Ashamma's life of shame

LIKE me, Ashamma is 25 years old, yet the difference between our lives could not be greater. We sit in a small room where we can be alone, because the story she is about to tell shames her.

Ashamma wears a yellow sari and a gold nose ring. She has her dark eyes lowered and her hands in her lap. Her bare feet are crossed under her chair and she absent-mindedly touches the coil of bracelets stacked up her arm.

Ashamma is a jogini woman. This means she is destined never to marry but to have sex with any man who wants her. Her youthful looks and soft voice belie a depth of experience.

"In our village it is the custom sometimes to dedicate your child to the goddess, Yellamma. This can be done for a variety of reasons. In my case I was an only child and my parents needed help financially," Ashamma explains. "As a girl, if I were to get married I would go and live with my husband and his family and would leave my own family without any extra income. My parents and I all work as agricultural labourers for an upper caste landowner. We get only 80 rupees (£1.15) per day and this is not enough to live."

Effectively married to a goddess, Ashamma is forbidden to marry any mortal man and so will always live at home, providing an extra source of income. As a jogini woman she will also be employed by the upper castes to do erotic dance at festivals. She has to give her self sexually to any man who approaches her but, unlike a prostitute, she won't always be paid for this service.

I grew up and lived in County Durham but I work now for Christian Aid, an international development charity based in London. This Christmas, Christian Aid's appeal focuses on the dalits. The word translates as 'crushed' or 'downtodden'. These people suffer simply for being born outside the caste system. Also known as 'untouchables', there are more than 250 million dalits in India facing widespread discrimination and oppression and lacking basic human rights. Although 'untouchability' is supposed to have been abolished since 1950, it exists on a daily basis.

I am here, in south-east India, to meet those suffering from India's hidden apartheid and, seeing poverty first hand makes me realise that had fate not worked in my favour, I could be living a very different existence.

The road is crammed with vehicles - push-bikes, families balanced on mopeds, yellow rickshaws and cattle pulling heavy carts of goods, all vying for a piece of road and hooting continuously. We swerve round pigs, dogs and people, some shuffling along the roadside, some dead from traffic accidents. Piles of rubbish litter the roadside. People squat, defecating in the intense heat. As we try to avoid the pot-holes and animal carcasses on the heat-baked roads, I am told about some of the issues dalits still face.

"They are usually forced to live on the edge of the main village in their own dalit communities," Mallepalli, my guide, tells me. "The upper castes will not allow them to worship in the same temples, drink from the same wells or even touch them. Dalits are made to walk barefoot in front of upper caste people, have restricted access to land, education and medical facilities and are forced to live and work in appalling conditions."

We arrive at a small village called Pallea, in the district of Andhra Pradesh and pass through it until we reach a small community on the outskirts. This is where the dalits, including Ashamma, live.

Her eyes glisten with tears as she recalls the day she realised her destiny was to be a jogini. She was 13. " I came home one day and my parents had brought a goat to the house. I asked them why and they said they were preparing me for a jogini marriage. I don't remember too much of the ceremony, I was too upset. But I remember being stripped and covered in neem leaves, before a 'thali' or necklace was tied around my neck, signifying that I was now dedicated to the goddess."

At first Ashamma was angry with her parents for forcing this lifestyle on her, but after a time she understood it was done out of desperation. The landlord for whom they worked had also been putting pressure on her parents to dedicate Ashamma as he wanted to sleep with her and with their purse strings in his hand, they felt they had little choice.

She can't look at me as she speaks "A soon as the ceremony was over all men's eyes were on me. They wanted to use me." Her tears drop as she continues "I had to have sex with the first upper caste man who wanted me, and being 13 and nave I fell a little in love with him. I was devastated when he decided he was finished with me and left me pregnant within the first month."

Before long she was approached by a second man, her uncle. Again she fell pregnant and again she was left alone to care for their baby. This time however, she was not so easily crushed. "I saw my uncle walking by one day after I had had my second child, his daughter." Her tiny body shifts angrily in the chair as she continues. "I took his arm and asked him how he could leave me alone, with a child and struggling for money, so cruel that he couldn't even look at our baby. He became really angry and started hitting me. He kept beating me until I fell to the ground. A crowd of people gathered to see what had happened and I felt so ashamed and so alone. No-one seemed to care".

Ashamma is not alone. She is one of 10,000 women working as joginis in the district of Andhra Pradesh alone. One organisation which is working to improve the situation of the joginis and other dalits is Christian Aid.

Many of my colleagues here are dalits. They have been fortunate enough to receive an education and are part of a collective of community organisations, funded by Christian Aid, called DAPPU. Together they are working at a local level to improve the condition of their own people.

Grace Nirmala works with women like Ashamma. "It is a long, slow process of change and not something we can alter overnight, but with education, empathy, emotional, financial and legal support we can help stop the practice of joginni woman and provide them with alternatives," she says.

Already there has been success in many villages with women actually giving up the practice and marrying. This is not something Ashamma can contemplate at the moment, but I can see that subtle changes in attitude are already taking place. She is determined to ensure a brighter future for her own two daughters. "I won't ever let my daughters work as I do. I don't know how but I intend for them to get an education and marry a good man".

Ashamma is a strong woman, and with an attitude like this she has already won half her personal battle. Hopefully, with the support of people like Grace, hers will be the last generation of women who have to sacrifice their lives to a cruel and degrading tradition.

To give a donation to Christian Aid or to find out more log onto www.christian-aid.org.uk