"Clean Baina" drive commercial, says NGO report

For years, Baina has been known for its extended commercial sex network. About 2000 female sex workers are engaged in prostitution, most of them being from the poverty-stricken areas of Karnataka and Maharashtra.

The Clean Baina drive was launched by the state government a few months ago, the justification being that the drive was needed to stop HIV infections from spreading and to end prostitution and crime. The government offered assurances that the beach would be cleared of the red-light menace.

The report gave a lie to these claims and said that although the government gave the impression that its drive was inspired by social welfare concerns, commercial sex workers were being evicted from Baina so that the government could get back the land and lease it out for commercial purposes and for the proposed expansion of Mormugao port.

The committee strongly opposed the eviction move and said the issue involved human rights. If hundreds of families are deprived of their homes and source of livelihood so that the government can lease out the land to the corporation, the families have a right to alternate homes and jobs.

The report added that the National Human Rights Commission had stayed the evictions last July because they violated national and international human rights standards. Objecting to the use of criminal intimidation by the police in order to discourage tourists from going into the area in order to get them to leave the place, the Commission warned that if solutions are not ethical, the problem will worsen.