Doctor who fought for sex workers’ rights dies of Covid in Kolkata

KOLKATA: The man credited with organising the sex workers in Kolkata to bring them under the ambit of social security and his pioneering work in fighting HIV and AIDS, passed away on Saturday morning. He was 68.
Smarajit Jana, the founder and chief advisor of Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC) which works for the uplifting of sex workers in the city, was admitted in a city hospital with Covid-19 infection.
Several people from the development sector, including chief minister Mamata Banerjee, expressed anguish at Jana’s passing away.
“Saddened at the passing away of Dr Smarajit Jana. He founded the unique co-operative of sex workers who went on to have bank accounts & identity cards which entitled them to social welfare benefits. Champion of marginalised and stigmatised women. Condolences to his family members,” tweeted the chief minister.
Jana had as a researcher and teacher in the All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health undertook an HIV sensitisation mission in the red-light area of Sonagachi in 1992 as a project of the government. Sex workers were recruited to be trained to sensitise their peers in the vocation.
Members of DMSC who worked with Jana on the project said the use of contraceptives jumped from a mere 3 per cent to almost 90 per cent in seven years.
“He not only guided us but encouraged us to unite ourselves to assert for our rights. Before that we did not have any union or co-operative and we did not receive any social benefits,” said Kajal Bose, secretary of DMSC, who worked with Jana for almost three decades.
In 1995 Jana helped sex workers to convince the government to make changes in the procedure so that they could be brought under a co-operative.
In 1999, the Union government replicated the Sonagachi model to combat HIV/AIDS where members of the community themselves carried out the sensitisation and implemented in other red-light areas of the country.
Jana was also the HIV programme co-ordinator in Bangladesh between 1999 and 2002. He also worked as a member of the advisory board of the European Commissions’ programme on AIDS and STDs in India during the period from 1996 to 1998.
“During lockdown last year he was helping the women in Sonagachi. So many girls in Sonagachi have been orphaned today,” said Bose.