Briefing Note: 5

The Role of Bollywood in shaping trafficking stereotypes

Movies are crucial in shaping the attitudes of the masses.

The Indian film industry churns out hundreds of films every year. As it claims to reflect 'real life' it reinforces many myths and social attitudes. Sometimes it also challenges many of them in its vastly popular commercial cinema.

Conveniently, most feature films have the wronged woman dead at the end of the three hour saga. A wronged woman can at best look forward to revenge. A sex worker - can she ever be accepted back in society. Bhumika, Tamanna, Dalal, Sardari Begum, Market, Pinjar are some of the other films that have dealt with the subject though the dancing prostitutes are an integral part of many a film.

The 'virgin prostitute' is a myth created by the commercial cinema. Since the roles of sex workers are so popular among the masses, she has to be given social acceptance. Two ways of doing it - establish that she just sings and dances and is otherwise 'pure' or in case she wants to re-join the mainstream of society, just make her die 'while doing a good deed' during the climax of the movie.

Many actresses like to play the role of a sex worker. For some it is a coveted role. Of late Sushmita Sen in Kalpana Lajmi's Chingaari, Rani Mukherjee in Mangal Pande - being sold into the prostitution, dreams of getting away and Neha Dhupia in Julie are replacing the Meena Kumari of Pakeezah, and Sharmila Tagore of Mausam and Rekha of Umrao Jaan.

Add to this the vindictive Manisha Koirala in Market, Kareena Kapoor in Chameli, a more layered story than many others. Sex work has come out of the imaginary grandeur of the Kothas to the streets of Mumbai to the sex rackets of the Middle-East and porn shops of Eastern Europe. The subject of HIV/AIDS though being covered more extensively by the news media has been the subject of movies. Features like Phir Milenge can be counted on fingers.

And, of course, there has never been a feature film connecting sex work - trafficking and HIV.

However, the stark reality of the life of a trafficked person never leaves untouched the film celebrity or journalist who makes the effort to see it. A special correspondent with a leading newspaper said she had visited the GB Road area while doing some stories on child sex workers. "It was the first time I had gone to such an area. I could not sleep for days. I came across a wall. I did not have any answers to the questions they raised. I felt I was just lucky not to be in their situation."

Excerpted from: "Not her real name…", Reporting Trafficking in Persons - A Media Handbook, UNDP Taha project, New Delhi, 2006