“Nine Months is like Nine Years”, “why Allah is unfair to me”, these are painful words from the mouth of 19 year old Nazma (name changed). Her agony is related to her pregnancy and marriage. Nazama is nine months pregnant. Generally most of the women enjoy their pregnancy, but in Nazama’s case it is a painful experience for her. Because her husband doubted her fidelity, he always tortured her saying the child is not his, which is a shocking blow to her self esteem.
Her life with this man is not happy either. She is dependent on him for her living. She is neither educated nor skilled person to earn her living. He began to suspect her pregnancy and stopped taking care of her, only then she realized that she has been trapped into second marriage, he is already married with a grownup children. 
According to her there is a background to her marriage. Nazama married a man of her choice, who is much older than her. This marriage was not approved by her family. So, she was thrown out of the house by her mother, saying that she is dead and do not want to see her face.
Before the marriage she was the only breadwinner of her family. Her source of income was through sex work. At the age of sixteen she were trafficked by her neighbor lady (pimp).
*Nazma is one of the thousands of girls who are lured into flesh trade to earn two meals. She has been drugged and house arrested for 24 hours, during this time she was sold for ten thousand rupees. She has had pushed into flesh trade against her wish for three years. When she refuse to entertain clients or refuse to give the pimp her hard earned money, the pimp would emotionally blackmail her saying –“ I will tell your mother about your profession”, due to fear of disturbing her family honor, she had given in to her ( pimp) threat. Her teen age, poverty and broken family made her vulnerable to traffickers, to push her into flesh trade. Nazma is a living example of victim of trafficking. Like her many people are trafficked across national and global*
Nazma’s husband knew about her profession, because he was one of her client. Patriarchy ideology makes women feel marriage is everything in their life. Nazma is also not an exceptional case (whatever may be the profession) When he told her that he wanted to marry her she happily agreed to marry him without trying to learn about his background. Since stigma is attached to flesh trade generally girl like Nazma will feel grateful to a man who marry her.
Only after her marriage she came to know that he is already married with grown up children. After she became pregnant he started moving away from his responsibility saying the child is not his. He stopped coming regularly and also stopped giving her enough money to lead simple life.
Nazma has been feeling helpless that’s where Urban Health Team (UHT) met her and referred her to CHC (Community Health Center) for ANC checkup. After she received moral boost from UHT she decided to visit health facility and felt a ray of hope to deliver health baby.
We do come across pregnant women who do not access health facility for various reasons (related to social determinants of health) in KG Halli in Bangalore. In such cases team address the issues of social determinants of health to improve health seeking behaviour of the community.
