Prostitution for Profession

A flurry settlement near the Eastwestern Highway in Kailali district. Badi community dwells in Basi. Here are some women who told us about the dark stories of their lives in the dark room.Badi is a traditionally untouchable Hindu caste in Western Nepal. The population of 7000 Badis is spread across the hilly and upper Terai regions of Nepal. Badi men work as fishermen, keeping most of the catch for their family’s consumption, and make drums and pipe from wood to sell to neighboring villages. Badi women work as prostitutes, beginning in puberty and continuing until they are too old to attract customers, or get married.

The Badi people moved to western Nepal from India in the 1700s, travelling in groups of three families and working as entertainers, staging dance and musical performances and telling stories from Hindu epics. The ousted rulers from these areas and rich landlords provided Badis with housing, land, food and clothes, in turn Badis provided them with entertainment and sex. At this time, Badi women limited their prostitution to these people and some of their relatives exclusively. After the overthrow of autocratic Rana rule in 1950, and a subsequent establishment of the Panchayat system, ousted rulers and landlords in western Nepal were stripped of much of their authority, and their right to charge taxes and keep unpaid laborers. As a result, most of them became unable to continue their patronage of Badis. Badi women thus began prostituting themselves to other men in order to make up for their lost income. The reliance on prostitution for a livelihood increased after the 1960 plague in the hilly regions that brought more people to settle in these regions, bringing in more clients. While the demand for prostitution was increasing, the demand for singing and dancing decreased, thus making Badi women more dependent on prostitution.