Ninety kilometres from the capital, Dhaka. Three hours by car heading north.
We are in Kandapara, the red-light district of Tangail — a city within a city, made up of shacks where around eight hundred girls, caught between drugs and poverty, sell themselves to the highest bidder.
In Bangladesh, prostitution was legalised in 2000, though its roots go back much further — a legacy of British colonial rule. The brothels have been operating for many years, and this one is the second largest in the country.
There are about twenty officially recognised brothels nationwide. By law, only women between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five are allowed to work there. But reality tells a different story.
It becomes immediately evident as soon as you pass through one of the tin gates leading inside — many of the girls are very young.
