India's Devadasi System
Shobha Somappa Tarvgol, 18, sits in her one-roomed home in Modhur, India. Shobha became a Devadasi sex worker because there are no men in her family and she had little other means of supporting her sister, sick mother and grandmother. She was recently rescued from a brothel in Mumbai by the Rescue Foundation, a non-governmental organization founded to rescue young girls from brothels in and around Mumbai, India. After spending one year at the Rescue Foundation, she was returned to her village where she now works as a laborer for $1/day. While she did not like working as a prostitute, she is desperately unhappy with how little she earns as a laborer and given the choice, says she's return to her old life if she could.
