The magazine, done in simple black and white, is without pictures and looks more like a booklet. But the contents are touching—emotional outpourings of women sold to brothels and personal accounts of harassment, abuse and torture. It is put on the Web once every three months. Women write about tales of betrayal, bad marriages, physical torture, their dreams of living a life of dignity, of owning a “house with lots of sky” and the “frightening” world of prostitution.

“The pain that I have in myself for years is not only my own but is shared by thousands of my sisters who are trapped in prostitution and who are victims of pimps and traffickers. So I wanted to express it for everyone,” writes Meenu didi, as she is popularly known in the red light area of Munshigunj in Kolkata. She has been a regular contributor to the magazine.

“Initially we had newspaper reading exercises but soon the women and girls said that there was nothing in the paper that was relevant to them. That was how we thought of the Despatch,” says Gupta.

Every two months, the NGO organises group meetings at various centres, where the groups decide what they want to contribute to the magazine. The final selection is done by Gupta who sends the articles to translators and then edits them. “I do very little editing so that the flavour of the writing is not spoilt,” she says.

Meenu didi, a resident of Darjeeling, worked as a prostitute for about 10 years before joining Aapne Aap to work towards freeing others like herself from the shackles of pimps and agents. “I got married when I was about 14. Within three years of my marriage, my husband died of alcoholism. I was left with a daughter and my parents could not support me. People told me I could get a job in Kolkata. So I put my daughter in a boarding school and started for Kolkata,” Meenu, now 35, recalls. “A man brought me to a house in Park Street and gave me a job. After four months, the man of the house tried to molest me and once again, I was on the road. Another man brought me to Munshigunj. I thought I would work as a maid but even before I realised, I had clients coming to my room. As prostitutes, women are raped, beaten up and robbed,” says Meenu. “The Despatch lets us share our thoughts with each other,” she says.

... contd.