Survival in the Face of Extreme Weather Events: The Sex Workers of Sangli
Sangli, in western Maharashtra, is a city situated on the banks of the river Krishna. It is often called “Turmeric City” because of its status as a global hub for the turmeric trade. Additionally, the city is known for its production of grapes, raisins, and jaggery. Sangli is home to several sugar mills and is part of Maharashtra’s sugar belt.
Yet, despite the natural riches of Sangli, the region is feeling the effects of climate change. This shift is severely impacting agriculture, leading to water scarcity and disrupting traditional farming practises. Adverse weather events, such as extreme floods followed by intense droughts, have also significantly disrupted the lives of everyday people, particularly the marginalised.
This disruption is particularly evident in Sangli’s low-lying neighbourhoods, such as Gokul Nagar and Rajamane Chawl, which this correspondent visited. These areas are home to the city’s sex workers, who are disproportionately affected by climate change due to their marginalised backgrounds and exclusion from formal financial systems. Many of these women live in poorly serviced settlements where flooding disrupts both their homes and workplaces. The repeated floods, rising temperatures, and economic insecurity have made survival increasingly difficult for them.
Houses in Sangli’s Gokul Nagar where many sex workers live. Most homes have tin roofs that trap heat in summer and leak during heavy rains.
Take the case of Sara. Originally from Belagavi in Karnataka, she has been working and living in Gokul Nagar for the past 12 to 13 years. She says she has seen how climate change has adversely impacted the lives of women like her. She has horrific memories of the 2019 floods: “The 2019 floods destroyed everything we had. Those memories are still vivid. Gokul Nagar was submerged. Water was everywhere, and we were forced to leave our homes and take shelter in the government school.”
She says every monsoon there is very heavy rainfall and the area becomes waterlogged and affects her work. On normal days she earns between Rs 500-1000, but during the monsoon this drops to Rs 200 per day. “The only thought that comes to mind is when will the rain stop? When will we be able to work normally? When will we be able to earn a little money?”
Over the past two decades, Sangli’s climate profile has changed. Episodes of extreme rainfall, prolonged monsoons, and increasing climatic uncertainty have led to frequent floods in the Krishna River and its tributaries. The floods of 2005, 2019, and 2021 have left deep marks on the city’s collective memory. In particular, in 2019, exceptionally heavy rainfall over just a few days caused the Krishna, Warana, and Koyna rivers to swell simultaneously.
Looking back over the last two decades, the pattern of flooding in Sangli tells a worrying story. After the massive flood of 2005, the city had a 14-year breathing space until the next deluge in 2019. But that respite didn’t last. Barely two years later, in 2021, the waters of the Krishna river rose again. The gap between disasters has shrunk drastically from 14 years to just two. It shows how climate change is turning the monsoon into a season of constant dread for those living on the riverbanks.
Flood records indicate that the frequency of extreme rainfall events is increasing in the cities of western Maharashtra, including Sangli, Kolhapur, and Karad. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), there has been a rise in extreme rainfall occurrences in central and western India over recent decades, which has heightened the risk of flooding in river basins such as the Krishna, Koyana, Panchganga, and Warana. And that impacted cities such as Sangli in more ways than one.
Even today, in 2026, traces of the floods of 2019 and 2021 are still visible across Sangli’s residential neighbourhoods. Faint waterlines on walls, damaged houses, and wounds that have yet to fully heal stand as reminders of how deeply the city was submerged.
Many sex workers in Gokul Nagar live in small single-room houses. Floods and low income during the monsoon make repairs difficult.
Marginalised communities such as the sex workers, who throng to Sangli from many states in India, may be one of the most vulnerable groups. Many of the women recall that the 2019 floods inundated not only Sangli’s residential areas but also nearby places such as Gokul Nagar and Rajamane Chawl, where they live and work in large numbers.
July 2021 was particularly devastating. That year, the Krishna River rose to 54 feet at the Irwin Bridge Sangli — the historical bridge where the flood measurement levels are marked. For sex workers and other marginalised communities already struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown-related economic distress, this proved distressing.
