Published 20th July 2014

A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc. The term originates from the red lights that were used as signs of brothels. There are areas in many big cities around the world which have acquired an international reputation as red-light districts.

Some red-light districts (such as De Wallen, Netherlands, or Reeperbahn, Germany) are places which are officially designated by authorities for legal and regulated prostitution. Often these red-light districts were formed by authorities to help regulate prostitution and other related activities, such that they were confined to a single area.With the confining of such industries to a single area, such districts became a destination for originally sailors but also tourists.

In India, Khalpara is located at Siliguri, the most important town in North Bengal of West Bengal. Khalpara is known for the oldest trade in the World, prostitution. Siliguri, being the busiest business town in North Bengal, flesh trade business at Khalpara, red light area was developed since long ago. Khalpara is not simply a prostitution area at Siliguri, it is now considered as a major ‘wholesale trading’ centres of children and prostitution from eastern Nepal districts and other North Eastern parts of India. Khalpara is presently a hub of prostitution. Children of tender ages between 6-9 years are taken from Nepal and other North Eastern states in India to Khalpara and from Khalpara they are sold to different brothels Like Sonagachi red light area in Kolkata, Grant Road brothel in Mumbai, Pune, New Delhi and other places. A report says that nearly 12,000 women are trafficked from Nepal to India in connection with prostitution business and among them 70 per cent are children. One NGO in Nepal is working against child prostitution at Khalpara red light area and they are trying to keep the child sex workers away from this dreaded flesh trade. 

In the year 2008 Samarajit Jana, an official from India's AIDS control programme, said "The state government had no choice but to join hands with the sex workers as they seem to be doing a better job in tackling trafficking". Younger girls are usually helped to get back to their home village. Adults are usually given housing and job training. "I was kidnapped and forced to entertain old men, but now all that is past as I am trying to make a new beginning in life," said Anjali, a 16-year-old girl who was rescued by prostitutes ( may be in the year 2008 ) from one of the brothels crammed into Sonagacchi's crowded maze of alleyways. Anjali is among hundreds of poor girls shifted to one of six new government-sponsored rescue centres across the state. They learn embroidery and sewing among other crafts.

More than 5 million people are already HIV positive. Governments, both local and national, do little to tackle the increasing risk of a large-scale AIDS epidemic. Large red light areas like Sonagachi are at the centre of a problem that may soon spiral out of control and affect millions of people in Bengal and the neighbouring state of Bihar. Sex workers are socially shunned and prostitution is illegal, which makes the women in Sonagachi extremely susceptible to extortion, blackmail, rape or murder by local gangsters, pimps and the police.

In India, trafficking and profiting by selling a person for sex is illegal, but paying for sex with an adult prostitute is not. India's Ministry of Women and Child Development wants to change the laws to allow police take stern action against clients, but critics have stalled the plan. Prostitutes and groups working with them fear such a move would force the trade deeper into the shadows. The DMSC (Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee) now spread its campaign across the state and elsewhere in India. Durbar in Bengali word means unbeatable or unstoppable. Durbar seeks to build a world where all marginalized communities live in an environment of respect, rights and dignity. Durbar hopes for a new social order where there is no discrimination by class, caste, gender or occupation and all individuals communities live in peace and harmony as global citizens.