There is no solution

Reading 'A Suitable Boy' a number of years ago at our cottage one summer, I kept expecting something to happen.  But no, nothing did.  It was 1,347 pages of detail which, ultimately, led to....nothing.  I was so pissed off because the reviews had been over-the-moon.  Vikram Seth had misled us.

Except for the chapters on the character of Saeed Bai.  Her story was credible.  She was from the "prostitute caste", sort of like the Geishas.  All young girls in this caste are trained from before puberty to be "companions and entertainers".  Who trains them?  Their mothers and grandmothers who have been in the profession for generations.  Prostitution is rampant in India, but it is not now practiced in the cultured way it was by Saeed Bai.  It is now seedy and ugly.  Saeed Bai was a very well-educated and accomplished singer and dancer.  As I said, like a geisha.  Today young girls from hundreds of villages in India are groomed to be prostitutes and the age has now dropped for beginners to nine. 

It's sickening.  Sex-trafficking in India is a $4-billion industry, with three million sex workers -- 1.2 million of whom are under 18.  "A single bare bulb exudes dim light in Suchitra's room, just enough to see the black water stains on the peeling, faded pastel-green walls.  Used condoms lie on the floor.  The stench of urine, sweat and cheap perfume hangs in the air.  Rats gnaw at piles of garbage in the corridors outside," reads an article in The Globe and Mail. 

"Suchitra said she has sex with as many as a dozen men a day for as little as 100 rupees ($1.60).  A concrete slab that takes up most of her room serves as a bed, where she sleeps and does her work."

Prostitutes make 200% more than women in other paying jobs, so how do you stop it -- especially when the police are in on it?  The only promising note in the article is the bit about the increase in the reporting of rape in India, up about 16% in the last five years. 

Not much, but a start.  Overall, however, there is no solution.