Third Place

"The Longings of the Others"

Kajol with a customer in the Kandapara brothel in Bangladesh. She thinks she is 17 years but does not know her exact age. She was married with around 9 years. Her aunt sold her to the brothel. She got pregnant from a customer and has a 6 month old son, Mehedi. Two weeks after birth she was forced to have sex again with customers. Because of her son the business is not good.

The Kandapara brothel in the district of Tangail is the oldest and one of the largest in the country – it has existed for some 200 years. Here live and work more than 700 sex workers with their children and their madams. Many of the women were either trafficked or born inside the brothel's walls and secure in this way their livelihood. Their customers are policemen, politicians, factory workers, groups of teenage boys. Officially, they must be 18 years old, but like Kajol most of them are underage.

Although prostitution inside registered brothels is legal since 2000 in Bangladesh, these women are socially stigmatized outside their "homes" and thus often choose to stay and continue supporting their families with their earnings.