Help me exchange banned old notes to new ones – Bangladeshi sex worker appeals to PM Narendra Modi in a tweet

New Delhi: While the Centre's move to demonetise the old currency notes of high denomination in September last year has got a big thumbs up from the countrymen, a Bangladeshi sex worker has found it difficult to convert nearly Rs 10,000 that she had saved in banned notes to new ones.

According to a Mid-Day report, the unidentified Bangladeshi national, who was rescued from a brothel in Budhwarpeth, Pune, in December 2015, had tweeted a hand-written letter to PM Modi in which she had narrated her woes and the hardship she had faced till she was rescued from the brothel.

In the letter, she had narrated how she that was lured to India under the false pretext of a job, and later forced into prostitution.

Interestingly, in the letter, marked to both Prime Minister and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, she had laid bare the circumstances which forced her into prostitution.

She also explained how the money she had collected as tips from customers – to the tune of Rs. 10,000 - was left with the brothel owners at the time of demonetisation.

The woman claimed that before coming to India, she had been in an abusive marriage for three years. 

After divorcing her husband, she took up a job at a garment factory in Bangladesh for Rs. 9,000 that she used to look after her parents. There, one of her colleagues told her about contacts in India and how she could earn as much as Rs. 15,000.

"As my financial condition was not good, I agreed to it and he brought me to Vashi. where, to my horror, he sold me to a Nepali women for a mere Rs. 50,000," the women wrote. 

"I was then taken to Bengaluru and handed over to another woman who forced me into prostitution. Later, I was assured that I was being sent back to Bangladesh, but instead ended up in Pune," she claimed in the letter.

After spending nearly a year-and-a-half, she was rescued in December 2015 with the help of the Rescue Foundation, however, all her belongings, including the money stashed away, were left behind at the brothel.