’s Angeles City, Jakarta’s Kali Jodo, and Phnom Penh’s Toul Kork guesthouses. Asia’s red-light districts may wear different masks, but the script is painfully familiar: poverty, patriarchy, migration, and a world that prefers to look away.
I’ve sat on rickety wooden benches drinking overly sweet chai with women who arrived in Sonagachi at 14 because a “job” in Kolkata sounded better than hunger in rural Bihar. I’ve hugged Nepali girls whose traffickers stole their passports and their childhoods. I’ve shared cigarettes with trans sex workers who dream of being hair stylists or makeup artists but cannot even get a bank account because their ID doesn’t match who they are. And yes — I’ve had tense, eye-to-eye conversations with the pimps and the mamasans. Don’t kid yourselves, sisters: plenty of women run these brothels too. Misogyny is an equal-opportunity employer.
But between that suffering, I’ve also witnessed fierce, incandescent strength. Cooperatives like DMSC, small rights groups, peer educators with more courage than half the politicians in Delhi — these women save each other’s lives every night. I’ve helped raise funds for medical care, legal assistance, emergency shelters. I still support some of these groups monthly because change doesn’t come from sermons; it comes from solidarity.
And yet, every time I go back, what hits me hardest isn’t the sex trade — it’s the hypocrisy. Society loves to enjoy the labour of these women in the dark, then curse them in the daylight. Police shake them down. Politicians ignore them. Neighbours pretend they don’t exist. Clients, of course, escape every moral judgement. Typical.
So here’s Auntie’s blunt message: Sonagachi exists because we allow it to exist. Because inequality exists. Because hunger exists. Because patriarchy exists. Because the demand exists.
You don’t have to “approve” to care. You don’t have to “agree” to see the humanity in every woman, every girl, every trans person forced to survive under red lights.
Open your eyes, my loves. This world is real. And if we refuse to see it, we become part of the cruelty that keeps it alive.