It is broad day light. A middle-aged Nargis combs her thin, spiky hair as she gets ready for work. Her workplace isn’t far away; conveniently it is the upper storey of her 7-marla house in Peshawar’s Hayatabad township. Her family members, including two young daughters ,are not allowed to come upstairs. None of her customers or workers are allowed to go downstairs to the residential quarters of the two-storey house.

This arrangement perhaps also has to do with nature of her work. Her customers like to keep their privacy and her workers are also not ordinary — they are sex-workers. There is no sign or indication to specify the quiet homely looking place is operating as a brothel. Customers sneak in during the daytime, choose a woman of their liking, and hire her services for a few thousand rupees (usually between 3,000 and 10,000 rupees) and leave afterwards.

Nargis manages to work and live in the same tiny building by simply abiding by her strict rules. Sex-workers who like to make some money in the daytime usually prefer working at Nargis’ place. The customers are quick and there is less hassle. As night falls, the unregulated underground sex business picks up — especially at weekends — but it is an environment loaded against sex-workers.

Commercial sex work has scattered across the city

No specific red-light districts exist in Peshawar today. There is, however, a brief mention of such a bazaar in Tareekh-i-Peshawar [History of Peshawar] that was penned by the famous historian Munshi Gopal Daas in 1869. The book mentions a small bazaar or street called the Thatti Bazaar which was adjacent to the famous Qissa Khwani Bazaar. “There is this bazaar called the Thatti Bazaar where singers , dancing girls and sex-workers live. This is a happening place,” wrote Munshi Gopal Daas.

Thatti Bazaar was renamed as Islamabad Bazaar after Partition, but today, it has none of its historic features as it is now crowded with Chitrali cap sellers and known for it. Gone are the days when a mohalla (neighbourhood) in Peshawar’s main Saddar market was renowned for a particular “aunty” who was in the pleasure business and many elite customers benefited from her residential facility. Only the flower shops in a corner of the street serve as a reminder of how people would buy fragrant flowers as they entered the red-light area.

The business has spread to various parts of the city despite its illegality. Even women in their 40s roam around the streets and busy roads of Peshawar to lure customers day and night. For the ordinary onlooker, it is unbelievable that a middle-aged woman wearing a dirty shuttle-cork burqa and dressed like a maid is actually a sex-worker. But in truth, she serves low-income groups including gardeners, drivers and watchmen. One such woman is known by her nick-name, Tandoor, to her regulars.

“As low as 500 rupees but can go up to 3,000,” says one customer on condition of anonymity about the rates charged by these mobile sex workers. Older, uneducated women tend to end up on the street but educated and young women usually find employment at parties and gatherings held at night. They also charge more than the mobile sex workers.

But customers have their own complaints against these women in the worlds’ oldest profession. They complain most of the time these girls just rip you off.

“Many times a woman who is hired for an evening or a party for sums as high as 20,000 to 40,000 rupees act unprofessionally,” claims Nadeem, who has been using the services of sex-workers every now and then. “They come late for the evening. They are on their phones all the time. Instead of talking to their friends, they should be entertaining the client. But instead of them entertaining you, you have to entertain them (sex-workers).”

But what compels these women to adopt selling sex as a profession?

A family in some debt or crisis, such as a bread-winner’s untimely death, makes women of the family an easy prey for brothel ‘aunties’ in the neighbourhood. They whisper to the mothers to send their daughters to work and no one has to know.

In other instances, married women are forced into profession by their lazy, unemployed husbands. Since there is nowhere to go and they are stuck with the husband due to kids, they continue with the profession. An element of coercion is always there but sex-workers who get involved in this illegal and unregulated business often find it hard to get out. Some lucky ones may find a benefactor at times who provides them a handsome monthly payment in exchange for exclusivity.

I have told my family that I am working in a beauty parlour. But my mother knows what I am doing”, says Maryam, aged 20.

In the case of Hina, mother to two, it was her husband’s loss in business which pushed her into commercial sex work. Although she is educated, she was forced to chuck away her degree and utilize her dancing skills to earn a livelihood. She got lucky that she recently found a rich customer to provide her a monthly stipend in exchange for exclusivity. She didn’t reveal how much she was charging but is relieved that she doesn’t have to work every night now.

Some women who were unlucky in love just continued to utilize sex as a source of income.

“I fell for a guy who abandoned me after using me, so Aunty Nargis encouraged me to make [selling sex] my profession,” says Irum*, a student and part-time sex-worker who still dreams of completing her education and finding a better job. Her parents living in their village have no idea about the line of work their daughter has gotten into in the city.

Sex workers such as Irum hail from different far-flung areas and usually live with a pimp in the city. They either get paid by the pimp or get a share from the money she earns.

“I have told my family that I am working in a beauty parlour. But my mother knows what I am doing”, says Maryam, a 20-year old sex-worker and dancer living with an aunty. She doesn’t have any education but she dreams of going to Dubai to earn more like other girls by working as a dancer at a club.

Even as she talks, exhaustion is visible on her face. It becomes clear that Maryam has been doing drugs to keep herself awake and make as much money as she can each night. “Get me a pill [of ecstasy], then I will dance all night,” she insists.

Her tender age means that the type of clientele Maryam caters to is more high-end. Women are often forced to have pleasure-enhancing drugs such as ecstasy, ice and cocaine if the customers are using them. And sometimes, she is forced to mix many intoxicants and consume it — on occasion with injurious consequences. In a few cases, sex-workers and dancers have ended up at Peshawar’s private rehab facilities after getting addicted to drugs such as ice.

With the easy availability of cheap and dangerously adulterated hard party drugs in Peshawar’s underground market, the dice is stacked against the sex worker. They get addicted to drugs they can hardly afford, both physically and financially. They get abused by rowdy customers and exploited by their pimps who take more of the share of their hard-earned income.

There have also been instances where over-worked sex-workers have collapsed after over-dosing. “One customer once died too at a party,” says Naz, a sex-worker based in Peshawar.

As with all other unregulated sectors of our socio economic milieu, sex business in Peshawar is loaded against the worker in terms of financial, physical and health-related risks. From their fake names and excuses, sex-workers wearing heavy make-up and shiny outfits try to hide the unhappiness and exhaustion of their profession.

*Names changed to protect privacy and anonymity

The writer is a member of staff

Published in Dawn, EOS, April 30th, 2017