Identities of all sex workers, former sex workers, and their families have been changed to maintain privacySitting 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.”Although she continued in the profession for a few more years due to family responsibilities — her husband, who was one of her clients, abandoned the family years ago — Savitri eventually quit. Now, about 10 years later, her elder daughter works with an NGO and is preparing to write the police exam, while her younger daughter is preparing for medical entrance tests in Indore.The family belongs to the Banchhada community, a de-notified tribe with an estimated population of 25,000 spread across 78 villages in the districts of Mandsaur, Neemuch, and Ratlam in western Madhya Pradesh.Unlike Savitri’s daughters, most girls in the community are born into a system in which their families expect them to enter sex work — a practice passed down over generations. According to several members of the community and NGOs in the region, while many Indians celebrate the birth of a boy over a girl, the Banchhadas welcome a girl with sweets and firecrackers. As girls grow up, they receive better nutrition than boys. They are given expensive clothes and, unlike in much of India, are not told that they will have to marry one day and leave the nest.The reason, however, is disturbing: for generations, the Banchhada girls have been pushed into sex work upon hitting puberty and given the responsibility of earning. Their family members function as pimps and live off their money.Akash Chouhan, founder of the Jan Shaurya Social Welfare and Development Society, an NGO based in Neemuch, estimates that at least 10,000 women of the community, including about 3,000 girls, remain trapped in this form of exploitation. “Girls are forced to drop out of school after Class 8 or 9 and are pushed into sex work by their families,” says Akash, who is from the community. “Community elders protect the practice in the name of tradition.”Radhika, a sex worker, says girls are conditioned from childhood to believe in the tradition. They are told it is their responsibility to ease the family’s financial woes. “I quit school on my own after Class 9 and began working,” she says. “But if a girl refuses to quit, her family forces her into sex work through physical or emotional abuse.”Abuse along the highwayA drive along State Highway 156, which connects the three districts, passes through several villages of the community. Girls wearing bright lipstick stand along the way, while older women sit on cots outside their houses and shanties, watching children playing nearby. As evening approaches, they gesture to men to come in.In Neemuch’s Jaitpura village, an elderly woman approaches a car parked on the roadside and asks if anyone would like to come in. She points to three girls sitting outside her house; two of them are her granddaughters. “You can pick either of them and go into the house,” she tells them. “It will cost you ₹300 for 10 minutes, but I will take ₹100 as my tip. The room has a fan; you will be comfortable.”Most girls along the highway, including those who look underage, say that they are around 20; some say they recently turned 18. Conversations with them reveal that they have been involved in sex work for about four years.Multiple dhabas along the highway are also involved in brokering deals between prospective clients and sex workers. The owner of a highway dhaba in Ratlam’s Dhodar village claims he can “arrange girls” and lists different price brackets based on location, duration, and the girl’s age. Standing near a toll booth, he lists the facilities available, including an air-conditioned room, car parking, and assurances of safety from the police. The rates range from ₹300 for 10 minutes to ₹1,000 for an hour, and ₹6,000 for a night. They go up to ₹10,000 for a younger girl.“If girls are taken to a hotel, clients face the risk of police raids. But here, clients have no problem,” the dhaba owner explains. “The girls avoid going to hotels as they face incidents of violence by drunken men. That is why many of them have built rooms in their houses with AC.”Several sex workers from the region also travel to cities such as Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Chittorgarh and Udaipur in neighbouring Rajasthan, on client requests.Shivangi, a former sex worker in Neemuch’s Nilkanthpura, who now works with the government’s Women and Child Development (WCD) Department, recalls some of the horrific incidents she faced. “In 2003, my friend and I had gone to a hotel in Chittorgarh for two clients. After a few minutes, two or three others entered the room. For hours, we suffered sexual and physical violence that still haunts me. All I could think of was jumping out a window,” says Shivangi, who is now married with two daughters.Shivangi says girls rarely share grim experiences with their families as they have to “get to work as soon as the next client approaches”.In 2005, Shivangi came in contact with an international NGO working in the region and began volunteering with it while continuing sex work. “Over the next few years, my mindset began to change as I got exposed to a life outside my community,” she says. “In 2008, I chose to leave that life behind for good. I married a man I met during my NGO work and moved in with him.”From a criminal tribe to social outcastsHistorically a nomadic community in the Malwa and Mewar regions of present-day Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the Banchhada community was notified as a ‘criminal tribe’ by the British government under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871.Narendra Chouhan, founder of Naya Jeevan Foundation, an NGO working for the youth of the community, says the origin of sex work in the community can be traced back to that period. “Our elders have told us that it began during the British Raj, when the police would catch men from the community and demand women in exchange for their release. Some families who could not pay money started sending them unmarried girls from their homes,” he says.The community was de-notified by the Government of India in 1952 and classified as a Scheduled Caste. The practice that ensured monetary benefits for families continued, says Narendra. “Slowly, families who were engaged in sex work started moving out of Rajasthan and settled in this region.”Apart from offering services in their homes, they also began offering services in trucks. A girl would board a truck at one location, offer services, and get off at another. “This method went on till the 2010s when people started buying land along the highway and building houses,” he says.Barriers to a better lifeToday, the Banchhadas remain cut off from mainstream society, with their members facing stigma in all walks of life: from education to employment to renting properties in cities. In many villages with a mixed population, the houses of the Banchhadas remain secluded. In Hadi Pipliya, for instance, the two sections are divided by a drain.