Migrant Sex Workers Are Suffering In Silence — & I’m Proof

When we were younger, my father would say that my sister and I were two of his arms; that his honour lay in our strengths. Three years ago, she called me crying. “Are you lying to us about something?” At that moment, I chose not to lie anymore and just tell her the truth — that I did sex work for money. 

I used the money to pay my bills. I sent money home to India. I bought plane tickets back home. I educated myself. I ate healthy. I could have been a truck driver — another job that pays well — but the world didn’t raise me for that. 

When I first moved to Australia, I worked at a pizza chain for four months and was paid $16 an hour. Half of that was paid cash-in-hand because I was only allowed to work 20 hours a week (which was never enough to pay my bills). 

It was hard to fit into a society that was so different from India. I wasn’t socialised in the same way many Australians are. English isn't my first language. I'm not white. Employers often just read my name on a resume and immediately disregarded me, moving on to the next.

But we were cheap labour. I was put on the front counter because I was a good-looking woman who spoke English well. For the business, I was very profitable at $16/hour. But I wasn’t happy — I wanted more. It reminded me of my old hunger. 

One day, I read about sex work regulations in Victoria and got in touch with one of the brothels. Most people from my first shift remember me as “timid, but really nice”. I would sit in one spot, wearing my robe at all times. The first night, I got my first and only booking for the night. I was really happy with the money — I felt I could do it forever.

On my first day, the receptionist looked me in the eye and said, “Babe, always remember that you're the boss,” yet it took me years to believe them. Her words were just an illusion. Yes, you are the boss; it is your body and your money. But a brothel is only a microcosm of the larger system, where people sugarcoat the realities and give you false hope. I don't think it's because they intend to hurt you, but only because your physical safety determines their business.

I've learnt that everything has a price. You are only respected if you behave and act the role that they’ve chosen for you. I play the role of the naive, subservient, impoverished woman. I will never be white. I will never be one of their own. They don't see me. "Don't let these racist comments bring you down," they say. Gradually they convince you that you are crazy, sensitive and someone who imagines racism.

Slowly, despite everything, I learned the hustle. I made up a persona, did all kinds of things to my hair and got men hooked with my chats and smiles. I went to uni during the day and worked at night. 

It was a very confusing time. I was anxious and insecure about a lot of things, especially my accent and my Indianness. I felt that no one liked Indians. I was told that Indians didn’t know how to kiss. That Indians smelled like curry. Indian this, Indian that — at least, that’s what I heard the other sex workers say. 

When the pandemic hit, I became even more aware of how things were different for me. Australian-born sex workers had the government support them, while migrants like me had to go back to work to support themselves. Yes, sex workers globally were affected, but migrant sex workers had it the worst.

I remember one experience, where a new Snapchat buddy was looking for a "porn star experience". We communicated for a while before we had a disagreement, and I refused to see him. This made him really angry, leading to a flood of threats against me and my mother. He blackmailed me, threatening to reveal me to everyone in my life — including my family. He told me I am just a whore, that I was their dirty, shameless girl.

During the first lockdown in Melbourne, I convinced myself that I would quit the industry. I look back now and see how much I'd internalised the stigma around sex work.

Mid-pandemic, I went to Sangli in India, where I spent some time at SANGRAM, a collective for sex workers. They asked me what Australia was like and how decriminalisation worked, which Indian sex workers were campaigning for. But I told them that I didn’t see much hope in sex work, at least in Melbourne. "Sex-worker solidarity in Australia is an illusion," I said.

Over the next few days, I spent some time talking to people at the collective. Everyone was angry. Angry mothers, angry wives, angry sex workers. A man proudly told me he was the son of a sex worker — and the husband of one too. They told me about how they lived with their families and their children. They told me how some of their families had abandoned them because of their work. I realised something: I had never been so inspired. The anger in them spoke to the anger in me. 

The first time I heard the term ‘randi’ was when my friend’s boyfriend decided to call her one. She was a 'loose woman' and a disgrace, he said. Randi, a derogatory Indian word for a female prostitute, has been uttered around me several times since. But only ever towards women. From fathers to their wives. Boyfriends to their girlfriends. A man to a woman. A woman to a woman. There is a lack of language to shame a man. 

But one woman at the collective changed the way I viewed the word 'randi'. She said that the first step towards revolution is the revolution of self-worth. That we can’t fight the world if we haven’t fought with ourselves. “Back then, they’d call us randi and disrespected us,” she said. “Now, they call us madam.”

With our lives so politicised, we not only suffer in silence, but each day we show up to prove our strength. And if the human in us loses all belief, we live with the constant fear of confirming their stigma. In the end, it all backfires. Everyone is out there to rescue us or remind us of the dangers of our lives, but even those who claim to be our allies wear their allyship as a badge of goodness. They place their own identity at the centre of it — never our needs, our struggles or our humanity.

When I came back home, I revisited my constant fight as a sex worker. How long was I meant to fight for? Who was I even fighting for? Maybe everyone was right: sex work couldn’t provide me with safety or stability.

Migrant sex workers suffer in silence but continue to show up to prove our strength. If everyone is out there to rescue us or remind us of what danger we’re in, eventually, we see ourselves internalising a piece of the stigma the world carries.

I remind myself of that every day, and my therapist and friends have helped a lot too. I deserve love, family and friends. I am worthy of respect and safety, even when the world tries to make me believe otherwise. It is a battle, especially when I don't want any other migrant sex worker to go through the same things I have. For now, I am only interested in 'the revolution of self-worth'. The world will adjust and align. Like the receptionist told me on my first day of work, I am the boss, and no one can convince me otherwise.

*Raani is the name the author uses for her work. Her name has been omitted for privacy.