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At a roadside booth, a volunteer pulls a condom over a wooden phallus. “Feel the packet first. If it feels dry, don’t use it, it’s past the expiry date,” he tells his audience of truck drivers as the traffic speeds by behind them.
A short distance away, transgender sex workers Ruby and Bhavna are urging truckers clustered around a tea stall to ignore some common myths.
“Don’t think that sprinkling lemon juice on your penis after unprotected sex is going to protect you against HIV. Nor will having sex with a virgin cure you. Only condoms will protect you and your families,” says Ruby, 30. The men listen attentively.
Groups working to educate Indian lorry drivers on how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and HIV have long sought to enlist commercial sex workers. It’s their services that drivers seek at truck stops, during the weeks and even months that they are on the road, away from their families.
Apollo Tyres Foundation, the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm of the country’s largest tyre manufacturer, is working with transgender sex workers after studies showed that some drivers prefer them.
“It’s often not spelled out. Sometimes, drivers say they prefer transgender sex workers because they are cheaper and more accessible. That’s true up to a point. But they also cite this reason to conceal their real preference for them and for anal sex,” says Rinika Grover, Apollo Tyres’ head of sustainability and CSR.
The company sells tyres to transport companies. About 60% of its revenue comes from buses and trucks, whose drivers are a high-risk group for HIV, with a prevalence rate of 1.48%, seven times higher than India’s national average of 0.2% for adults.
The foundation has taken on more than 100 transgender sex workers as part of its HIV/Aids outreach project. They work as volunteers, making drivers aware of the risks, the symptoms, prevention and treatment. Some transgender people have been taken on as paid staff.
To an outsider, their advice can sound jarringly obvious but it is necessary. “If you have symptoms, who do you go to?” asks Bhavna, 34, during the drivers’ tea break. “No, not some local quack. You go to a proper doctor with the initials MBBS after his name.”
She explains later that the tendency is for drivers to seek an easy and cheap solution from an unlicensed practitioner, who will typically advise them to rub baking soda or mustard oil on their genitals or apply a paste made from certain leaves.
She and Ruby quiz the drivers to gauge their level of awareness. It’s just as well. How do you get HIV? “Lack of hygiene,” offers one. How do you get sexually transmitted diseases (STD)? “Through sharing food,” says another.
The transgender volunteers know the truckers’ world well. On a cold, grey winter’s day, they are targeting drivers at the Sanjay Gandhi transport hub in north-east Delhi. It’s a dusty, grim wasteland next to a landfill, with black birds of prey circling above them.
Here, rows and rows of truckers load, unload, refuel, get repairs done and eat. Alongside, in alleys and grimy parks, they buy the services of transgender sex workers. Both groups are severely deprived, exist on the margins of society and are united by their poverty.
The drivers are mostly sockless in sandals and wearing thin layers that cannot keep out the cold. Their last shower and hot meal are a distant memory. It is not very different for the sex workers. The shared experience encourages trust, which is why the drivers listen to their advice, often delivered in street language.
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India has made significant progress tackling its Aids epidemic: the current adult HIV prevalence of 0.2% is a decline from 0.32% in 2010.
But the need for sustained awareness campaigns remains, along with follow-up care. Amit Chaudhary, programme lead for Apollo’s foundation, says: “We also refer drivers to our health centres across India, which provide HIV-testing services and counselling, free medicines, treatment for other STDs, testing for tuberculosis and also vision.”
The transgender project began in 2022 and has since reached more than 100,000 truck drivers. The benefits work both ways. Transgender sex workers, accustomed to being despised by society and living in the shadows, enjoy the increase in social status that the volunteer work affords them, even if it can sometimes result in a loss of income.
Normally, they would never dream of entering the office of a multinational company. Now, entrusted with the job in hand, the office becomes their space too and their self-respect rises a notch or two.
“It’s been a great job for me,” says Mayra Mehraf, 22, now a paid employee after being trained as a health educator. “Seeing me encourages other transgenders to realise they can do more than sex work or begging at traffic lights.”
Back in his driver’s cab, Ashok Kumar, whose route is the 400 miles (650km) from Delhi to Jammu, says it has been time well spent.
“I knew some of what they said but I learned some new things too. I liked the way Ruby said one condom will protect two people – me and my wife.”
