Celebrated at birth, pushed into sex work

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Unlike most communities in India, the Banchhadas in M.P. invest more in their daughters’ upbringing than in their sons’, by giving them better nutrition and clothes, only so that they can force them into sex work and live off their earnings. Branded a ‘criminal tribe’ by the British and now classified as a Scheduled Caste, the community remains on society’s margins as government and NGOs have struggled to break the cycle, reports Mehul Malpani

Updated - August 02, 2026 03:45 pm IST

A girl in a village in Madhya Pradesh.

A girl in a village in Madhya Pradesh. | Photo Credit: A.M. Faruqui

Identities of all sex workers, former sex workers, and their families have been changed to maintain privacy

Sitting in her older daughter’s room, where one corner is covered with maps and math formula sheets, Savitri, a 40-year-old former sex worker, recalls when she began hating her profession. “It was when my girls turned five and seven,” she says. “I had decided that my daughters would never live the life I had. They would live with dignity.”

Published - August 01, 2026 07:25 am IST

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