“Girls come to me looking for work,” she explains, “Sometimes, those who already work here recommend jobs to their friends, who come and apply as well.” Pimping and prostitution, an age-old profession, continues to thrive in the streets of Thamel. Sex industry in Thamel is booming, attracting tourists from all over the world to engage with the city´s prostitutes. [break]
Most of the times, a negotiation between the girls and clients is arranged by pimps. And Sunita is one of them.
The owner of a popular hotel near Kathmandu Guesthouse in Thamel has been letting prostitutes use the second floor of his establishment, where Sunita has been sending her clients to for the last eight years.
“We have become very good friends,” says the hotel owner, unwilling to be named. “Over the years, we have opened up an entire floor for her girls to come here and work.”
According to the hotel owner, the business arrangement is quite simple: Male clients pay the hotel for the rooms and pay the girls for their service. The girls give 50% of their pay to their “boss,” he said referring to Sunita.
The relationship formed between Sunita and the hotel owner has been immensely beneficial for the latter, as it has become a hotspot for men looking for sex. “I know everything there is to know about prostitution,” he claims, “We work very well together, everyone makes money, everyone is happy.”
Sunita, who takes a significant portion of the girls´ pay for sex, says that she allows the girls to decide the price so that it is fair for all. “It is all up to them. I do not force them,” she says.
For seven years, the massage parlor employing the girls had been attached to the hotel. However, four months ago the massage parlor relocated around the corner on the street, but the girls continue to bring clients to the hotel.
Running a sex racket was not something that Sunita had planned for. “I grew up very poor in a village outside of Kathmandu without the support of a father,” she explains, claiming to have only studied till the third grade.
“My mother and brother both work in the village as farmers.” To her dismay, there were not many job opportunities for a girl.
Before becoming a ringleader of prostitutes, Sunita was advised by her brother-in-law to open a legitimate massage parlor in Kathmandu.
But it did not take long for things to take a different course. “It´s the clientele. They come in and ask for it. And it means more money for the girls and more money for me. So what should I do?” Today, Sunita supplies at least four girls a night for prostitution.
All of the prostitutes that work for Sunita also work in her massage parlor and none are forced to have sex. “It really depends on the girl,” she explains. She described most of them as uneducated girls from poor villages. “If men offer good money, between Rs 1,500 to 2,000, then they will do anything.”
Unlike many other brothels, Sunita does not pay bribes to authority. When the police raid her business, they arrest clients and girls forcing both parties to pay a fine.
Sunita strives to keep the sexual nature of her business hidden from her family and friends as she does not want them to know how she makes most of her income. “I do not want anyone to know that I am involved in prostitution.”
Apart from occasional police raids, Sunita and her girls do not run into many problems. “I make the foreigners pay first because sometimes they like to give themselves discounts,” she laughs, “but Nepali men, the pay after.”
Sunita does worry for her girls knowing very well the dangers involved in prostitution but safety, she claims, is not a luxury they can afford. “Of course I do not like this but financially it is what´s best for everyone.”
Fortunately, the girls have not run into any significant problems in the recent past with the men who come for them.
Majority of men, who buy prostitutes from Sunita, are aged between 30 and 35, half of them foreigners. “Obviously this is not something we advertise, but when the men come, they know to ask and we provide,” she says, gesturing toward three of her girls sitting on the floor.
Sunita, surprisingly, finds that pimping out women for money does not interfere with her religious beliefs.
“I know of many other women who do the same,” she says.
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