Born into Brothels

Born into Brothels is a documentary made by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman.

Zana spends a couple of years in Sonagchi, Calcutta where She developed relationships with the children of the sex workers in the red light districts.

Her intensions were to take some still photographs of the women who work there. She would live in the brothels for months at the time to understand the environment in which the women lived.

There she drew the interest of the children by their fascination of her camera.

She thought it would be a great idea to see the world through the children's eyes and taught them how to use a camera.

She had to overcome obstacles and bureaucrats to make this happen.

She started to hold weekly workshops for the children to learn camera basics. They used inexpensive 35mm cameras.

She organised to hold photo exhibitions to raise money for the education of the young photographers.

This then started her journey.

Introduction

Through a Childs Eye

The Problem

There are over 7.000 women and girls who work in the red light district as prostitutes in Calcutta and they are looked down on and have a low standing in society.

The people with even lower standing than the prostitutes are their Children.

Their life is full of poverty, abuse and despair and they have a little chance of getting out of their environment and it will be hard not to follow in there mothers and grandmothers footsteps. To work in the red light district.

Their parents are considered criminals and therefore the children are not accepted into private schools.

A lot of the children do not go to school regularly. They will have to go to state run institutions. This leaves them in the same environment and this will force them to work to help out the family. Some of the children get up to clean other peoples houses at 4 o’clock in the morning and are still running errands till 11 o’clock at night. This will leave little time for school.

The compulsory age to attend school is 14. A lot of girls will be forced into prostitution at this stage and will have no choice to continue their schooling.

It is well documented that trafficking for young girls is still happening in India or they marry of their children to a man who will eventually set them up as prostitutes. In this documentary there was already talk of one of the fathers who tried to kidnap his daughter so he could sell her.

The Government

The legislation says that children are not allowed to work until they are 14 years of age.

Living in that environment they are almost forced to work to be able to survive. I do not see any evidence of government parties stopping this or stopping prostitution for 14 year olds.

They also say that compulsory schooling stops at 14. This means that there is no support for the children to continue their studies.

In my eyes a fourteen year old is still a child and can not make informed decisions about her future. So I believe the government is lacking in this area and are not having the best interest for the child.

David Poland says;“The government is comfortable - off the record, of course - with the brothels, which serve as a release valve for the rather uptight community. The brothel owners want to keep their businesses going. And the children born into that world rarely get a chance to see anything beyond that world, so they naturally acclimate to their surroundings. A perfect eco-system, were if not for the fact that the women, children and ultimately even the men, are living in a cage without bars”

The worst kind of victims are the ones who do not even realize that they are victims.

To go to Boarding schools

For the children of prostitutes it is hard to get into boarding schools.

They need their birth certificate.

The need of a Ration card. This is an important document everybody needs, to be able to be part of society in India. To work, open a bank account to get a passport, to prove ones citizenship etc.

An Aids test. To make sure they are healthy.

These family have few or no records of their children. So there is a lot of red tape to go through to get all the papers, before they can approach a boarding school.

Resistance comes when a family is afraid of losing another source of income.

Boarding schools are considered in their society as orphanages and therefore make the parents feel like even bigger failures.

Gour 13

Kochi 10

Shanti 11

Suchitra 14

Tapasi 11

Manik 10

Puja 11

Avijit, 11

I used to want to be a doctor. Then I wanted to be an artist. Now I want to be a photographer.

8 Reasons to Care

Avijit’s Story

When the documentary was filmed Avijit was 12 years old and living with his grandmother and drug addicted father.

Ross Kaufman says Avijit is the most talented of the children. And feels he is a true artist “This kid is a genius”. He seems like most artists because he has a big ego.

After Zana organized some of the pictures to be part of an exhibition in New York and invited some photographers to meet the children. Avijit is chosen to be part of Amsterdam’s World Press Photo exhibition where only 9 children from the entire world are chosen.

His mother a daughter of a prostitute and a prostitute herself is burned alive by her pimp. “An accidental fire” These so called accidents are so common that there will be no investigation. After all they are “Criminals” themselves.

Avijit goes thru a grieving period and does not want to go to school or has much interest in photography

They have to go thru a lot of red tape to get his passport to go to Amsterdam.

You can follow your Dreams

On his way to the airport he asked the driver to drive slowly.

“I won't get there if there's an accident”, he says. "I won't fulfil my dreams."

In Amsterdam he gets to meet and talk to children from around the world. He also gets to experience the Dutch life style.

He gets excepted into the Future Hope foundation a boarding school for boy’s. Where he will learn English.

Then he enrolled in to a private school in New Hampshire and also enrolled in the Real Stories summer workshop in Utah. He himself did a documentary on the culture and differences between American teenagers and Indian’s.

He would like to study science and wants to become a doctor in the future.

He keeps in contact with his friends in Calcutta. Luckily the majority are still in school.

