NEW DELHI, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Hundreds of sex workers are protesting against a police ban on the sex trade in India's Hindu holy city of Varanasi.
The city administration has imposed an "undeclared curfew" to stop any outsider from visiting red-light area in Shivdaspur locality.
Irate sex workers say this has hit their source of livelihood and they are on the verge of starvation.
The call girls in the area did not celebrate festival of lights Diwali in protest against the ban.
Police officials say they had received complaints from the local residents who did not want the holy city of Varanasi to become a center of prostitution.
But prostitutes say "there is no sin in giving pleasure to customers for a price, specially to men who are unmarried or sex starved."
The prostitutes, fighting under the aegis of a NGO called Gudia, or Doll, say, "it is better to earn a living through physical labor and exertion than through theft or burglary."
Gudia has demanded that the government provide sex workers secure employment before closing red-light areas.
