“Had the water level risen three more inches, there would be nothing but my dead body in the room.”
Razia, who lives in the Banishanta brothel, recounted the horrors of Cyclone Remal and its aftermath from a small bed in her tiny room. The brothel is located on the banks of the Pashur River in Mongla, Satkhira.
She said: “The rampaging cyclone affected almost every house in this village. A total of 92 families, who depend on sex work, are now suffering with no food, no kitchen, no clothes, and some have even lost their shelters. They are sleeping under the open sky.”
Razia, one of the leaders of this government-registered brothel in Bangladesh, has lived there for a long time and encountered many cyclones and natural disasters before. However, she said this cyclone was more devastating than any she has experienced.
“When the wind and rain let loose by Cyclone Remal began to approach, most of the people in this locality left their houses, except for a few like me who couldn’t move due to physical illness,” said Razia, who recently had a major surgery.
On Thursday morning, a visit to the Banishanta brothel area revealed that almost every house was damaged. Sex workers were seen trying to reconstruct their houses with mud and bamboo fences.
The brothel is located near Mongla seaport, about 50 kilometers from Khulna city. Most of the customers of this brothel are crew members of ships that anchor at the seaport.
Women, most of them young, were waiting for customers before their broken huts, heavily damaged by the recent cyclone.
A resident and sex worker, Lovely Begum, said: “The nearby cyclone center is about a 10 to 15-minute walk from our house. When the cyclone hit, we rushed there but ended up in a space where the cattle of nearby villagers had taken shelter. This is our reality. We didn’t even get a proper space at the Cyclone Center because we are from the brothel. After returning from the center, we saw that most of our belongings had been washed away by the floods or stolen. Now we need support from government and non-government organizations to return to normal life.”
An older sex worker, wishing to remain anonymous, said: “We have been facing cyclones here since 1988 and almost every year we survive several cyclones. If we had a permanent embankment before our brothel or some solid brick houses, it would be more convenient for us to stay.
“We earn our food by selling our bodies. If we cannot sell our bodies, how will we get food? How will we repair our houses? We cannot run our business under the open sky,” said Pushpa, a young sex worker, sitting beside a damaged hotel that used to offer breakfast and snacks.
The hotel owner was seen making paratha beside the Pashur River under the open sky, as his shop had been washed away during Cyclone Remal.
It was in the 20th century that the brothel was established in Mongla, centering around Mongla port, with hundreds of sex workers. Now, there are only around 100 sex workers living here, according to Dolly, who has been living in Banishanta since before the liberation war of Bangladesh.
Dolly, who claims the brothel got its license in her name, wants permanent solutions to save their belongings during cyclones.
The cyclonic storm Remal, which made landfall in Bangladesh's coastal area on Monday, has so far claimed 10 lives.
Additionally, 150,457 houses were damaged during the storm, with 35,483 houses fully damaged in 107 unions and 914 municipalities.
Nineteen districts have been affected, including Khulna, Satkhira, Bagerhat, Jhalakathi, Barishal, Patuakhali, Pirojpur, Barguna, Bhola, Feni, Cox’s Bazar, Chittagong, Noakhali, Lakshmipur, Chandpur, Narail, Gopalganj, Shariatpur, and Jessore.