[music playing] sarah harris: the first thingthat strikes you when you come to india is a sense ofextreme contrasts. while some people are stillshitting off the side of railway lines and eating frombanana leaves, other people are drinking frappuccinos andwearing gucci sunglasses. along with this feeling ofprogress and moving forward, there's still this undercurrentof tradition and religion and superstition and aneven more deeply ingrained
caste system. i didn't realize quite how sharpthese contrasts between new and old india were untili came here last year to research an article aboutsex trafficking. and on my very first day here,i met a group of temple prostitutes who told me aboutthis ancient hindu system where prepubescent girls arededicated to a goddess, and for the rest of their lives,they will become sex slaves of the temple.
the name of that systemis devadasi. this train's a little bit likethe darjeeling limited, except we have cockroaches sleepingunder our beds. and there's no one servingsweet lime. hello. so in the beginning, being adevadasi had nothing to do with prostitution. in medieval india, they wereglamorous temple dancers and held high social status.
they performed sacred religiousrituals and danced for loyalty in the name of agoddess called yellamma. over the centuries, the linkbetween the devadasis and their temples graduallydiminished, along with their social status. they became the paid mistressesof priests, then kings, and later,rich landowners. in the 19th century, westernmissionaries tried to abolish the tradition, calling itgrotesque and immoral, driving
the devadasis underground. today, devadasis are nodifferent to common street hookers, servicing drunk truckdrivers and bored businessmen. even though the practice hasbeen illegal for over 20 years, up to 3,000 girls arestill being secretly dedicated every year. we traveled to the border townof sangli, which straddles the two southern indian states ofkarnataka and maharastra. its red light district is hometo hundreds of devadasi sex
workers, and that afternoon,we were invited there by anitha, one of its mostsuccessful brothel owners. she's a member of an ngo calledsangram, which fights to empower locals sex workers. communication was prettypainful, as our interpreter somashekar was having sometrouble with his english. everybody in the housesnext door-- this whole street-- is also sex workerslike anitha?
yes. sarah harris: so allthe neighborhood. and they're all friendswho live around here? everybody is friends? sarah harris: so when thecustomer comes inside, the door closes. and this-- sarah harris: she'snot a customer? she is also a sex worker?
somashekar: a sex worker. sarah harris: and sheuses this room? somashekar: [speaking marathi] [sarah laughing] somashekar: that's another oneof anitha's friends who's lying in there. sarah harris: this iswhat she's saying? somashekar: i am. sarah harris: you.
sarah harris: tell me again. so are you talking as you? are you telling me-- somashekar. somashekar: huh? sarah harris: so youare a sex worker. somashekar: i am a sex worker. sarah harris: you area sex worker. and you came to anitha'sroom, and--
sarah harris: yeah. sarah harris: you work inthis room, and anitha works in this room. somashekar: this room. sarah harris: so youall work together. ok. [speaking marathi] sarah harris: the whole placeis completely difference to what i thought it would be.
i kind of imagined thesereally seedy, anonymous hotel-looking brothels. and actually, there's kidsrunning around everywhere. there's women doing theirlaundry, making lunch. and it kind of feelslike quite a tight-knit little community. the ladies of sangli wouldn'tlet me leave without showing me the temple aroundthe corner. it seemed like wherever therewere brothels, the goddess
yellamma was never far away. for anitha and her friends,being a devadasi was nothing to be ashamed of. sex work was their choice. they had condoms, power innumbers, and sangram looking after them. but these were justthe lucky few. for the vast majorityof devadasis, prostitution isn't a choice.
it's forced upon them, and mostoften by their parents. like most hindu legends, thestory of the goddess yellamma is long, convoluted,and surreal. however many times weheard it, it still didn't make much sense. but it seems to go somethinglike this. the whole ordeal begins when herson is ordered to chop her head off by her husband afterhe catches her spying on two people getting friskyby a lake.
after a complex process ofdeath, reincarnation, and a load of fat hindu gods with blueskin and gold bikinis, the goddess yellamma was born. she fled to the villages ofkarnataka and became a symbol of worship for the lowesthindu castes. so after a really sweaty 10-hourtrain journey, we've finally arrived in thistown called mudhol up in northern karnataka. and it's in the villages aroundhere that we've been
told has the highestconcentration of devadasi women in india. an estimated 23,000 women inthis part of india have been dedicated to the goddess. and roughly half of those willhave resorted to sex work in order to feed their families. sarah harris: we traveled tothe outskirts of this dusty transit town to meet twoteenage devadasi girls. [speaking kannada]
sarah harris: madigas areconsidered filthy and polluting and are only permittedto work in the lowliest positions, as streetcleaners, sewage collectors, and of course, prostitutes. when we took the girls outshopping, they seemed terrified of the higher castesrecognizing them as devadasis, which they did. sarah harris: it was surreal tosee the reaction they got. the shopkeepers wouldn't evenlook them in the eye.
sarah harris: so now it seemsthis religious ritual is just a justification forpoor families to pimp out their daughters. sarah harris: it was strangesitting with belavva's family on the floor of their one roomhut, knowing it's also the place where she has sex withcustomers while her brothers and sisters wait outside. balavva: [speaking kannada] sarah harris: karnataka is oneof india's largest producers
of sugar cane. hundreds of trucks passthrough towns like this every day. the roadside can bea scary place. horny drivers and boredagricultural workers gather here, looking for waysto spend their wages. they are one of the maintransmitters of hiv throughout india, spreading the virusthrough the country's extensive road network, puttinggirls like mala and
belavva at risk of thisdeadly disease. sarah harris: back in sangli,we were invited to meet another devadasi called pandu. we were told she was different,but we weren't prepared for justhow different. [male speaking marathi] sarah harris: every morning, hespent two hours polishing brass yellamma statues andblessing his beloved shrine. sarah harris: can you ask himto show me how to make chai?
