Ranchi, March 9: There are no red-light areas in the state or brothels that are visible. But if an NGO is to be believed, the state has its own share of the world’s oldest professionals.

Estimates vary and the state capital alone is said to have over a thousand mobile sex workers. Indeed, Durbar Mahila Samanvay Samiti, an organisation known now internationally for its work with sex workers, claims to have identified around 300 sex workers in the state during the last six months, 50 of whom have even agreed to join the outfit. The sex-workers were spotted in Ranchi, Dhanbad, Jamshedpur, Ghatshila and Pakur.

Shoma Roy, project secretary, and Om Prakash Yadav, the state coordinator, inform that the Samiti set up the state chapter in September, 2006.

Roy, a trained company secretary, is based in Calcutta while Yadav hails from Pakur and did his graduation from Bhagalpur University. For three years, Yadav worked in Calcutta for the Bhoruka Public Welfare Trust before deciding to join as Project Coordinator in Jharkhand.

Most of the sex-workers, points out Roy, lead double lives and barring at Bahragora, they are highly mobile. It is only at Bahragora that the sex-workers operate from 15 to 20 houses close to the highway. But elsewhere in the state, most of them go out, often outside the state, to entertain clients and make a living.

The Samiti would work for the sex-workers’ right to a dignified life, says Roy. It is the society, after all, which forces them into the oldest profession, she points out, and therefore society must take responsibility of this section of ‘entertainers’ as well.

The Samiti, which began working in Calcutta a decade and a half ago, has set up branches in several states including Bihar, Orissa, AP, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Recognised by the World Health Organisation ( WHO) as a model project, the NGO lays emphasis on the ‘rights and respect’ due to the sex-workers.

The Bengal experience, says Yadav, has shown that sex-workers need to unite , not just to keep the dreaded HIV (AIDS) at bay but also to wrest their rights from a largely reluctant society. “This committee not only works for awareness of HIV and AIDS among the sex workers, it also strives to secure for them their rights,” says Yadav.