Horrors of Bangladesh’s ‘brothel village’ where 1,500 women and girls – many trafficking victims – live and serve more than 3,000 clients a day

Kidnapped by gangs as children, sold by their own family and tricked by boyfriends and pimps, this is life inside the Bangladeshi village entirely dedicated to prostitution.

Every day, more than 1,500 women and girls are forced to serve the wishes of more than 3,000 men a day for as little as £2 in the village of Daulatdia, home to one of the world’s largest brothels.

Bangladesh is one of the few countries that tolerates prostitution and girls are being forced into following their mothers into the exploitative industry from as young as 14 – the country’s age of consent.

Trapped until they have repaid their debt, girls trafficked into Daulatdia – made up of a series of shacks spread over a maze of alleyways – face a lifetime of physical and mental suffering that no child should be subjected to. 

‘We just want to play, we like playing. I wish someone could arrange another place for us, somewhere outside where we can live,’ one innocent girl who has been swept up by Daulatdia previously revealed.

Her life, along with the thousands of other vulnerable women and girls preyed upon, was laid bare by a customer who boasted: ‘Whichever girls I like, I’ll take. I don’t feel bad for anyone, everyone needs to have fun.’

Around 3,000 men visit the brothel every day, most of them lorry drivers who stop off at Daulatdia due to its prime location next to a train station and a ferry terminal on the Padma River, a major channel running from the Ganges. 

When one truck driver was asked if their wife knows what they do, he laughed and told ARTE.tv in 2020: ‘No she’d kill me.’

Secret footage shows prostitutes lining the streets of the brothel village, while men walk around looking for sex

This photograph taken on February 8, 2020 shows a sex worker inside a brothel in Daulatdia

A woman holds their baby inside the Daulatdia brothel in Bangladesh during the Covid pandemic

Sex workers waiting in the alleyways for customers in the central alleyway of Daulatdia, Bangladesh

Another, laughing with his friend, ‘joked’: ‘There are young and old ones. From 10 to 40 years of age. The prices vary accordingly, from 60 cents to 10 Euros.’

Last month, Amnesty International declared: ‘To the women of Daulatdia: we will no longer stay silent.’ It was a heartbreaking plea for action to be taken to close down Daulatdia and replace it with ‘proper homes and a place to work for the women’.

It came just weeks after new footage taken inside the 12-acre village emerged online. In the video, men could be seen patrolling densely packed alleyways, searching for the women they desire.

Lined with corrugated iron shacks, small shops and open sewers, Daulatdia is a village beyond repair – and it’s not the only one.

The stream of women and children being trafficked into Bangladesh’s sex industry is so high that private graveyards have had to be built in at least two brothels, Kandapara, and Daulatdia, due to the high rate of death and an increase in women killing themselves.

One of the Daulatdia ‘elders’, who worked in the brothel for 50 years, revealed how she was forced to hire three drug addicts to bury her neighbour’s stillborn baby, telling ARTE.tv: ‘They are the only one’s willing to touch the corpse. I had to beg them.’

The shallow grave was covered in bamboo so that dogs and foxes can’t dig the body up.  

In previous years, they were forced to dump bodies into the river as villages would chase them away if they tried to bury their loved ones in the ground.

This is an aerial photo taken of Daulatdia, which is home to one of the largest brothels in the world

A lorry driver jokes that his wife would ‘kill’ him if she found out he uses the prostitutes 

Two other drivers make jokes about how the girls range from 10 to 40 which the prices varying accordingly

An ‘elder’ in Daulatdia previously revealed how she had to hire drug addicts to bury a stillborn baby as they are the only ones who would touch the corpse

Footage shows life inside the brothel village, where women and children live in iron corrugated homes

The village is made up of narrow streets, packed tightly with prostitutes, children and punters

The plight of the women and girls living in Daulatdia has been laid bare throughout the years when cameras have been able to access inside and interview the victims of the horrific trade.

Over the past two decades, local NGOs have fought to improve the conditions for women and children. Between 500 and 1,000 children are believed to live on the site, mostly in the same rooms where their mothers work. 

In 2016, The Guardian spoke to girls, women and men about life inside the brothel village.

One young girl heartbreakingly revealed: ‘There are bad people around here, they touch your body and do these other things and then my mum gets angry.’

Another woman, who was trafficked into Daulatdia when she was a child, said: ‘I don’t know where I was taken from, she brought me here and then sold me and then she left through the back door. 

‘I was sold into it at about eight years sold. I didn’t understand much, nowadays kids understand more but I wasn’t like that. 

‘There was a woman who offered me two chocolates and I followed her here. She brought me here and then sold me. We came in through the front and then she left out the back.

A sex worker puts on makeup while sitting in front of a mirror at her residence in Daulatdia on August 18, 2021

A lighter seen next to condoms in Daulatdia brothel in 2021

This photograph taken on February 8, 2020 shows a sex worker standing in front of her house inside a brothel area in Daulatdia

A sex worker feeds her son inside the brothel amid Covid-19 lockdown

‘They threatened me so I was forced to stay here. I had no choice but to stay.

The woman has since paid off her debt now works as an independent sex workers and sends money to her children outside.

Still longing to go home, she added: ‘If I saw the woman who sold me, I wouldn’t say anything. I would give her whatever money she wanted. Just take me back and drop me at the school. That’s all I need. If you drop me back at that school, I’ll be able to find my way home.’

Another mother, speaking about her ten-year-old daughter, said: ‘We have to take customers in front of her. 

‘We have to survive, we have to feed ourselves, bring them up properly and bring in money. Otherwise how can we pay the cost of their education and food?’

But the male customers do not seem to be bothered by the trauma inflicted on the women they use for sex.

One told The Guardian: ‘I come here to have a nice time. After all that hard work, I come here  and I feel better. Whichever girls I like, I’ll take. Not too fair, not too dark, I like medium. 

‘I don’t feel bad. I’m just enjoying myself that’s all. Everyone needs to have fun.’ 

Charities have long campaigned for improved conditions. Here, a former sex worker cooks for prostitutes 

In this picture, men are seen patrolling the streets of Daulatdia

Girls who are as young as 10 are groomed from an early age before they become prostitutes. A 2018 study by the Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD), found that around 80 per cent of 135 prostitutes they surveyed had been trafficked or tricked into going to a brothel.

Each sex worker must also pay daily rent to the madams, who act as the go-between for the landlords. When the girls arrive, they are forced to pay off their debt, usually between $200-$300 to the madams.

One admitted to BBC News: ‘The sooner I can move out this place the better. My daughters is now 11, how much longer before she’s taken?’ 

For many children living in Daulatdia, they feel they are living on borrowed time until they are swept up into the brutal world of prostitution. Charities say many of the sex workers are underage.

Daulatdia has been running for more than a century, set up until British colonial rule, although it moved to its current location near a ferry station in 1988 after fire destroyed the old premises.

Business slowed during the pandemic when the brothel needed emergency food support during lockdown in March 2020 – but the pace picked back up as restrictions lifted, according to NGO officials. 

Sex work is allowed in brothels but most women work on the streets or in private homes, often risking police detention. 

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