Heroine in the dock

Bangladesh | A defender of women trafficked into prostitution now needs deliverance from jail time | Priya Abraham

On a humid evening in Kandupatti, Dhaka's colonial-era red-light district, a group of foreign visitors followed a woman on a tour of the cinder-block hovels of Bangladesh's prostitutes. Neighborhood men immediately recognized her as local activist Sigma Huda. They chased Huda and her guests, rocking and hurling bricks at their tour bus as it struggled to exit the labyrinthine streets.

Huda is no stranger to trouble. A Bangladeshi lawyer, she has long defended abused women in a Muslim country that is both grindingly poor and desperately corrupt. In recognition of her success, the UN appointed her its special rapporteur on human trafficking in 2004, a role that focuses on drawing worldwide attention to prostitutes—more than half of whom are women trafficked from countries around the world.