Radical islamists burned the brothel to the ground. Two were badly hurt. The rest were left with nothing. â??We lost everything and had to jump onto the river â??, recalls Hasina. â??We even didnâ??t have clothes to wear and we were forced to live for a month and a half out in in the wildâ??. Nobody was arrested for the attack.
After countless demonstrations and after media interest was stirred, prostitutes have earned the right to fight for their rights. They donâ??t have to walk barefoot when they leave the brothel anymore, and their bodies can be buried in a cemetery, though still in a separate one. â??Society uses us to fulfill their human needs, but treats us like animalsâ??, criticizes Ahya Begum, 37, president of the Prostitute Association of Faridpur.
The brothel is a rundown concrete building in rural Bangladesh overrun by rats. Tiny holes in the walls are the only source of natural light and air into the jail-like compound that feels more like some abandoned structure from a horror film than a place for sex.
Society has forced them to live in darkness while men love them and hate them in equal measure, demanding their services while trying to get rid of them permanently.
This is the intolerable contradiction that is their everyday lives.
Spanish photographer Miguel Candela specializes in humanitarian and social issues in the Southern Asia region.
He focuses on issues that are sometimes ignored, such as minorities discrimination, gender discrimination, human trafficking, and poverty. He also documents cultures & traditions from an anthropological perspective, and reports on environmental issues.
His photographs have been featured in Time, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Financial Times, El País, CNN, South China Morning Post (SCMP), Anadolu news agency, European Pressphoto Agency, among others.
Awards Miguel has been awarded with numerous international awards such as Prix de la Photographie (Px3) contest for Best New Talent, International Photography Awards (IPA), winner of the Photon Festival scholarship among others.