For many sex workers in Sangli, the impact of recurring floods extends beyond their own lives and is felt most acutely in the future of their families and especially children. The effects are first seen in the inability to pay school fees, cover the cost of supplementary education classes, travel expenses, sports training and emotional stability, all of which decline severely.
Physical wellbeing itself becomes a major casualty. Local social worker, Radhika says that once the water recedes, the real struggle begins. “There is dampness everywhere inside the house. There is no space to dry clothes, and outside, everything is flooded with dirty water…Clothes don’t dry, so many times women are forced to wear damp clothes. This causes white patches on the skin, fungal infections, and constant itching. Because the sewage water remains stagnant, mosquitoes breed easily, leading to instances of dengue and malaria.”
During floods, sewage water sometimes mixes with these lines, raising health concerns.
Just like Gokul Nagar, the Sangli bus stand is another work area for sex workers. Travellers from outside the city form the primary clientele (customers) here, and many sex workers rely on the bus terminal area for their daily earnings. Over the past few years, however, the monsoon and recurring floods have turned this once-busy space into a site of constant struggle for sex workers like Geeta.
The Sangli bus stand area is where many sex workers look for customers. Heavy rains often flood the area during the monsoon.
During the floods of 2019 and 2021, the bus stand area was submerged under water. Even today, when heavy rain lashes the city, knee-deep water collects here. In such conditions, daily passenger movement slows down, and finding clients becomes near impossible. Although the Sangli bus stand is located around two kilometres away from the Krishna River, it has to shut down whenever floods hit the area.
Flood level markings from July 2021 on a house wall in Sangli, indicating how the rising Krishna River water entered residential areas.
“Work reduces sharply and the fall in income impacts the entire family”, says Geeta. “My son is a gym trainer, and my daughter practises karate. She has competed at the national level and her dream is to join the police force. To be honest, it is for my children’s education that I entered this work. My husband is unwell and cannot earn. So to pay the house rent and my children’s school fees, I have no choice but to do this.”
Geeta recalls that during the incessant rains there is nowhere to stand at the bus stand area. They have to wait for hours in the rain, hoping for clients. There is no roof overhead and no safe place to take shelter. During these times, police personnel or security guards at the bus stand often chase them away. Typically, they say things like Why are you standing here? Why are you troubling passengers? They are often humiliated and pushed out of public spaces.
Local markets in Sangli were severely impacted during the 2021 by heavy rainfalls and subsequent flooding due to the Krishna River
“When it rains heavily, lodge owners say, ‘Only come inside if you have work.’ If we take shelter near the shops, shopkeepers chase us away. We are left standing on the road, soaked in the rain. Our bodies get wet, we start shivering, but we still wait. Because if we return home empty-handed, there will be no food to cook.”
On the one hand, income disappears due to the absence of clients. On the other, climate-related health issues, repairs to damaged homes, and rising inflation significantly increase expenses. When this fragile balance between income and expenditure collapses, borrowing money becomes the only option left for survival.
And this is where the tragedy deepens. Because these women are excluded from mainstream society and the formal financial system, banks and cooperative credit institutions, called patsanstha in Marathi, refuse to lend to them. Their address on Aadhaar cards or the nature of their work often becomes grounds for outright rejection.
A woman walks through Gokul Nagar in Sangli, one of the areas where sex workers live in low-lying settlements affected by floods.
This financial exclusion directly benefits local private moneylenders (the saavkars). With no alternatives, women are forced to turn to them. As a result, in crises like floods, these women find themselves standing at the doors of local saavkars. Exploiting their vulnerability, lenders charge exorbitant interest rates, ranging from 15 to 30 per cent per month.
Once such loans are taken, months of earnings are consumed merely in repaying interest. Nature’s fury eventually subsides, floodwaters recede, but the burden of debt continues to grow. Trapped in this cycle, the sex workers remain caught in a poverty spiral with no clear exit.
Published by The AIDEM with thanks to the Climate Change Media Hub of the Asian College of Journalism (CCMH), which is a media education programme for young journalists to report on environmental issues.
