Prostitution in Bangladesh

Prostitution is legal and regulated in Bangladesh. Prostitutes must register and state an affidavit stating that they are entering prostitution of their own free choice and that they are unable to find any other work. Bangladeshi prostitutes often suffer poor social conditions[2][3] and are frequently socially degraded.

Quotes

• BANGLADESH is one of the poorest countries in the world. Poverty, low social status, and lack of opportunities for education and alternative employment have meant that Bangladesh has a large number of sex workers. There are as many as 150,000 to 200,000 female sex workers in Bangladesh, and most of these are adolescents or young women, with the majority ages 15 to 18. Many girls enter prostitution in Bangladesh before the age of 12 (ECPAT 2006) and in most cases will have retired by age 30 (Alam 2010). Traditionally, the social status of sex workers in Bangladesh was extremely low, and regardless of their religion, sex workers were even denied basic funeral righ For example, when sex workers died in Daulatdia, Bangladesh's largest brothel, their bodies were just thrown into the nearby river (Mondal and Islam 2006). The social status of sex workers, however, has gradually improved over time. A major turning point was a decision of the Bangladeshi High Court in 2000 that sex work is legal if the brothel or red-light area is properly licensed. This makes Bangladesh one of the few Islamic countries that permit prostitution. Concerned with the potential spread of HIV/AIDS among sex workers as a high-risk group, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been active in promoting self-empowerment and safe-sex awareness among this population since the mid-1990s. This said, sex workers in Bangladesh remain marginalized from mainstream society. While sex workers earn many times more than others of comparable skills, in many cases much of this income is extorted by corrupt local officials and police who take advantage of the stigmatized position of sex workers. For most part, the living standards of sex workers are low, and few are able to save for their retirement, which puts them in a very vulnerable position.
  • The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Prostitution 2016, Islam,Smyth ed: Manisha Shah, Scott Cunningham