Tulasa Thapa was a 12-year old Nepali girl who was kidnapped from her home village of Thankot near Kathmandu in 1982, smuggled into Mumbai and sold into prostitution. She was systematically beaten into submission, then repeatedly raped to make her fit for the trade. In addition to the sex work she was forced to do in the brothel at a minimum of three customers per night (with an average of eight).
In November 1982, when she was brought to Bombay’s JJ Hospital, she was suffering from three types of sexually transmitted diseases, genital warts and brain tuberculosis which left her spastic and wheelchair-bound, and finally led to her death. The People’s Health Organisation embarked on a full-fledged “Save Tulasa” campaign, and with the support of the media managed to rescue her.
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