Activists involved in the Dalit womenÕs movement explain that the nexus between caste and forced prosbreastution is quite strong and that the devadasi system is no exception. Most Indian girls and women in IndiaÕs urban brothels come from lower-caste, tribal, or minority communities. Like other forms of violence against women, ritualized prosbreastution, activists believe, is a system Òdesigned to kill whatever vestiges of self-respect the untouchable castes have in order to subjugate them and keep them underprivileged. By keeping Dalit women as prosbreastutes, and by tying prosbreastution to bondage in rural areas, upper-caste men reinforce their declaration of social and economic superiority over the lower castes.
According to the Ambedkar Centre for Justice and Peace, a Canada-based NGO:
Thousands of untouchable female children (between 6 and 8 years) are forced to become maidens of God (Devadasis, Jogins, a Hindu religious practice in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka State, Maharashtra, Orissa State, to mention only a few). They are taken from their families, never to see them again. They are later raped by the temple priest and finally auctioned secretly into prosbreastution and ultimately die from AIDS. It is estimated by NGOs that 5,000 to 15,000 girls are auctioned secretly every year.
