800 women and girls live and work inside the fortress-like brothel in Faridpur, central Bangladesh. Many of them are underage, and most receive no pay because they arechhukri - bonded workers. That girls as young as 12 should be condemned to a life of sex slavery is bad enough, but they also face a new horror, one that could snuff out any chance of a future they might have had.
The horror is a steroid called Oradexon, a drug identical to one used to fatten cattle for market. The girls are given Oradexon by their madams in order to make them look older and more attractive to prospective clients. One of its side effects is water retention, oedema, which can result in a 'plump' look that is considered attractive by some Bangladeshi men.
The drug is highly addictive and has severe long-term health implications, impairing the kidneys, increasing blood pressure and interfering with normal hormone production.
Asha, 19, is one of many girls who use the drug. She says she doesn't have another name - 'I'm just Asha - it means hope' - and she has been in the brothel for two years. Many of the girls here have been sold by their stepmother or even their own mothers - and some are second-generation sex workers, born to a prostitute and an unknown client. 'I started taking the cow drug a year ago, and I take two tablets a day,' Asha says. She thinks it makes her look healthier. 'The customers like us to look healthy. I got a little plumper when I started taking the drug.' The existence she describes is a miserable one. 'How can I be happy here? God knows - there is no happiness here,' she says.
Unsurprisingly - and despite her name - Asha isn't very hopeful for her own future. 'I don't think I'll ever get married or have children,' she says. 'No one will marry me. If they did they'd only keep me for two or three days, and then they'd sell me back.' She is more streetwise than some of the other girls here, many of whom share a tragic dream that one day a knight in shining armour will arrive, to carry them off; then they will marry him, have his babies and love him for ever.
Text by Joanna Moorhead for ActionAid and The Guardian.
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