Mumbai: Actress Renuka Shahane stood up for prostitutes when actress Suchitra Krishnamoorthi bracketed prostitutes and criminals in a tweet.
Renuka said there needed to be ways to correct the injustice that the traditions had imposed on sex workers. Suchitra tweeted: “Amma always said ‘money is not everything. Even criminals and wh**es have money. What matters is not money but character and integrity’. I truly understand her words only today. I’ve never felt more proud of my middle class roots.”
To this, Renuka replied: “No disrespect to your Amma, Suchitra, but as women let’s try and correct the injustice that our traditions have imposed on wh**es. We castigated wh**es while letting off their customers who are leading ‘respectful’ lives! Let’s not put wh**es and criminals in one bracket at least.” Wh**es sell what is theirs. Criminals take what is others,” she added.
Renuka said sex workers were often pushed into their profession due to human trafficking at a young age. “Does any child have the right to say ‘no’ at that age? Wh**es are pushed into prostitution by people they trust explicitly. Wh**es are abused, raped, tortured, drugged, given hormonal injections at a very early age and then raped relentlessly throughout their professional lives.”
Suchitra concurred with Renuka’s point of view. “Yup, good point Renuka. Agree with you totally,” she said, adding that she made the comment in context of her friend Pramod Goenka’s alleged abduction.
