Women rescued from Mumbai’s brothels take to the catwalk at Lakmé Fashion Week

MUMBAI // Shweta Katti grew up in a brothel in the Kamathipura red light district of Mumbai, a victim of sexual abuse. Glamorous fashion shows were beyond her imagining.

But tonight Ms Katti, 22, will indeed take to the catwalk, modelling for designer Mandeep Nagi at the Lakmé Fashion Week in Mumbai. The event is one of the biggest on India’s fashion calendar, attended by Bollywood celebrities and leading fashionistas.

Ms Katti is one of eight young women, aged between 18 and 22, who have been rescued from Mumbai’s red light areas and brought to the catwalk by Kranti, an NGO.

“Of course I’m really looking forward to the show,” she said. “I can’t wait to be on the ramp. I think it’s interesting that they are welcoming people from different communities in the fashion show and hopefully that will help change the perspective.”

Though Ms Katti’s mother worked in a factory, they lived with sex workers and Ms Katti says she was as young as six or seven when male customers began abusing her. She was 17 when she heard about Kranti and sought help.

Kranti, which means “revolution” in Hindi, was founded by Robin Chaurasiya six years ago. Though her family is from India, she was born and grew up in the United States, serving in the US military as an air force lieutenant before moving to Mumbai to start Kranti.

The organisation provides housing, therapy, and education to women and girls who are the daughters of sex workers or have been trafficked into sex work as children. In some cases, their mothers have died after contracting HIV.

The idea of the fashion show came about when Ms Chaurasiya met Mandeep Nagi through a mutual friend. Together they hit upon the notion that turning the women into models would be the perfect way to boost their confidence and highlight Kranti’s cause.

Some of the women were apprehensive.

“Then they met Mandeep and they got the idea of what it was going to be and about Mandeep’s clothing line and then they got really, really excited,” said Ms Chaurasiya, 31. “They’ve been having a blast rehearsing. It’s been hard work.”

Some of the women received curious looks at rehearsals because they do not have typical model looks – which is to say they are not all tall and fair-skinned, aesthetics perceived as more beautiful in India. The Kranti women are dark-skinned. Some have scars from the physical abuse they suffered or from self-harming. One of the women participating in the show was trafficked into sex work at the age of nine and has suffered mental health issues because of her difficult childhood.

“They’re a bit of a misfit in the whole crowd but they are really enjoying interacting with different people and talking to the models,” said Ms Chaurasiya.

As well as boosting their self-esteem, Ms Chaurasiya hopes to show there is more to women than their skin tone.

“There’s a lot of stigma. You don’t see dark-skinned girls as models and in advertising,” she said. “It’s a very discriminatory world.”

This is not the first time that Ms Nagi, who is the design director at textile label Shades of India, has given underprivileged women the chance to bask in the limelight wearing her designs. Last year, she recruited a housemaid from her neighbourhood to model her collection in a photo shoot.

“I don’t guarantee any major changes, but what I do want to contribute is opening the doors,” she said. “I’m hoping it will be an opportunity for Kranti to reach out to the maximum number of people. That’s the outcome I’m looking forward to. I don’t care how I benefit or if sales go up.”

The women will model a fusion of Indian and Western styles in a summer collection made of handwoven fabrics and hand embroidered in vintage designs.

A key theme of Lakmé Fashion Week this season is diversity and inclusivity. So among those strutting the catwalk will be Anjali Lama, a transgender model from Nepal. Mohammad Ismail Ansari, an embroidery artisan from the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, has also teamed up with fashion designer Jay Ramrakhiani to showcase his work at the event.

Although she can’t wait to get on stage, Ms Katti said she had no wish to enter the fashion industry, even if the opportunity arose. After studying psychology for two years in New York and social entrepreneurship at Watson University in Colorado – opportunities made possible by support from Kranti – her ambition now is to establish a cafe and community centre as a retreat for sex workers and children, where they can take part in educational activities to help them escape the Kamathipura red light district, as she has.

“I want to do something for my community,” she said.

foreign.desk@thenational.ae