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The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee ((ベンガル語:দুর্বার মহিলা সমন্বয় সমিতি) ''Durbar Mohila Shômonbôe Shomiti'' "Unstoppable Women's Synthesis Committee") or Durbar, is a collective of 65,000 sex workers in West Bengal. Established on 15 February 1992, in Sonagachi, the largest red-light area in Kolkata, West Bengal, India with estimated 11,000 sex workers, Durbar has been working on women's rights and sex workers' rights advocacy, anti-human trafficking and HIV/AIDS prevention.〔(A missionary enterprise ) Frontline, Volume 22 - Issue 08, 12 - 25 Mar. 2005〕 The Durbar states that its aims are the challenging and altering of the barriers that form the everyday reality of sex workers' lives as they relate to their poverty or their ostracism. Durbar runs 51 free clinics for sex workers across West Bengal, with support from organizations such as the Ford Foundation and the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), who also help Durbar in its initiatives like networking, rights protection and creating alternative livelihood for sex workers. The group is overtly political in its aims of fighting for the recognition of prostitution as legal work and, of sex workers as workers〔(Sex workers demand labour rights on May Day ) DNA India - Tuesday, 1 May 2007 17:52 IST〕 and, for a secure social existence of sex workers and their children. They work for the legalization of prostitution and seek to reform laws that restrict human rights of sex workers. ==History== On 15 February 1992, a public health scientist Dr. Smarajit Jana of All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Kolkata, visited the red-light area of Sonagachi for a HIV intervention research study. A peer educator team was formed from amongst the sex workers was formed and provided training. However soon study revealed larger issues amongst sex workers, like sex workers rights, education of their children, access to financial services and handling harassment of police and localthugs, besides promoting use of condom. Thus in 1995 he formed 'Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee' (DMSC) with 12 sex workers as stakeholders, by 2012 DMSC had a membership of 65,000 from 48 branches across the state of West Bengal, and continues to be managed by sex workers, their children and government officials as its board members, and has not just female sex workers as its members but also male and transgender sex workers.〔〔(History of Durbar )〕〔Bagchi, p. 124〕 Since its inception, it has been working as an advocacy group for sex workers and over the years, it has worked towards sensitizing general public about rights of sex workers, often initiating debate and discussion in public media and press, besides advocating abolition of 'The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956' (PITA), and legalization of prostitution.〔 Many sex workers now have voters identity cards, health insurance and even bank accounts. In 1995, its consumer cooperative society and micro-credit programme, 'Usha' (literally meaning light), ensured that the Government of West Bengal altered the state's cooperative law to register it as a sex workers cooperative, instead of a 'housewives cooperative' under the prevalent state laws. By 2006-2007, small saving of its 5,000 members lead to an annual turnover to , with loan of distributed amongst its members, which also helped break the monopoly of local moneylenders, who would charge interest rates of up to 300%.〔 The DMSC hosted India's first national convention of sex workers on 14 November 1997 in Kolkata, titled 'Sex Work is Real Work: We Demand Workers Rights'.〔(Sex work is real work: We demand workers rights ), announcement of the 1997 sex worker convention〕 DMSC runs 17 non-formal schools for children of sex workers, and two hostels, one at Ultadanga and the other at Baruipur. Its cultural wing, 'Komol Gandhar', teaches dance, drama, mime and music to children, who invited regularly for paid shows. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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