Market failure

I am the daughter of a sex worker currently living in a shelter home run by the nonprofit, Kranti. In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen news reports on the plight of migrant labourers and other informal sector workers in the wake of the lockdown. However, there is another community that is suffering just as much, if not more: sex workers. They do not have a fixed income, but earn hourly. After the lockdown, they have not had any source of income whatsoever.

In Kamathipura, the largest community of sex workers in Mumbai, Kranti has been trying to provide them with food and healthcare from the donations we get. (These donations are actually meant for our own education and shelter home, but we are using it to support our community during these times.)

However, the prices that we are paying for rice and dal in the market have gone up significantly. We are being charged INR 60 for a kg of rice—more than double the price that we usually pay. So, the donations we receive are able to serve only half the number of people it would have otherwise. In a community as big as Kamathipura, this is a serious issue.

Sandhya Nair is a member of Kranti, a nonprofit that empowers girls from Mumbai’s red-light areas and daughters of sex workers to be agents of social change.

Postscript: On April 16th, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution directed the Food Corporation of India (FCI) to ensure that foodgrains are made available to nonprofits and other charitable institutions at the uniform rate of INR 21 per kg for wheat and INR 22 per kg for rice. Nonprofits have been asked to contact their district collector/FCI manager to obtain these grains.