West Bengal CEO organised special camps in Kolkata’s red-light areas to help sex workers fill voter enumeration forms.
Camps in Kidderpore, Kalighat, Chetla and Sonagachi responded to concerns of possible voter list exclusion.
Many sex workers fear their names may be removed due to missing ancestry documents or lost family contact.
WB CEO Sets Up Special Camps To Help Kolkata Sex Workers Update Voter Records
Assistance centres opened across major red-light areas as sex workers raise concerns over voter roll exclusions
Summary
Thousands of sex workers in Kolkata’s red-light districts were offered help to register for the electoral roll on Wednesday as the state’s Chief Electoral Officer’s (CEO) office held special assistance camps across several neighbourhoods, PTI reported.
According to PTI, the CEO’s office organised the camps in Kidderpore, Kalighat and Chetla as part of the ongoing Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls in West Bengal. Reported PTI, the drive follows similar outreach on Tuesday in Sonagachi, Asia’s largest red-light district.
An Election Commission official listed the locations for Wednesday’s camps: “The camps are being held at Five Star Club on Munshiganj Road in Kidderpore, and also at 148 Kalighat Road, and at 29/A Rakhaldas Addhya Road in Chetla,” he said. The special camps began operations at 11 am, the official added.
“The sex workers will be assisted in filling up the enumeration forms. The camp will continue till 4 pm,” the official said, PTI reported. Organisers told PTI that outreach teams would remain through the afternoon to help those who arrived without documentation or who needed extra support.
Local estimates put the number of sex workers at roughly 70 in Kidderpore, about 100 in Kalighat and some 60 in Chetla, the official told PTI. Hundreds of women had already attended the Sonagachi assistance camps on Tuesday, many arriving with visible anxiety about their status on the voters’ list.
Those concerns stem from long-standing problems with identity and lineage documentation. Many women living in the cramped lanes and ‘kothis’ of north Kolkata’s ward number 18 told PTI they feared their names could be removed from electoral rolls because they lack proof of ancestry or have been estranged from natal families after being trafficked, abandoned or fleeing home years ago.
The CEO’s office said the special camps were organised in response to appeals from welfare groups working with sex workers and their children. According to PTI, officials assured the community that the initiative aimed to ensure eligible voters from these areas were not excluded during the revision exercise.
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(With inputs from PTI)
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