Why India's 'devadasi' girls face a wretched life in the name of religionIt was once considered a holy calling but a BBC film shows that becoming a devadasi is a direct path into sexual exploitation * Tracy McVeigh
* guardian.co.uk, Saturday 22 January 2011 17.41 GMT
When she was a three, the red and white beads tied around her neck by the adults in her southern Indian village were a plaything for Hanamavva. But they marked out her future; never allowed to be married, she was now ostensibly a "servant of God", a devadasi. Hanamavva had been dedicated to the Hindu goddess Vellamma, an ancient practice which once might have won her a future of comfort and respect, but now doomed her to a squalid life as a prostitute from the age of 13.
"I just wanted to kill myself – I planned to climb to the roof of the brothel and throw myself off but the thought of leaving my family destitute prevented me," she said. It was five years before she could escape, with her two young sons, and try to make a new life for herself. But even then she still had to fend off the constant –sometimes violent – sexual harrassment by men in her village.
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It is an uphill battle in some wretchedly poor provinces where selling a daughter under a divine mandate – often encouraged by the local priest or a powerful villager with an eye on the girl for himself – might be the only way to feed the rest of a family.
Shobha was the youngest of seven children and was dedicated aged eight. At 12, she was taken out of school and her first paying "partner" was her 35-year-old brother-in-law. "No one asked my consent, money talks. Girls like me grow up in living fear of reaching puberty." She was determined that her own daughter would escape the same fate. "The devadasi system isn't about religion. Its about economics. We're just traded like a commodity. I know the pains as a serving devadasi, how exploitative this practice is. We are the victims. What happened to me houldn't happen in another's life. I want to stop this and I decided to fight."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/22/india-sex-exploitation-girls-devadasi