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Tracking the sex workers along the roads of Lahore city and exploring the unsympathetic social behaviors in social GIS aspects

S. H. Moqaddus Kazmi
Subject Specialist, Punjab Government Education Department, Lahore
M.Sc Geography, GIS, Economic, Political Science, Ph.D Scholar(University of Education).
Email: Moqaddus_kazmi@hotmail.com



Introduction
Sex is a bitter or sweet reality that cannot be overlooked and its legal efforts are the security for the survival of human being. Pakistan is announced as Islamic country and has a specific law that prohibits prostitution. Under the Suppression of Prostitution Ordinance 1961, running a brothel, enticing or leading a woman or a girl to prostitution and forcing a woman or a girl to have a sexual intercourse with any man are punishable crimes.( The Constitution of Pakistan-Chapter-2). But this law found only in the books and its violation is going on all over the Pakistan. In each and every city of Pakistan, we found the red area of sex workers near bus stand or railways stations. Before partition, royal families also visited these areas and these areas were also the pivot of Urdu literature and etiquettes and many sex workers also become fame in the field of poetry. (Montgomery 1860).The civilization and cultural impact on Lakhnao and Delhi Lahore have deep impact on these red areas. But these red areas are not also fulfill the sexual requirement but they also perform dance in wedding ceremonies and in Fairs which is part and parcel of sub-continent India. The renown poets of sub-continent also regularly visited these areas to recharge their emotions and institutions about their poetry.( Saeed, 1984). In july 16,1977, when General Zia ul Haq demolished the elected democratic government, he began to prolong his regime in the name of Islam. In this scenario, in the name of Islamic reforms he also ban the red areas of sex workers in all over the country. But this interdict spread all over the city areas and now this work has been alienated into different classes of sex workers from high class “call girl” to lower class sex workers.

The Lahore city which is rich cultured and historic city of multiple races has one of the sever problems of sex workers. It is mega city with a dense population of 7.5 million located at 74-20' E longitude to 31-34' N latitude.(GPS). There are about 3000 sex workers who are standing along the road side, some step forward or backward from the any bus stop with showy dress and masking face with third class costumes and perfume giving alluring looks. They usually appear after sunset and disappears or picked up by different category of clients after 11 O clock. There are very rare chances are to find any sex workers after midnight. Though these road side sex workers are available 24 hours on the road but the peak timing of these workers started from sunset. In some cases sex workers also play a lucrative role for corrupt police personals to trap the client and fleece a mass amount of money in the name of Islamic “Hadood Laws” which has a severe punishment like stone to death. About 5% of these sex workers are eunuchs and 8% are boy who indulge in sex entertainment.

The research on sex workers is being done by many scholars but mostly they confine there precious work on only red areas of the Lahore city. Many NGO with collaboration on international donors like UNICEF, Action Aid, HIV/AIDS Agencies are also working on prominent areas for their health education and environment. The road side sex workers are pointed out time to time in news papers but this only depict as a sever evil that is collapsing the Islamic ethics and society but such feature did not explore the bitterness of ground reality.

The Problem
Exploring the status of road side sex worker and unsympathetic attitude of common people against them. To investigate the push and pull factors that forced them to stand for sex entertainment in nominal wages.

Objectives
The objective of the research were as follows:
  • Tacking and marks the most probable location of sex workers on the road of Lahore city with GIS tools like GPS.
  • Revealing the family background and family size of the sex workers including dependent and independent family members.
  • Finding the fascinating factors that pull sex worker on the road.
  • To make a proximity analysis to find the distance between the location of job and the home where they dwell.
  • Seek out the root causes of this problem and find out the psychosocial and geographic factors by spatial social GIS analysis.
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