He would like to help his friends and wants to show them that they too have a choice.

Negative View

In a article from Samar (South Asian magazine for action and reaction) written by Svati P. Shah

Svati says that Oscar-winning documentary “Born into Brothels” ignores local organizing efforts and instead gives us more images of white saviours.

He goes on the tell that this is an old story of heroic white westerners saving poor brown children who do not know any better than to persist with their dead end lives.

He believes that the documentary portrays that only the white westerns can or will save the children.

He feels that the parents are betrayed by only showing them from there bad side and that the family is perceived to be only there to profit from their children.

Partha Banerjee who worked on the film as an interpreter feels the film portrays that the filmmakers took the children out of a horrible environment of poverty into a better world. He does not however agree.

He says that he has visited the young children a couple of times in the last years and believes most of the children are back in there environment and worst off then they were before meeting Zana.

Positive View

The children learned a new skill, “photography”.

Regardless of what Zana’s intensions were. The children had the opportunity to get a good education.

To be able to go to boarding school they had to be living away from home. This got them out of the environment.

By building a new school there is a better chance to help even more children.

They money raised from the photos and documentary will go to their education.

They raised almost $100,000

Most of all she raised worldwide awareness to their plight which will allow many more solutions.

Their life skills will make them more determined and more successful if guided well.

The Solution

She has set up a non profit company called Kids with Cameras, to help more children in the red light district.

She raises money from the art exhibitions (the children's photo’s) to invest in the future of the children.

She is building a safe house for the children of prostitutes. So they have a chance to learn, get out of there environment and become the leaders of the next generation.

Most of all she recognised that it is the “Care of the Child” that ensures future generations have CHOICE!

Future Hope Foundation

It started in 1991 as just a place to drop in for street children. To provide the basics for boys on the street. Now it is a school for boys. The school relies on donations.

They find that a lot of the street children do not like closed spaces and have difficulty with concentration. Some have only very basic skills and do not even know how to draw or write.

Therefore they designed an informal play learning environment, for these children, for the first year.

They have more then 150 children in there school which goes from kindergarten through to year 10.

Future Hope about street Children

The children who are living on the streets are given there freedom early.

Most people have misconceptions about them.

Most people feel that they have no money, do not achieve anything and are basically pathetic.

The people at Future Hope feel that all they need is a loving caring home life. To keep them away from drugs and other criminal activities. Show them that they can achieve as much as any other child.

They belief Future Hope is living proof of change in the children.

Sabera Foudation

Sabera is a foundation founded by Spanish Nacho Cano and now has a girls home in Calcutta.

There aim is to transform the young girls into independent empowering women with good self confidence.

They provide the girls with food, a roof over their heads and offer an education.

They offer vocational therapy through teaching Sewing, Music, Dance and Yoga. They are also teach computer skills.

They cater from ages 6 months to 16 years of age. This is already 2 years after the compulsory school age.

They will be given the same opportunities that privileged children take for granted.

The After Affect

By making this documentary Born into Brothels the awareness level of millions of children all around the world who live without hope will now beckon for others to find ways to change their future.

By teaching the children a skill. This builds up their self esteem and therefore they are

not afraid to try something new.

Through photography the children learn how to tell their own story and think about there own dreams and how to get there.

Photography Workshops To teach the children how to use the cameras in troubled parts of the world. The money raised will be used for education. (the sale of their work)

Media Projects To keep the children's work in the media. Make their work into books or show it in exhibitions or on film. So the audience can learn and be inspired to act.

Legacy ProjectsTo develop an educational legacy for the children of Calcutta born into brothels. By building a school that promotes education, the arts and leadership.

Where are The Children now?

When the documentary ended three of the eight children were attending private schools.

A couple of years later six are attending private schools.

Two are still living in the brothel and are taking computer and English lessons.

The Real Achievement

She brought about a paradigm shift in a world that didn’t know it had choices.

Change in the care of the child will only come from those who believe that creative child care practices must be implemented when there appears to be no solution.

Conclusion

Only if she saved one child, we must remember that this child will touch thousands of other lives.

Even if she does not save any children, she will inspire others to take up the cause.

It is in the care of the child that our future rests.

When someone does something nice for you, remember to pay it forward. You never know how something small could change a persons life.

Reference

The documentary “Born into Brothels” www.right-to-education.org www.kids-with -cameras.org www.hbo.com/docs/programs/born_into_brothels/index.html movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808600823/info www.samarmagazine.org/ whirledview.typepad.com www.mediarights.org/news/articles/outreach_journal_ www.movienet.com www.lehigh.edu advance.uri.edu www.moviecitynews www.metacritic.com ae.miami.com www.reel.com www.thevillager.com www.emanuellevy.com www.offoffoff.com Sabera foundation Future hope foundation Photo’s taken of www.kids-with -cameras.org and www.aarp.org

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