tea powder. wow, that's a lot of sugar. fucking hell. sarah harris: still? going, going, going,going, going. sarah harris: can we watchhim dance today? we have to persuade him,sweet talk him. ah, wow. wow, pandu.
who's this guy? you put a sari over his head. [pandu speaking marathi] sarah harris: he's got moneybetween his teeth. your best friend, sudir. oh, wow, that's a nice photo. wow, thank you. sarah harris: later that day, atour hotel, pandu showed us his favorite bollywoodvideos and the famous
sangli condom trick. sarah harris: you're about towitness a demonstration of the classic sangli condom trick thatpandu has just taught me when his male customers don'twant to use a condom. sarah harris: i think i lost. pandu may want a better life forhis daughter, but for many other devadasis, there's a lotof money to be made in recruiting the nextgeneration. now, we're on our way to anothervillage, about five
kilometers outside of mudhol. and most of women who livethere are from the madiga caste, and so most of them are vulnerable to becoming devadasis. one of the interesting thingsabout this village is that we're going to be able to goto the house of a devadasi woman who's made a real careerout of prostitution. and she's built this enormoushouse in the middle of the village as a kind of symbolof the her success.
so she can become a role modelto the other girls living in the village that becominga devadasi is a good way of life. the legendary owner, champa,doesn't even live here. she's too busy turningtricks in bombay. inside, shiny display cabinetsof unused crockery line the walls as testamentsto her success. there were groups of villagechildren roaming around the house to gawp at her flickeringcolor tv sets and
shelves of broken electricalequipment. the message is clear-- prostitution is a lucrativebusiness. so this is the necklace, themuthu, that the devadasi women wear when they get dedicated. and hers is just hanging onthe wall of her mud hut. she's an old lady calledshavvavva, and she's one of the oldest devadasi womenin the village. and i've just been told thatshe brought the very first
radio to this village. no one had ever seen a radiobefore she brought it here. walking through the village, wenotice yellamma's presence everywhere. the locals told us that alldevadasis in the area were preparing themselves for thefull moon festival, which is apparently the mostimportant event in the yellamma calendar. after hearing so much about thefamous full moon festival
in saundatti, we drove fourhours out of town to catch the first day of this month-longcelebration of yellamma. just up there in the center ofthat big arch is the face of the goddess yellamma. that's the entrance to hertemple here in saundatti. over the course of the 28 days,more than half a million people will pass throughthe temple doors. a heaving shantytown springsup around the famous yellamma shrine.
the place is filled with garishhindu icons, bollywood music, sticky sweets, and thesymbolic red and yellow colors of the goddess yellamma. nice to meet you. we're not allowed-- we're notgonna take the camera inside. no. sarah harris: this is theyellamma temple, which is like the main attractionof saundatti. it's here that for hundreds andhundreds of years, all the
devadasi girls have come fortheir dedication ceremonies, which are now illegal. and we're not allowed in, sowe just have to shoot from outside, but you can seehundreds of people walking around, praying tothe goddess. everything around the templeis really, really colorful, and you've got all these redand yellow dyes, which the women put on their foreheads. and this is to kind of
represent the goddess yellamma. and the green bangles are inrows all along the side of the road here, and they're thebangles that they put on the girls during their devadasidedication ceremonies. and tonight is the mooncelebration, and they'll smash their bracelets as a symbolof widowhood. this is also one of the placeswhere the women traffickers come and pick up potentialprostitutes. the brothel madams will travelfrom big cities like bombay
and pune and come to saundattito these festivals to pick up young girls to traffic. amidst all the religious fervor,there was a distinct feeling of secrets goingon behind closed doors. families are offered a generousfee in return for their young daughters,often under the pretense of a better future. but it's here that the nextgeneration of young devadasi prostitution are found.
what we really wanted to do waswatch a real dedication ceremony, but that didn't looklike it was going to happen. and as a bunch of pastywesterners with cameras, we weren't exactly inconspicuous. luckily, we met an ex-devadasiand social activist called sitavva. she agreed to stage a mockdedication ceremony to give us an idea of what really goeson behind the scenes. sitavva: [speaking kannada]
sarah harris: leaving saundatti,we felt disturbed by everything we'd seen. the bright colors and energyof the festival were overshadowed by the seedyreality of a religious ceremony that condoneschild prostitution. our last stop before we headedhome was in the small village of sarol, where we'd arrangedto meet three generations of devadasi women, all fromthe same family. when we arrived, we were toldthat the daughter had recently
died of hiv. [speaking foreign language] sarah harris: india is a landof extremes, polarized by extravagant new wealthand ancient poverty. everywhere you look, there's abattle being waged between the traditional forces of religion,castes, and superstition and the inevitableforce of western capitalism. nowhere are these clashes moreevident than in the plight of
the devadasis, where religiousdevotion has been exploited for commercial gain. the devadasi tradition isdestroying families and communities, generationafter generation. and with the advent of aids andhiv, the practice now has a deadly price tag. and today, any remnants of thedevadasis' cultural origins have all but disappeared. all that's left is a systemthat turns children into
prostitutes and theirparents into pimps.