Horrors of Bangladesh's 'Brothel Village' Where 1,500 Women and Girls Serve 3,000 Clients a Day
Kidnapped by gangs as children, sold by their own family and tricked by boyfriends and pimps, this is life inside the Bangladeshi village entirely dedicated to prostitution.
Every day, more than 1,500 women and girls are forced to serve the wishes of more than 3,000 men a day for as little as £2 in the village of Daulatdia, home to one of the world's largest brothels.
Bangladesh is one of the few countries that tolerates prostitution and girls are being forced into following their mothers into the exploitative industry from as young as 14 - the country's age of consent.
Trapped until they have repaid their debt, girls trafficked into Daulatdia - made up of a series of shacks spread over a maze of alleyways - face a lifetime of physical and mental suffering that no child should be subjected to.
'We just want to play, we like playing. I wish someone could arrange another place for us, somewhere outside where we can live,' one innocent girl who has been swept up by Daulatdia previously revealed.
Her life, along with the thousands of other vulnerable women and girls preyed upon, was laid bare by a customer who boasted: 'Whichever girls I like, I'll take. I don't feel bad for anyone, everyone needs to have fun.'
Around 3,000 men visit the brothel every day, most of them lorry drivers who stop off at Daulatdia due to its prime location next to a train station and a ferry terminal on the Padma River, a major channel running from the Ganges.
When one truck driver was asked if their wife knows what they do, he laughed and told ARTE.tv in 2020: 'No she'd kill me.'
