In the brothel, her dreams were worn out by the harsh realities of exploitation that surrounded her. Outside, she was shunned by her classmates at a local primary school and was not aware of any social activity, let alone participation in them.

It all changed for Asma when she was brought to the Sonar Bangla Children's Home in Kuizbari, Tangail, by the Society for Social Services (SSS), a non-governmental organisation. The home compound is set on nine acres and consists of a two-storey residential building, a farm, pond, an auditorium and a playing field.

The SSS paid for her education at the local public school and extra tutorials at night by in-house tutors. She was trained in karate by the home's own trainer and in classical Indian dance by the home's own dance teacher.

Asma is one of the 100 children of CSWs whose lives have changed after being housed, sent to the local public schools and trained in skills, culture and sports at the children's home. Most of them used to live with their mothers in Kandapara brothel and carry drugs and arms for the local gangs. Drug-addicted themselves, the children were pushed into the sex trade by their mothers or guardians.

Even if the mothers had attempted to rehabilitate themselves, lack of community cooperation emerged as the most painful impediment to the children and their mothers to settle outside the brothel.

For Subarna, a student of class eight, the liberating experience of escaping Kandapara was soured when she and her mother moved to a neighbouring village. As her mother's past became known, the villagers brought down the same social and economic stigma that Subarna and her mother had to endure in Kandapara.

"My mother had to pay the school principal Tk 5,000 and the village elders Tk 15,000 to let us stay there," Subarna recalled. "She had to spend most of the money she has saved from years of pain at Kandapara."

The frustrating experiences continuously played on the children's mind when they asked the SSS, which was running a drop-in education and recreation centre for the children near the brothel, to take them to an environment where they could "make something of themselves". Shahana, the oldest resident at the children's home, summarised their fate as: "We liked the drop-in centre but we still had to go back to the brothel."

"No organisation but the Aliya Madrasa considered collaborating with us for fear of brothel gangs or because of the social stigma attached to the children," said SSS Executive Director MA Hamid Bhuiyan, recalling the initial difficulties.

The problems persisted when the children moved to the Madrasa, because the children were unable to accommodate the sharp differences there with their previous life. The children's home emerged as the only alternative.

At the beginning of the children's home, the previous difficulties faced by the CSWs and their children resurfaced as the local community was worried that their youth would be corrupted by the children's presence there. The SSS took recourse to innovation and amiability as they stood alongside the children in their effort to overcome the initial stigma by interacting with the community through invitations to cultural programmes, attending community mosques and schools and establishing an economic link with locals.

"Some were angered by the children's presence in the community school and mosque," said Shanto, a resident of Kuizbari village. "But after we spent some time with them, we found that they were just like us. We have enjoyed their cultural programmes and they have increased business for the local market. So, we have come to embrace them."

For the children, one of the most important aspects of acceptance was by the other children of the community, especially at schools.

"I started telling my classmates of what I have been through and surprisingly most of them empathised with me and we became friends," explained a bright-eyed Biplob, a student of class nine who attends the local Choto Bashalia High School.

Such stories of friendship offered them a platform to launch into their lives with freshly acquired confidence and knowledge. They have come to dominate results at their local government school every year. At the national level, they have received numerous awards including national awards in karate and invitations to perform in cultural functions from all around the country.

The scope of future economic rehabilitation of the children is broadened with the provision of additional farming and technical skills, coupled with credit loans. The SSS has also started to allocate land to the children's mothers to encourage them to move out of brothels so they can have healthy relations with their rehabilitated children.

The pioneering efforts by the SSS could not be possible without the continuing courage of the children and the support of their conscientious parents that can only provide greater hope for other children silently suffering the harsh realities of Asma, Biplob and Subarna in the 14 large brothel townships and with floating CSWs.

(We urge individuals and organisations to inform us about similar initiatives that we would be happy to write about. Please contact the writer at [email protected])